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In this paper, I present and criticize Ted Kaczynski's ("The Unabomber") theory that industrialization has been terrible for humanity, and that we should use any means necessary, including violent means, to induce a return to pre‐industrial ways of living. Although Kaczynski's manifesto, Industrial society and its future, has become widely known, his ideas have never before been subject to careful philosophical criticism. In this paper I show how Kaczynski's arguments rely on a number of highly implausible philosophical premises. I further make the case that, although his theory as a whole should be rejected, Kaczynski raises a number of worries about technological development that ought to receive serious attention. Some of these worries have recently come to be shared by prominent defenders of human enhancement, including Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu. In the last section I indicate why I believe it is important that academic philosophers scrutinize ideas that motivate acts of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary analysis of the novel "Captain Singleton" by Daniel Defoe is presented. Focusing on scenes that describe Mozambican artifacts, the story of a rebellion aboard a slave ship, and a meeting with a naked Englishman in Africa, it argues that Defoe depicts savagery as a product of history rather than a result of inherent incapacity. The author goes on to suggest that the novel indicates the technologies that made Great Britain a global power could be lost or forgotten.

An essay is presented which reflects on the nature of tools and work, with particular attention paid to the difference between the traditional concept of work as creating or altering physical objects and "web work" in which images and text are created or manipulated. The relationships between people and tools and between people and machines are explored, and the changes created by both the industrial revolution and the creation of computers are examined. The author's assertion that information rather than work is now the central category of society is also discussed.

This article presents discussion of the discipline and methodology of historical scholarship and research as of 2009 and reflects on possible changes which could occur within the field in the following 40 years. Particular focus is given to the role of digital technology and its innovations, noting that while the precise nature of future discoveries cannot be described, it is likely that more and more automated and digitized infrastructures will become mainstream. Additional questions are raised regarding concerns over the "dehumanization" of such trends.

Technology permeates our lives having significant effects on how we communicate, live, work and play. Information Communication Technologies have allowed individuals to stay connected to family, friends and work colleagues and has brought about broad societal benefits. But, technologies are not limited to having positive impacts and consequences; they have led to widespread job loss in particular industries with consequential negative social costs, others to the development of globally destructive weaponry and increased environmental harm. This paper has three aims. Overall, it is a call for stronger sociological (re)engagement in crucial digital technology debates and its significant and frequently disruptive nature upon society. Thus, it begins with a review of key literature with respect to traditional technology development processes. A theory is presented on the phenomenon of ‘fake news’ and how digital communications and the unrestrained ‘wild west culture of the Web 2.0 revolution’ have facilitated a state where fact and fiction wrestle for online attention and popularity. The paper concludes with a brief look at areas of particular concern with regards to contemporary technology development and a call for sociology to reposition itself centrally in debates about new digital technologies that are fundamentally changing societies, communities and lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the notions of survival, specifically in the contemporary media context, and its relation to philosopher Walter Benjamin's concept of barbarism and his reflections on technology.

The article discusses a barbaric theorization of technology, as it develops in philosopher Walter Benjamin's writings.

The article examines the writings of German philosopher Walter Benjamin with the aim of deciphering the meanings he assigned to the terms "medium" and "apparatus." Topics discussed include the significance of the study to propagation of Benjamin's "media theory" and efforts to understand human experience in its interaction with technology. The configuration and organization of human experience by various forms of material, technical, and discursive mediation is then mentioned.

Information regarding the March 18-20, 2015 conference entitled "TechnoSpaces" held by the Research Training Group “Topology of Technology” at the Technische Universität Darmstadt is presented. Topics include the spatial competencies and sports games, online gambling as a form of work, and the evolution of co-working spaces. Presenters include scholars Annika Wolff, Michael Liegl, and Kaire Holts.

In this era of terabytes and big data, the field of digital culture and art is witnessing an emergence of dystopian lines of criticism denouncing new forms of programmed governmentality and ubiquitous surveillance, placing societies, lifestyles and the human psyche under the control of algorithms. These criticisms are so negative because they start from a belief of human autonomy from technology. To examine the other side of this argument, this article aims to discuss the coevolution of humans and technology. To accomplish this aim, the article is based on the writings and practice of the artist and theorist Roy Ascott, in whose work can be found the most original and significant conceptual sources for the defence of this thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the effects of steam transportation infrastructure on the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, known as the hajj. According to the author, industrial transport networks brought Muslim travelers into increased contact with non-Muslim spaces, ideas, peoples, and technologies. Particular focus is given to evidence drawn from pilgrims' writings. Topics discussed include globalization and imperialism.

