Somebody Somebody wrote: [clip]
what's your threshold, mr utilitarian? and what's your standard, mr ethnocentrist? how do you operationalize "on balance"? ...what's you spatial reference,
The spatial query is key here I think. Many defenses of "western civiliazation" (of which the technology cult is one) add an implicit coda to Kipling's "White Man's Burden": And you "person sitting in darkmnes" (Mark Twain), if you don't like it, Fuck you!
But the ultimate point is the debate is utterly trivial, since we are going to get an endless and uncontrolled expansion of technology whetehr we like it or not. It is inseparable from capitalism.
"Technology will save us" (like all liberal defenses of capitalism) is ultimately grounded in The Myth of Progress!
Carrol