Technological defeatism - a belief that, since a given technology is here to stay, there's nothing we can do about it other than get on with it and simply adjust our norms - is a persistent feature of social thought about technology. We'll come to pay for it very dearly.
Interpretation
Technological defeatism suggests that we must accept and adapt to technologies rather than challenge or change them, which can lead to negative consequences.
In this quote, Evgeny Morozov discusses the concept of technological defeatism, highlighting the passive acceptance of technology as an inevitable force in society. He warns that this mindset can result in significant costs to our social norms and structures as we fail to critically engage with the implications of technological advances.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the social responsibilities of tech companies.
Just as Josef K, the protagonist of Kafka's 'The Trial,' awoke one day to discover that he had become part of some unfathomable legal carnival, we, too are frequently waking to discover that the rules of the digital game have once again profoundly changed.
For many oppositional movements, the Internet, while providing the opportunity to distribute information more quickly and cheaper, may have actually made their struggle more difficult in the long run.
I have no problem with technological solutions to social problems. The key question for me is, 'Who gets to implement them?' and, 'What kinds of politics of reform do technological solutions smuggle through the back door?'
The newspaper offers something very different from Google's aggregators. It offers a value system, an idea of what matters in the world. Newspapers need to start articulating that value.
Social media's greatest assets - anonymity, 'virality,' interconnectedness - are also its main weaknesses.
The decentralized nature of online conversations often makes it easier to manipulate public opinion, both domestically and globally. Regimes that once relied on centralized systems of media control can now deliver ideological messages more subtly, with the help of little-known intermediaries like anonymous commenters on websites.
There is no such thing as information overload, just bad design. If something is cluttered and/or confusing, fix your design.
The web's earliest architects and pioneers fought for their vision of freedom on the Internet at a time when it was still small forums for conversation and text-based gaming. They thought the web could be adequately governed by its users without their needing to empower anyone to police it.
It is interesting to come across people who feel that a ghost communicating via a spell-checker is less far-fetched than a software glitch.
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.
Here I am, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twenty-two and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance.
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