Nihilism and Technology

by Nolen Gertz

Heidegger, Marcuse, and Ellul warned against the rise of a technological mass culture. Philosophy of technology has since turned away from such dystopic views, promoting instead the view that we shape technologies just as technologies shape us. Yet the rise of Big Data has exceeded our worst fears about Big Brother, leading us to again question whether technologies are empowering us or enslaving us.

Rather than engage in endless debates about whether technologies are making us better or making us worse, Nolen Gertz investigates what we think “better” and “worse” mean, and what role this thinking has played in the creation of our technological world. This investigation is carried out by using Nietzsche’s philosophy of nihilism in order to explore the ways in which our values mediate how we design technologies and how we use technologies. Examining our technological practices—practices ranging from Netflix and Chill to Fitbit and Move to Twitter and Rage—reveals how our nihilism and our technologies have become intertwined, creating a world of techno-hypnosis, data-driven activity, pleasure economics, herd networking, and orgies of clicking.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Technology, Psychology, Sociology, Theory, Politics

242 pages, Paperback

Published June 20, 2018

About the author

Nolen Gertz is Associate Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Twente, and the author of Nihilism (MIT Press, 2019), Nihilism and Technology (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018), and The Philosophy of War and Exile: From the Humanity of War to the Inhumanity of Peace (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014).

He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from The New School for Social Research in 2012. His research interests include applied ethics, social and political philosophy, phenomenology, existentialism, and aesthetics. He has written for the media analyses of military robots, humanitarian drones, and Facebook. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and on the ABC Australia website. He has been interviewed by the BBC World Service, Austrian Public Radio, Ireland’s National Independent Radio, and France’s Philosophie Magazine.

He is the Coordinator of the 4TU Task Force on Risk, Safety and Security, and a Research Associate in Military Ethics at the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University. He is on the Editorial Review Board for Rowman & Littlefield International’s book series Off the Fence: Morality, Politics and Society.

Reviews

[Kevin K · Rating 4 out of 5]

The focus of this book is new technologies (Netflix, augmented/virtual reality, Fitbit, Pokemon GO, crowdfunding, AirBnb, Uber, Tinder, Facebook) and tech-related social trends (binge-watching, nasty comment sections, trolling, mass shaming, doxing). For brevity I'll refer to these topics collectively as "tech." Gertz is pretty tepid as a critic of tech, and if you're looking for a harsher, more penetrating critique, I would recommend Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

The appeal of Gertz's book lies in the parallels he draws between tech and Nietzsche's analysis of nihilism and asceticism. His main sources in Nietzsche are the Third Essay of the Genealogy of Morals (GM3), and Book I of the Will to Power on European nihilism. As an avid reader of Nietzche, I found Gertz's thinking superficial and muddled, but that's partly why I enjoyed the book. Gertz has identified an interesting cluster of ideas, and he made me think hard about where his framework breaks down, and how it might be improved. Here I'll sketch my conclusions for other interested readers.

Gertz's central claim is that modern people suffer from nihilism, and tech is a way to soothe (but not cure) this nihilism. So what did Nietzsche mean by "nihilism"? I count at least three interconnected meanings:

1) A cultural condition with no truth, no objective morals, no meaning of life (said to arise due to the waning of Christianity, i.e., the "death of God")
2) Rejection of the real world, turning away from the instincts of life, feebleness or sickness as an organism, asceticism (Nietzsche often equates this type of nihilism with Buddhism)
3) Depression, apathy, despair, suicide

It's hard to believe we suffer from the first type of nihilism. We live in an era of fervent moral crusades, not amorality. Public debates on culture war issues are intensely morally-charged, and disputants make strident, absolute truth claims (e.g., "global warming is real; the debate is over.") Contra Nietzsche, the death of God did not bring about a state of post-truth amoral nihilism (type 1). It simply made way for new forms of absolute truth and rigid moral orthodoxy. Tech plays an important role in making us more moral because morality is essential for outrage, and outrage is essential for engagement, and engagement is essential for 21st century media profitability. So in a way, Gertz's thesis rings true for type-1 nihilism. Tech soothes nihilism by helping to propagate, standardize, and enforce quasi-religious truths and moral values that give life meaning.