World civilization depends on the provision of global public goods such as tackling climate change, ensuring international financial stability or peace and security. Yet, the intergovernmental system of global governance is not capable of delivering the required results. At a fundamental level, the change necessary to achieve functioning world governance consists of a transition from international law to world law. A key element in this is the development of a global legislative system that includes a democratically elected world parliament. The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly would be a pragmatic first step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses early Levallois stone tool technology and the lower to middle Paleolithic transition in the Southern Caucasus. The authors discuss their data from the site Nor Geghi 1 in Armenia, which is the earliest recorded use of bifacial and Levallois technology outside Africa and which is consistent with the authors' hypothesis that this transition occurred independently within geographically dispersed hominin populations that shared a technological ancestry.

Underdeveloped communication infrastructures have encouraged innovative forms of accessing and using information technology. For some rural farmers in Uganda, a merging of traditional media such as theatrical performances with information technology has brought information to otherwise unconnected areas. Drawing on a year of ethnographic fieldwork among farmers in Uganda, this article analyzes the intersection where traditional and new media merge. The results show that despite the inclusiveness of this approach, combining theatrical performances with information technology can have both empowering and disempowering effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the critical art practice of Nell Tenhaaf, challenging the continued convention of theorizing the relationship between the body and digital representation technologies in terms of the real and the virtual and the perceived dematerialization of the body into code. Given the importance of histories of the body for so-called second-wave and constructivist feminists, it is perhaps unsurprising that much of the debate regarding the virtual subject was generated from within the combined discourses of feminism and science and technology studies. While the model of equivalence and interchangeability between different kinds of code (binary, genetics, language itself) has accounted in sophisticated ways for the mechanisms by which bodies and artifacts become integrated into the structures of capital, by making everything dis- and rejoinable, the way in which the discourse has been structured around the problem of the subject as code has become overdetermined and suggests a model of subjectivity that is technologically deterministic. In an attempt to speak the language of these very real problems for digital forms of representation and yet simultaneously to speak beyond them, I propose to look at histories of computing that conceive of information technology as fundamentally spatial. The purpose of this is threefold. In the first instance, through the work of Tenhaaf, I hope to explore a recent example of how digital ontology is being questioned through representation. Second, in so doing, I intend to show that replacing the paradigm of the body need not suggest a virtual flight into technophilic fantasies of transcendence or, to use the term set out by Eugene Thacker, extropianism. Thus, finally, I hope that by reconceiving of binary not as a linear series but as a spatial field, we might disconnect binary from its self-limiting association with Western binaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short article examines how the mutual shaping of gender and technology can contribute to the reproduction of racialized class divisions. The article is based on an in-depth ethnographic study of the launch of a progressive New York City public middle school. The school aimed to integrate twenty-first-century digital technologies and skills into the curriculum while promoting student-centered learning and social equity. The article argues that educators and privileged parents constructed an educational context that facilitated and legitimized students who enacted masculinities rooted in video game culture even as it disciplined and purged students who enacted masculinities rooted in more canonical forms of boy culture. In doing so, the school paradoxically helped perpetuate the racialized class divisions that it hoped new media would help it overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effects of developments in communication technology on politics and journalism. Particular focus is given to the author's experiences as a foreign correspondent during the late 20th century. It is suggested that while the Internet and other developments have improved journalists' and diplomats' ability to transmit information, it has also reduced the resources available for their operations and changed the relationship between government and individuals.

The article discusses efforts to supply refugees with access to technology. Particular focus is given to projects organized by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) that focus on improving the implementation of technology assistance to refugees. Details on the Ideas Box, a package of computers, books, and audiovisual materials created by designer Philippe Starck, are presented. It is suggested that such projects could mitigate the intellectually stifling conditions of refugee camps.

