Internet agency expands human influence but carries no inherent moral value.

Evidence

Through the global Internet, individuals now have at their fingertips the means to convey information and personal views worldwide, independent of time and place. The ability to bypass gatekeepers provides considerable freedom to select and create symbolic environments that can be transmitted via the Internet to vast populations. Moreover, people can now transcend their proximate environment by way of miniaturized wireless devices that make the vast symbolic environment portable, able to be actualized anytime, any-place. Agentic capability, however, does not come with a built-in value system. It can be used for humane or inhumane purposes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 92

Categorization

• XREF: Pairs with the critique of techno-optimism elsewhere in the reader’s pipeline about information overload and the shaping of symbolic environments (Soundscape, AI Con).