Politics
In this section we’ll introduce a few different positions and areas within the politics of technology, to give an idea about the various existing view points on the nature of technology and the role it plays in society. Attitudes to technology vary enormously. Some are staunchly opposed, seeing it as a threat to human well-being and the natural world, and calling for a return to a more primitive form of existence, perhaps relinquishing ‘technology’ altogether. Others deify it, viewing it as being the pinnacle of human achievement, radically improving lives and freeing human potential, maybe even taking us beyond human and into some ‘higher’ form of existence (they’ve clearly not spent much time on Twitter!). Then of course there are a multitude of positions between these poles, cautious optimism, sceptical acceptance or simply agnosticism. Let’s first look at one of the more critical positions: primitivism. 71
