We are in a position today to appreciate the ambiguity of technologies: that they are good, and bad, and neutral and present challenges in different ways. Reading U.S. national nanotechnology documents and histories of nanotechnology, one finds that rhetoric idealizing progress without serious consideration of negative side-effects remains…

The ideas of technological determinism and the autonomy of technology are long-standing and widespread. This article explores why the use of certain technologies is perceived to be obligatory, thus fueling the fatalism of technological determinism and undermining our sense of freedom vis-a-vis the use of technologies. Three main mechanisms that…

Contrary to the general belief that modernist art and architecture reflect the technological society, Jacques Ellul maintains in his "L'empire du non-sens" that they are justifications for the integration of humankind into what he called the technicist complex. Modernism in art and architecture meant that every product must be qualified by a…

The technoscientific consequences of both the human drives for glory on the one hand and a comfortable life on the other potentially threaten human existence. "R.U.R." (Rossum's Universal Robots), a science fiction play by Karel Capek, bridges ancient writers and contemporary technoscientific endeavors, encouraging individuals to consider these…

This study began with a fascination for the enigma of American artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987). I began to collect his words. I had been intrigued by German philosopher, literary critic, and essayist Walter Benjamin's (1892-1940) philosophical snapshots and with the notion of an aura that could be pealed from objects by photography. And I was taken…

This essay considers the analysis Jacques Ellul carried out about the devaluation of language. This investigation also explores the consequences of that devaluation (or humiliation as Ellul called it) wrought by our orientation to technology. Our existence in technology transforms language and our use of it, shifting emphasis as well to the visual…

One of the clearest examples of a technological system, in the sense that Ellul discussed it, is contemporary biomedical health care. The foundation of technological systems is technique: efficient methods for achieving isolated goals. However, the goal of health care should be to achieve health in the full sense of wholeness. Traditional healing…

With widespread advances in the diffusion and application of medical technologies, the phenomena of misuse and overuse have become pervasive. These phenomena not only increase the cost of health care systems and deplete the accessibility and availability of health care services, they also jeopardize patient autonomy. From a literature review on…

The author presents an historical account of scientific work conducted at a commercial biotech firm in San Diego called Hybritech. It tells of disruptions in research programs following the acquisition of the company by the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in 1986. The story centers on responses to an organizational challenge that research managers…

Judaism and Christianity, the religious traditions most influential on Western civilization, taught that the universe was created by the Word and that human beings were distinguished from all other animals by their use of words. What characterizes our age is a growing reliance on images as our words are being desymbolized. This desymbolization of…

This short note considers the relationships between human autonomy, both individual and collective, and technology. At the collective level, numerous writers have observed the profound effects on society of technological discoveries--leading to the suggestion that societal mechanisms through which we might seek to make deliberate choices about…

The authors explore how technique via propaganda has replaced the word with images creating a mass society and limiting the ability of people to act as individuals. They begin by looking at how words affect human society and how they have changed over time. They explore how technology has altered the meaning of words in order to create a more…

In this article, I consider the historical stages of development of nanotechnology in Russia as well as the political framework for this. It is shown that early federal nanotechnology programs in Russia date back to the 1990s and that since the mid-2000s, nanotechnology has attracted the increasing attention of government. I characterize the…

The phenomenon of technological hazards, whose existence is only revealed many years after they were initially produced, shows that the question of our responsibilities toward future generations is of urgent importance. However, the nature of technological societies means that they are caught in a condition of structural irresponsibility: the…

How one thinks about the relationship between individual autonomy (sometimes referred to as individual willpower or human agency) and technology can influence the way legal thinkers develop policy at the intersection of law and technology. Perspectives that fall toward the "machines control us" end of the spectrum may support more interventionist…