What about nihilism (type 2)? Following Nietzsche, Gertz uses the term "ascetic techniques" for the methods tech uses to soothe us (hypnosis, mechanical activity, petty pleasures, herd instinct, and orgies of feeling). Gertz sees tech and its designers as playing a role analogous to Nietzsche's "ascetic priests." But here you scratch your head and wonder. Why would "ascetic" priests strive to make us severely addicted to Netflix, porn, shopping, idiotic games, angry chat exchanges, etc.? Asceticism (or "Buddhism" as Nietzsche often calls it) rejects the ego and embraces self-discipline, while the Internet is about frantic narcissism and lack of self control. That's a disconnect Gertz never seems to notice. Hard to imagine anything more contrary to asceticism than mass addiction and capitalistic turbo-consumption. On the other hand, tech does seem nihilistic insofar as it turns us away from the world. There is an odd similarity between Buddhists sitting in meditation for years on end in monasteries, and computer gamers sitting in front of screens for years on end in their basements. The Buddhist makes a vow of chastity, while the gamer is too absorbed in gaming to bother with real-world sex acts. Both turn their back on the world. From Nietzsche's perspective, both are defective "sick" animals who have lost their biological instincts. In this light, tech doesn't soothe our nihilism (type 2), it intensifies it. Which stands to reason because that's what the priests of nihilistic religions like Buddhism (and Christianity) want to achieve. For Nietzsche asceticism is nihilism, so you wouldn't expect ascetic techniques to soothe nihilism (as Gertz suggests they do). The only way to be less nihilistic (type 2) is to abandon tech and have a non-cyber life. Is that even an option at this point?



Why, according to Nietzsche, do ascetic priests train their flock to be nihilistic (type 2)? Here we must appreciate some facts about Nietzsche that Gertz glosses over. Nietzsche is a complex thinker, but there's no doubt he was an aristocratic philosopher, totally at odds with modern pieties. He was a misogynist who supported the subservience of women. He was sympathetic to the idea of slavery. He rejected Christianity due to its "womanish" nature. And he detested expressions of "decadence" like pity and equality and human rights. This perspective is essential for understanding Nietzche's analysis of asceticism.

Nietzsche believes human beings fall into two categories, higher types and the herd, and he stresses in GM3 how the herd is physiologically degenerate—e.g., "the physiologically deformed and deranged (the majority of mortals)" (GM3 §1). In his view, this degeneration is the fault of Christianity and its offshoots, in particular their devotion to protecting and saving the physically weak. If Nietzsche were alive today, he would probably highlight trends like: physical weakness (couch potatoes), obesity, mental illness, addictive behavior, hyper-sensitivity (to allergens, etc.), emotional fragility, failure to reproduce (plummeting fertility rates), and so on. One is reminded of Darwin's remark in the Descent of Man:

There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed...

According to Nietzsche, this degenerate herd has an intense hatred/envy of the higher types who aren't sick. In fact, the herd goes so far as to demonize health and valorize sickness:

... here physiological well-being itself is viewed askance, and especially the outward expression of this well-being, beauty and joy; while pleasure is felt and sought in ill-constitutedness, decay, pain, mischance, ugliness, voluntary deprivation, self-mortification, self-flagellation, self-sacrifice. All this is in the highest degree paradoxical: we stand before a discord that wants to be discordant, that enjoys itself in this suffering and even grows more self-confident and triumphant the more its own presupposition, its physiological capacity for life, decreases. (GM3, §11)

Nietzsche calls this spite of the herd "ressentiment." Driven by ressentiment, the herd is determined to enact the most archaic ritual of primate societies: betas overthrowing the alphas and seizing alpha status. The human ape does this in a characteristically ingenious way: by redefining morality. The herd labels the alphas as evil and unjust, and shames them so they are racked with guilt. This, of course, is Nietzsche's famous "slave morality":

