Technology’s core promise is expanding one’s horizon of possible actions

Evidence

Of course, the story is in fact not circular. The beginning and the end are only apparently identical. In truth, they are very different. The fisherman has to fish because that is how he makes his living and he has no alternative. The rich entrepreneur, on the other hand, can fish, although he can also do a thousand other things. The expansion of our horizon of possibility is thus an essential element of the promise of technology. But this phenomenon also changes the nature of fishing on the beach in a rather underhanded way. The businessman is aware that he could do many other things with the time he spends fishing: there’s the boat tour, the opening of the golf course, the drive to the next tourist highlight, etc. If his fishing pastime gets disturbed by this train of thought, then he appears to us in a very familiar contemporary guise, though one no less foolish: the fear of missing something prevents him from “being-in-the-world” in the way the (idealized) fisherman is. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 61

Categorization

• DEFINE: Rosa defines the essential promise of technology as the expansion of the horizon of possibility — freedom as the multiplication of options.
• XREF: Connects to the fear-of-missing-out dynamic Rosa explores throughout — and to philosophical distinctions between negative freedom (freedom to choose among options) and positive freedom (the fisherman being fully in his activity). Resonates with Fromm’s Escape from Freedom and with the analysis of choice paralysis. — connects to: Technological innovation is pushed from behind, not pulled toward a goal — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 394; Technology depends on ends that lie beyond technology itself — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 823
• DEEPTHINKING: The turn here is genuinely sharp: the fisherman’s freedom of ‘being-in-the-world’ and the businessman’s freedom of expanded possibility are not just different kinds of good — expanding the second actively degrades the first, because option-awareness converts absorption into distraction. A dense point worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• Technology depends on ends that lie beyond technology itself #qualifies (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 823
• Technological innovation is pushed from behind, not pulled toward a goal #complicates (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 394