🐰 Down The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

“A convivial society should be designed to allow all its members the most autonomous action by means of tools least controlled by others. People feel joy, as opposed to mere pleasure, to the extent that their activities are creative; while the growth of tools beyond a certain point increases regimentation, dependence, exploitation, and impotence. I use the term ‘tool’ broadly enough to include not only simple hardware such as drills, pots, syringes, brooms, building elements, or motors, and not just large machines like cars or power stations; I also include among tools productive institutions such as factories that produce tangible commodities like corn flakes or electric current, and productive systems for intangible commodities such as those which produce ‘education,’ ‘health,’ ‘knowledge,’ or ‘decisions.’ I use this term because it allows me to subsume into one category all rationally designed devices, be they artifacts or rules, codes or operators, and to distinguish all these planned and engineered instrumentalities from other things such as basic food or implements, which in a given culture are not deemed to be subject to rationalization. School curricula or marriage laws are no less purposely shaped social devices than road networks.”

~ Ivan Illich

---------------------------------------

WATCH AS VIDEO

Greetings, dear newsletter subscriber,

This week, I compiled a list of 31 machine values—things like efficiency, scalability, attention capture, and precision. These are the values that are baked into our systems and devices and by which, without realizing it, we are often shaped.

The problem of course is that when machine values take center stage, human values get sidelined.

In my latest installment, I walk through this long list of machine values. The goal isn’t to demonize technology—but to recognize its value system so we can consciously choose something better.

👉 Watch the video here

👉 Read the article here

I hope you’ll find this list clarifying. Which of these values do you see most clearly in your own life?

Have a great weekend, and we'll see you again next week!

Warmly,

Herman

PS: Do you know of someone who might be interested in these emails? If so, please forward this email on to them!