I recently finished reading a crazy book called Against the Machine, a rant against progress and the death of Western civilization. While I admit that the author, Paul Kingsnorth, jumps the shark several times, and that this book is definitely not for everybody, I also found many of his arguments making sense to me. I can be a bit of a conspiracy theorist about technology, and this book did nothing to dissuade me from that way of thinking. Ken didn’t like the book, but he has agreed to get rid of our Alexa, so maybe the conspiracy mindset infiltrated him a little too. Either way, I’ll take the win.

But the book isn’t exclusively, or even primarily, about AI and modern technology, It’s more about The Machine representing progress generally, over centuries. One huge thing that resonated with me was the danger in inherently believing that progress for the sake of progress is always good. That we should always be moving forward simply because progress is better than not. Neither Kingsnorth nor I think that’s necessarily true. He talks of colonialism and industrialization and the egotistical assumption that modernization is for the best—always, everywhere, for everyone.

It reminded me of Jeff Goldblum’s question from Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

It also just so happens that I recently watched the Oscar nominated newest iteration of Frankenstein. After creating his monster, Victor Frankenstein has this moment of realization that in all his focus and energy on his experiment, he never thought about what would happen if it worked. He never once thought about what would become of the life he was trying to create. It seems like a serious question to overlook, yet we continue to individually and systemically overlook it with regard to technology.

The movie explores the idea that monsters create monsters. Rage begets rage. The cycle can only be broken by forgiveness. Amen. But that’s an aside…not really the point of this blog, so back to it…

The common thread between the book and the movie is the idea that we do actually have choice in things. I was having a conversation with friends recently about not keeping my phone in my bedroom at night. I keep it plugged in downstairs, and so does Ken. They asked about emergencies, and my response was that whatever happens at 3am will still be true at 7am. The downsides of having my phone in my room with me are bigger for me than the upsides. My point, though, is not that it’s right or wrong to sleep with your phone next to you. It’s that you have a choice. You can choose whether or not to have a smartphone at all. You can choose which apps you use. You can choose to have Alexa or not. We should be deliberate and thoughtful about these choices.

I followed up Against the Machine with my current read, Careless People, more facts to support my belief that technology is not our friend. That the people creating it are Victor Frankenstein’s, so caught up in playing with what they can do that they don’t pause to think about whether they should. Or, worse, that they know exactly the problems their creations may bring and simply don’t care. The power and money and success at creating something new matters more than the consequences of having created it, whether that’s Frankenstein’s monster or Facebook or AI. It’s really all the same thing.

The Machine makes us believe we cannot afford to be left behind, but that is false. There can be beauty in being left behind. There’s this idea that technology gifts us with more time, but more time for what exactly? To be on our phones? Technology begets technology. It chips away at our humanity.

A phrase that stuck with me from Against the Machine was “want is the acid.” All of this progress and all of our technology simply makes us want more. It’s built that way, for that purpose, to make us part of a machine rather than living, breathing, feeling human beings.

Is there anything better than a sunset over the ocean? The sound of birdsong in the morning? The smell of a baby’s head? None of these have anything to do with progress. These are the oldies and the goodies. Holding an actual book and turning pages, listening to my tea kettle whistle, swimming in the freezing cold water of Lake Tahoe, laughing with friends, hugging my family, petting my cats. These small, golden moments help me remember I am human, part of the natural world. I am part of something bigger that does not have anything to do with machines or progress. We have to actively remind ourselves of that from time to time so we don’t get lost in our screens and forget.