Book Review: 'Technopoly' by Neil Postman

An iconic line from The Matrix came to mind while reading Neil Postman’s Technopoly recently:

“Tell me, Mr. Anderson. What good is a phone call if you’re unable to speak?”

What good is all this technology, if we’re not supposed to come to, or communicate, our own conclusions, when such lead to opposing the progressive programme and agenda?

Perhaps the answer to this question is that these technologies are not just accidentally addictive, or coincidentally shackling; they are designed for this express purpose, of social engineering, and putting us individually and collectively under a kind of hypnosis, and harnessing us for our betters more than unleashing us to reach our God-given potential.

It is for our own good, though, I’m sure. At least that’s what those who forge the chains of our digital oppression tell themselves as they collect our meta data, target us with advertising and news stories sure to excite or depress us at just the right time.

This will all be worth it in the end, no doubt. At least that’s what those who fund and nudge behind the scenes believe, and are locked into believing by their class of online overlords.

Persuasive technology is perhaps a misnomer, though. Call it manipulative technology, if you are talking about its intended effect on targets. Call it persuaded technology, if you’re willing to peel back the curtain to see the little men pulling the levers, turning the knobs, and flipping the switches.

The Hunter Biden laptop story really is the perfect illustration of this, and only all the more with the recent announcement that his lawyers are seeking a criminal probe – not of Hunter, but of those who sought and got access to his laptop.

Oh, but wait. Then they released a follow-up to say that Hunter was in no way confirming that the laptop was his.

Perhaps this is why we all of the sudden started noticing Chinese spy balloons in American skies, which have purportedly been flying their missions for years, but just so happened to finally catch our attention after several days above Montana the very week that Hunter makes the flub admission through his legal team that the laptop is real, just like we knew all along.

And just like that, we all find ourselves so confused and disoriented, distracted and amused, angry and off-balance; but give the clever folks in Big Tech a few minutes, and they’ll fix that too, if we want. Or will it even be us who wanted it?

It gets a little hard to tell at a certain point, how much is predictive analytics and how much is the whole point of making predictions about behavior in the first place, that you would be able to head the person you predict off at the pass as much to capture him as to serve him, depending on your scruples, or whether you fear God.

Yet I take heart, and don’t despair. Just as surely as these technologies can be used to entrap and enslave, the God of the universe, who is the penultimate Programmer of programmers, gives freedom indeed, to those who are set free by the Son. However good at planning they are, they cannot help but fulfill his plans.

That is to say, it must have been providential that these technologies were developed now, so the saints could leverage them, to do the good work of the ministry that God has planned and prepared for us, since before the foundation of the world. And why shouldn’t the Word of God and the Holy Spirit guide, direct, and utilize what has been made by those who do not know or fear God to accomplish the purposes of God?

It’s no different, to my way of thinking, than the timing of the incarnation in the first place, set perfectly to have the evangelion go out into all the known world on Roman roads, under the Pax Romana, despite if not because of the Savior having been crucified on a Roman cross.

“For to the one who pleases him

God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy,

but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting,

only to give to one who pleases God.

This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”
– Ecclesiastes 2:26 (ESV)

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