...here the web of the most malicious of all conspiracies is being spun constantly—the conspiracy of the suffering against the well-constituted and victorious, here the aspect of the victorious is hated. And what mendaciousness is employed to disguise that this hatred is hatred! What a display of grand words and postures, what an art of "honest" calumny! These failures: what noble eloquence flows from their lips! How much sugary, slimy, humble submissiveness swims in their eyes! What do they really want? At least to represent justice, love, wisdom, superiority—that is the ambition of the "lowest," the sick. And how skillfull such an ambition makes them! Admire above all the forger’s skill with which the stamp of virtue, even the ring, the golden-sounding ring of virtue, is here counterfeited. They monopolize virtue, these weak, hopelessly sick people, there is no doubt of it: “we alone are the good and just,” they say, "we alone are homines bonae voluntatis (men of good will)." They walk among us as embodied reproaches, as warnings to us—as if health, well-constitutedness, strength, pride, and the sense of power were in themselves necessarily vicious things for which one must pay some day, and pay bitterly: how ready they themselves are at bottom to make one pay; how they crave to be hangmen. There is among them an abundance of the vengeful disguised as judges, who constantly bear the word "justice" in their mouths like poisonous spittle, always with pursed lips, always ready to spit upon all who are not discontented but go their way in good spirits. (GM3, §14)

The herd are revolutionaries, so here (says Nietzsche) the ascetic priests step in to protect life/health. The priests propagate asceticism (i.e., nihilism) to the herd as a way to defend the healthy elite from the envy/hatred of the sick masses. For example the priests may (like Christian priests of yore) teach the herd that they themselves are to blame for their dysfunctional condition. Or they may stress the importance of salvation through hard work (mechanical activity) even for slaves. Gertz recognizes this quasi-Marxist interpretation in passing, noting that "ascetic priests protected the Christian world from exploding." But there's so much more to it! There's a goldmine here, but Gertz never starts digging.

Nietzsche didn't believe all religions were nihilistic like Buddhism and Christianity. He praised Islam (for example) as a manly, warlike, action-oriented faith. And that touches on another aspect of tech and our modern situation: the degree to which tech fuels real-world action rather than passivity (nihilism). Priests don't always operate as agents of the elite class; they may be rabble-rousers who topple the elite (like Cromwell). That's a variation Nietzsche ignored, likely due to his fixed idea of Christianity as "womanish" and nihilistic. Insofar as tech acts as a crusading priest (rather than an ascetic priest encouraging passivity), it can cure nihilism (type 2).

Throughout Nihilism and Technology, Gertz's main focus seems to be depression (type-3 nihilism). I agree that tech seems to help us cope—by distracting us with NetFlix binges or troll wars or immersive computer games, etc. In this case, I feel like the "nothingness" exists within ourselves. As postmoderns living in an era of life-long media overload, we don't actually have real psychological interiors. We're consumerist ciphers, papering over our inner void with media/commercial detritus that we pick up and wear like carrier crabs. One is reminded of recent photos of people posing with items they wanted to take with them in death:



This shell of detritus functions as the obligatory "self" each person is socialized to purchase/express, a performative identity defined in terms of products, brands, music, fictional characters, and other detritus of mass culture. Even ideas and moral campaigns function as detritus within the dominant consumerist logic. Beliefs are just another fashion, like T-shirt slogans. And that brings us back to type-1 nihilism again. Tech helps us overcome nihilism by facilitating discovery of what "up to date" beliefs/morals we should display (based on peer pressure, views of fashionable high-status people, views that lead to promotions (not demotions) at work or in social circles, views that don't expose one to ridicule, and so on).

Finally, there's the empirical question of whether tech actually soothes or instead aggravates depression (type 3 nihilism). There's evidence favoring the latter. So Gertz's interpretation likely fails in that respect too, and once again we find tech intensifying, not ameliorating, nihilism.

[Jacob Hay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really changed my perspective on technology, I cannot say it affixed it in any stance but it has become liquid. Even by writing this review I am showing off, asking for validation, and asserting my expertise. I like to think I’m just sharing a cool book for friends to check out.

[Philip Bunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a read for anyone thinking seriously about technology but ultimately unsatisfying (more later).

[Adam Weiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first third of this book, supplying an introduction to nihilistic thought, was a slog. I wish it was written for more of a lay audience—hence four stars. But the second half discussing how technology is creating a society of disillusionment and meaninglessness was SUPER interesting. I have many takeaways from this book that I hope to implement in my life!!

[Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite I work in IT, during the recent years I’ve categorized myself as a technophobe but wasn’t able to articulate quite well the reason for that, in a meaningful way.
However, after reading this book and seeing technology getting analyzed from a Nihilist lens gives a whole new perspective to the whole question of why we move in the direction that we are moving.
I’m also an avid fan of Nietzsche, but enjoyed the fact that there’s no need to be quite familiar with his work to go through this book, as Nolen gives a brief introduction of Nietzsche philosophy on each chapter.

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

رهاب التكنولوجيا
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عائلة تلعب معًا في غرفة المعيشة. أم وابنتها داخل حصن وسادة أريكة ، وهو حصن على بعد لحظات من غزو الأب. الابنة تراقب كلب العائلة بسعادة ، وهو مشغول للغاية بلعبة حراسة المحيط. إلى جانب هذه العائلة السعيدة في منزلهم السعيد ، تمضي بسعادة على سجادتهم السعيدة آلة كبيرة تشبه قرص لعبة الهوكي على الأرض. تظهر الآلة السوداء في تناقض صارخ مع الوضع المشمس الساطع المحيط بها. لم يتم توضيح وظيفة الآلة ، ولكن الغرض منها واضح حيث يمكننا أن نرى أن هذه الآلة هي ما يمكّن هذه العائلة من أن تكون سعيدة للغاية ، وبالتالي يمكننا أن نستنتج أنه بدون هذه الآلة ، ستختفي السعادة.
ما أصفه ليس فقط إعلانًا عن (مكانس روبوت رومبا) ولكنه إعلان عن اتجاه في تصميم التقنيات ، وهو اتجاه أصبح منتشرًا جدًا ، ومسيطرًا جدًا ، ومنتشرًا في كل مكان ، لدرجة أن المعلنين يحتاجون فقط إلى تلميح لنا : أن نفهم على الفور أن ما يتم بيعه لنا ليس التكنولوجيا بل أسلوب حياة ، أسلوب حياة لا يمكن تحقيقه إلا من خلال التكنولوجيا المعلن عنها. لا يحتاج إعلان Roomba إلى نص ، حيث تخبرنا الصورة بكل ما نحتاج إلى معرفته. يعمل قرص الهوكي الأسود الكبير الموجود في الزاوية بحيث لا نضطر إلى ذلك ، لذا يمكننا بدلاً من ذلك اللعب ، لذلك يمكننا بدلاً من ذلك أن نكون سعداء ، لذلك يمكننا بدلاً من ذلك أن نكون بشرًا.
أسمي هذا اتجاه الترفيه والتحرر في التصميم التكنولوجي. الفكرة وراء هذا الاتجاه بسيطة للغاية: دور التقنيات هو تحريرنا من الأعمال المنزلية التي تمنعنا من قضاء وقت الفراغ الذي نحتاجه لنكون بشرًا. هذه هي الفكرة التي نراها في العمل ليس فقط في Roomba ولكن أيضًا في التسوق عبر الإنترنت ، في المساعدين الذين يتم تنشيطهم بالصوت ، وفي الخوارزميات التنبؤية ، وفي تطوير السيارات المستقلة ، والروبوتات المستقلة ، والطائرات بدون طيار. يمكن للتكنولوجيا أن تنظف من أجلنا ، ويمكنها الشراء والبيع لنا ، ويمكنها التحقق من الطقس ، ويمكنها كتابة نصوص لنا ، ويمكنها القيادة من أجلنا ، ويمكنها القيام بأعمال يدوية لنا ، ويمكنها حتى قتلنا .
يمكن للتقنيات أن تفعل الكثير لنا لدرجة أننا بدأنا نتساءل عن مهام الحياة ، إن وجدت ، التي سيترك لنا دور القيام بها. بعبارة أخرى ، في حين أنه من الواضح أن التقنيات تتقدم بمعدل لا يُصدق ، فإن التقنيات أصبحت أكثر وأكثر قدرة على أداء المهام الموكلة سابقًا إلى البشر ، فليس من الواضح أن البشر يتقدمون بالضرورة ، وأن البشر أصبحوا أكثر قدرة بدلاً من مجرد الاعتماد بشكل أكبر على قدرات التقنيات. ومع ذلك ، عندما تصبح التقنيات أكثر قدرة ، فإنها تصبح أيضًا أكثر رسوخًا في حياتنا اليومية ، ولهذا السبب أصبح من الصعب بشكل متزايد تحديد أين تنتهي التقنيات ونبدأ نحن . ومن ثم ربما يكون من الخطأ الاعتقاد بأن التقنيات يمكن أن تتقدم بشكل مستقل عن البشر ، أو أن البشر يمكن أن يصبحوا معتمدين على التقنيات ، حيث يمكن بدلاً من ذلك القول بأن التمييز بين الإنسان والتكنولوجيا هو مجرد بقايا من طرق التفكير الثنائية التقليدية.
