Heidegger held that modern technology erodes intentionality itself, dissolving subject-object distinction

Evidence

This process even threatens the basic structure of intentionality: the way the mind reaches out to things as its objects. When something is placed ‘on call’ or in ‘standing-reserve’, says Heidegger, it loses its ability to be a proper object. It is no longer distinguished from us and cannot stand up to us. Phenomenology itself is thus threatened by modern humanity’s challenging, devastating way of occupying the earth. This could lead to the ultimate disaster. If we are left alone ‘in the midst of objectlessness’, then we ourselves will lose our structure — we too will be swallowed up into a ‘standing-reserve’ mode of being. We will devour even ourselves. Heidegger cites the term ‘human resources’ as evidence of this danger. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 583

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Heidegger’s claim that technology’s standing-reserve threatens the very structure of intentionality — humanity becoming ‘human resources’ — is a dense, paradigm-shifting diagnosis that resists summary.
• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the ‘Grafting & Growth’ essay’s theme of technology estranging humans from nature, showing Heideggerian grounds for why this estrangement is ontological rather than merely practical.
• XREF: connects to: Heidegger characterized technology’s danger as ontological rather than merely catastrophic — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 584; Intentionality displaces the subject by merging it with the world — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 408; Heidegger contrasted traditional farming with modern technology as unforced versus forced extraction of nature — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 581 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Heidegger contrasted traditional farming with modern technology as unforced versus forced extraction of nature #exemplifies (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 581
• Intentionality displaces the subject by merging it with the world #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 408
• Heidegger’s later philosophy drained Dasein of human agency and action #corroborates (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 595