by Luis I. Prádanos (Iñaki)
The dominant ideology assumes that technology is key to resolving social and ecological problems. Nevertheless, said belief ignores the fact that the problem isn’t the instrument (technology), rather the logic of the dominant cultural paradigm that confuses destruction for progress. The result of pouring all human creativity into making technology more efficient in a destructive system is that the system ends up improving its ability to intensify what it’s already doing: increasing inequality and accelerating species extinction. Technology would only be useful to resolve socio-ecological problems if it were to operate within a different cultural paradigm (a regenerative one) that is not addicted to growth, to constant accumulation and expansion. Techno-optimism doesn’t question the dominant logic and, therefore, technology ends up accelerating, automatizing, and amplifying the asymmetries of power and the existing inertias (extinction and inequality) when what’s desired would be to interrupt those very inertias.