يشير التفكير المعاصر حول التكنولوجيا - في كل من التصميم والفلسفة - إلى أنه بدلاً من التمييز بين البشر والتقنيات ، يجب أن ندرك بدلاً من ذلك أن التقنيات لعبت دائمًا دورًا تكوينيًا في حياة الإنسان. بدلاً من القلق من أن التقنيات تحولنا إلى فقاعات عاجزة مصورة ، يجب أن ندرك أننا لن نكون ما نحن عليه بدون التقنيات ، يمكننا رسم خط مستقيم من اكتشاف أسلافنا قبل الإنسان للأدوات إلى استكشافنا للفضاء الخارجي في الوقت الحاضر. نظرًا لأن التقنيات كانت دائمًا جزءًا من التنمية البشرية ، فلا يجب أن نخشى ما يفعلونه بنا ولكن أن نسعى جاهدين لمعرفة المزيد عنها والقيام بدور أكثر نشاطًا في تصميمها ، حيث كانت التقنيات وستظل جزءًا من تنمية الإنسان سواء أحببنا ذلك أم لا.
لا يُقصد بمثل هذا التفكير المعاصر حول التكنولوجيا أن يدافع عن الميل للتكنولوجيا ولكن بدلاً من ذلك يبعدنا عما يُنظر إليه على أنه مخاوف تأتي بنتائج عكسية بسبب رهاب التكنولوجيا. من المرجح أن يجادل هؤلاء المفكرون المعاصرون - مثل بيتر بول فيربيك ، وشانون فالور ، ولوتشيانو فلوريدي ، وبرونو لاتور - بأنهم مجرد واقعيين ، وأن المحبة أو الكراهية للتقنيات أقل فائدة من دراسة التقنيات ، من الانخراط مع المطورين بشكل نشط و المشاركة في عملية التصميم. ومع ذلك ، فإن مثل هذه الدراسة والمشاركة تتطلب بالضرورة أن نستثمر الكثير من الوقت والطاقة في التفكير في التكنولوجيا. بعبارة أخرى ، يبدو أنه يجب علينا تطوير تقنيات يمكنها أن تحررنا ، من أجل الحصول على وقت فراغ ، من أجل التفكير في التقنيات ، من أجل تطوير تقنيات يمكن أن تحررنا ، من أجل قضاء وقت الفراغ ، وما إلى ذلك ، إلخ.
ومع ذلك ، بالنسبة للمفكرين الذين عانوا من الخوف من التكنولوجيا في الماضي - مفكرون مثل جاك إلول ، ومارتن هايدجر ، وهربرت ماركوز ، ولويس مومفورد - لم يكن الموضوع المطروح هو مسألة ما إذا كان للتقنيات دور في التنمية البشرية بل بالأحرى مسألة ما إذا كانت عقلية التفكير التكنولوجي الحديث تفسد التنمية البشرية. يبدو أن التقنيات الحديثة لا تعمل من خلال مساعدتنا في تحقيق غاياتنا ولكن بدلاً من ذلك من خلال تحديد الغايات لنا ، من خلال تزويدنا بالأهداف التي يجب أن نساعد التقنيات على تحقيقها وبالتالي ، يجب على مالك جهاز Roomba تنظيم منزله وفقًا لاحتياجات المناورة في Roomba ، تمامًا كما يجب على مالك الهاتف الذكي تنظيم أنشطته وفقًا لاحتياجات الهاتف الذكي للطاقة واستهلاك البيانات. من المؤكد أننا نشتري مثل هذه الأجهزة لتلبية احتياجاتنا ، ولكن بمجرد شرائنا لها ، أصبحنا مفتونين جدًا بالأجهزة التي تطور احتياجات جديدة ، مثل الحاجة إلى استمرار عمل الجهاز حتى يبقينا مفتونين.
تتجاوز التقنيات مجرد تزويدنا بالأهداف وتشكيل أنشطتنا ، بل يمكنها أيضًا التأثير على قيمنا وتشكيل أحكامنا. تقودنا قيم الكفاءة والموضوعية إلى الحكم بالضرورة على أن التقنيات متفوقة على البشر ، ولهذا السبب لا نفضل الحلول التكنولوجية لمشاكلنا فحسب ، بل إننا نرى بشكل متزايد أن البشر غير فعالين ، ومتحيزين ، و مصدر للمشاكل ، بحيث يجب استبدالهم بالتقنيات التي هي أكثر موثوقية ويمكن الاعتماد عليها. وبالمثل ، فإن استخدامنا لوسائل التواصل الاجتماعي يقودنا إلى إعادة تعريف قيم الخصوصية والصداقة باستمرار حتى نرى Facebook على أنه مجرد شكل آخر من أشكال التواصل ، مع إيجابيات وسلبيات مثل أي شيء آخر ، بدلاً من رؤيته على أنه تدخلي و مخترق للخصوصية بطرق كانت لا يمكن تصورها قبل وجوده .
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Nolen Gert
Nihilism and technology
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[Felix Delong · Rating 2 out of 5]