Climate change and advances in urban technology propel forward the 'smart city'. As decision makers strive to find a technological fix, smart city strategies are often based on technological orthodoxies which are conceptually and empirically shallow. The motivation behind this paper is to address the conceptual adolescence which relates to the wholesale digitisation of the city by pursuing a twin argument about the democratic and environmental consequences. The authors draw on interdisciplinary theory and insights from urban studies, infrastructure, informatics, and the sociology of the Internet to critique the way the 'smart city' is taken forward. It is concluded that private firms market smart city services and solutions based on an ideological legacy of 'ubiquitous computing', 'universal infrastructure', and 'green technology'. Based on evidence from three UK cities--Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow--it is argued that the underlying principle of future city strategies is to expand the market for new technology products and services to support 'green growth' with disregard for their wider impacts. For citizens, becoming a consumer of the technologies is often presented as progressive 'participation' or 'empowerment' with unknown or hidden consequences both political and environmental. The city systems become a digital marketplace where citizen-consumers' participation is increasingly involuntary and the hegemony of global technology firms is infiated. What follows is that the city's 'intelligent systems' are defined through a digital consumer experience that has inherent biases and leaves parts of the city and its population unaccounted for. This renders the city less resilient in the face of future social and climatic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of white race identity in society. Particular focus is given to themes of violence, colonialism, and religion. Details on scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois' theories of race as developed in his book "The Souls of Black Folk" are presented. Other topics include indigenous resistance and the relationship between race and technology.

The Gutenberg Galaxy, built on the printed word, is the space of existence of civilization, in the center of which stands the "typographic man". Marshall McLuhan describes in his famous book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962) the paradigm of human existence in the print era. He also talks about the impact of technology on civilization, about the future of humanity, about the transition from the individual to the collective existence, on a "tribal base", in the "global village", and about the control exercised by Big Brother through electronic means. New technologies, especially information technology, make the transition of civilization and of the individual into the Digital Era and virtual universe. Based on McLuhan's model, we can now talk about: The "Googleberg" Galaxy and the Making of Digital Man. Technology generates a new paradigm of existence, communication, culture and knowledge. Its benefits are huge for the individual and for humanity. But so are its risks and dangers: the transfer of the existence from real to virtual, the transformation of the real human being into a virtual being, his or her depersonalization, despiritualization, and deculturalization, the superficial knowledge and mediocrization, the control and manipulation of all, massification and uniformization of individuals through the digital technology within the globalization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Jacques Derrida’s influence on posthumanist theory is well established in the literature, given Martin Heidegger’s influence on Derrida, it is surprising to find that Heidegger’s relationship to posthumanist theory has been largely ignored. This article starts to fill this lacuna by showing that Heidegger’s writings not only influences but also has much to teach posthumanism, especially regarding the relationship between humanism and posthumanism. By first engaging with Heidegger’s destruction of metaphysics and related critique of anthropocentrism, I show that, while rejecting Heidegger’s conclusions for being too humanist, posthumanism shares, and indeed is largely unreflectively defined by, Heidegger’s critique of the binary logic underpinning anthropocentric humanism. With this, posthumanism aims to go beyond Heidegger by overcoming all forms of humanist understanding, an attempt that brings us back to the relationship between humanism and posthumanism and Heidegger’s notion of trace. With this, I not only show that Heidegger influences posthumanism through his destruction of metaphysics, critique of anthropocentrism and notion of trace, but also point towards an understanding of posthumanism that distinguishes it from humanism and transhumanism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Pixar film WALL·E vividly imagines Francis Bacon's ambition for technology to relieve humanity of all the inconveniences of life, shows how such a utopian system presents the “problem of technology,” and dramatizes the struggle to make technology comply with distinctly human ends. Literally and symbolically, the story turns on human beings’ discovering the truth about themselves, rising up to depose the despotic, impersonal technology that controls them, and returning to Earth to form a political community under the possibilities and limits of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the relationship between the Luddites, a group of 19th-century English laborers who protested the encroachment of technology on human employment by destroying textile machines, and the Internet-based hacker activist group Anonymous. According to the author, both groups target machines in their attacks, create collective pseudonyms under which individual or group actions can be taken, and act in relationship to issues of labor productivity and capital.