A great many intelligent people seem to think technology is a godsend, and will save or improve the world. But they have not examined the costs. The thousands of nuclear detonations, the destroyed oceans, the irreplaceable dead ecosystems which were crucial to the development and conservation of human intelligence. They are excited about telecommunications, computing and ‘artificial intelligence’ but have failed to realize that our own intelligence is severely damaged, and a large part of this damage is the result of exposure to and immersion with technology.

I think these failures of insight and evaluation are due, in part, to the sudden and charismatic onset of our technological capacities… but they are also due to marketing and consensus. We are like people who, having seen someone set themselves on fire, go about recommending it to everyone, saying ‘who could doubt the brilliance which the consuming flame irrevocably proves?’