SOme of the analyses of modern technology were very interesting. That being said, the entire book is written from a strange neomarxist/leftist perspective and author doesn't wait a second to show you that. And so, even though it is not (hopefuly?) the original intention of the book to be political, it is.
Author is a classical baizuo (google that word) and it shows.
He contradicts himself through out the book so much so it made me laugh. Charity is just ego-jerking and power triping, and then proceeds to jerk his ego on minorities, disabled and women. Tells us that disabled should be fine as they are - and I bet you that not a single wheelchair bound person agrees with this and would gladly use tech to give them the ability to walk back, another opinion only able-bodied neo-marxist can have - and then proceedts to tell us that we must struggle to be constantly improve ourselves. Tells us that people are hypocrites, because they always think that only their side is the good one and then proceeds with painting all republicans as embodiments of evil =D
He also thinks that nihilism is inherently evil and does not bother to explain why. I think he fundamentaly misunderstood what nihilism means.
He also shows that evolution of technology (and nihilism) is inevitable and then proceeds to tell us what to do, as if there was anything to do with an inevitable process... I just don't know what the poet meant to say by all of this. It was laughable. In a bad way.

[Philemon - · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book largely incoherent, but it did raise the question, What is nihilism?

What is nihilism then? Is it not giving a damn about anything? I don't think so. Take Nietzsche, our culture's touchstone nihilist. There's too much passion in his writing to take his project for indifference. Zarathustra bristles with energy. The Will To Power, too, admires such purposefulness as motivates a Napolean or a hard-charging hussar. Nietzsche's nihilism is dynamic.

What about values? Is nihilism not having any? A cynical nihilist might boast of having none, but is that true in practice, even for him?

Do you disclaim being a nihilist? Doubtless you're sure you have values, but have you given serious thought to what they are? Are they just little medals you can pull from your mind and pin on a virtual chest you claim as yours? Are they made out of a malleable plastic that you can reshape to fit the phantom alter-ego that is how you like to see yourself? How do the vague ideas you have about your values affect your real actions? Don't what values you have serve mainly to help you blend safely in with peers you don't like to think of as mediocre?

Tough, rude questions. Weighing whether or not one is a nihilist is an invitation to serious self-reflection. Have I performed this exercise myself? I confess, mon semblable, mon frère, I simply haven't had the time.

[Jordi Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book from a philosopher, and even the writing style is not abstruse, it is definitely worth pointing it out from the very beginning.

The starting point of the book is the concept of Nihilism as it was exposed by Friedrik Nietzsche, and I must say the exposition of the author of Nietzsche's ideas is what I most liked. It made me willing to read the original books the the German philospher.

Trouble comes after that. My impression is that, no matter interesting, well written, and compeling the contents might be, it seems that the author had his thesis (Nihilism in technology) in mind and then went to seek out proofs of it in our relationship as humans with technology instead of inspecting our relationship with technology first and then consider whether it fits into the definition of Nihilism as Nietzsche gave. This made me quite disappointed, in particular when some conclusions had such a weak basis as the whole world is actively on Facebook, which is simply false.

Overall the experience of reading this book was more an inspiration to read further on Nihilism, rather than pervasive by itself.

[Bennett Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timely and thought-provoking. Gertz, through the lens of Nietzche (chs. 1-3), exposed the (passively) nihilistic nature of our relationship to technology, by drawing our attention to five techno-human relationships: techno-hypnosis (4), data-driven activity (5), pleasure economics (6), herd networking (7), and orgies of clicking (8).

He is more optimistic than I am about our potential to move from technologically passive nihilism to active nihilism, from accepting our technological addiction/dependence in the name of progress to questioning our values and aims with technology. As Gertz points out, technology not only shapes our worldview - it has become our worldview. It mediates our experience of the world at every turn. The book raises many pressing questions about human progress and technology, but I fear the vast majority of tech users will never ask them...because of their uncritical adoption of technology's worldview.

[Nauplius · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title and the cover art slap. A quite frustrating read. His attacks on transhumanism as the next, even worse step after abelism are unconvincing, because they completly ignore any suffering related to disabilities, flattening the whole experience to social stigma. In my eyes this is an unempathic and cruel view of the many different states that fall under disability. You can easily speak out against discrimination and work on accessibility without denying people the freedom to biohack/bodymod and without erasing the parts of human suffering and pain which are based in biology. If this was the only issue I would have put it aside as a difference in values, but the rest of the book was quite shallow, so I wouldn't recommend it. Technology needs better critics, I was excited for this book :(.

[Pedro Arias III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book and I do not say that lightly.

I can scarcely think of repetitive examples or of mundane repetition of the material, as it is quite dense and if something is repeated is likely because the author is leading you into the next step of his arguments.

Every 10 or so pages I had to pause and think in order to grasp the nihilistic perspective painted across the pages.

Even if you haven’t read Nietzsche the author provides an adequate framework in the introductory chapters to follow “Nietzchean concepts” through the authors many points.

A must read for anyone curious on how we influence technology and how we let it influence us.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the broad philosophical discussion at the beginning. I’m not really into the chapters dedicated to modern phenomena (such as one on trolls, one on FB, & one on Google). I feel so immersed in modern technology reading about it at length is pretty pointless/annoying; however, I like this author’s writing style and his aim to apply PHI to technology. Refreshing that he takes a neutral stance in this work, just studying it instead of coming in with a clear bias (as a lot of tech writers do). I also got a good laugh at the chapter entitled “Nietzsche and Chill”.

[Parsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worthy words and an actual good Marxist/anticapitalism review on technology. There are no senses of a boomer wrote this book and the author presumably aimed to criticise technology in the modern world.
The book suggests how we are drawn into technology and refers to Neitche to comprehend what's going on.
I highly suggest this book due to its decent view of technology and the philosophy behind tech and capitalism.

[Joshua Line]

"Surely we buy such devices to serve our needs but, once bought, we become so fascinated with the devices that we develop new needs, such as the need to keep the device working so yhat the device can keep us fascinated."

"To see in the future the past of the pesent is to let the future become the past without ever having been present."

[Tom Grosfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een van de beste technologiefilosofische boeken die ik heb gelezen! Waarschijnlijk omdat Gertz net zo pessimistisch (lees: realistisch) is als ik.... Naast de razend interessante inhoud ook nog eens doorspekt met droge humor. Toegankelijk geschreven. Bijzonder dat er nog geen Nederlandse vertaling is.

[Jeremy Weidner · Rating 5 out of 5]

fantastic book. made so much more sense as a coherent narrative than much of the popular discussion around technology

[T.]

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