Technology’s liberating or enslaving character is decided politically, not intrinsic

Evidence

But unlike Hesiod – or indeed the moralists of our own era – Dad did not feel he had to take sides, to be either a technophobe or a tech-enthusiast. If light can have two contradictory natures, and if all of nature rests on a binary opposition, then hardened iron, steam engines and networked computers could also be, simultaneously, potential liberators and enslavers. And so it is up to us, collectively, to determine which of the two it will be. That’s where politics comes in. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 63

Categorization

• XREF: The duality-of-things sensibility matches the foundational frame that platform tech is simultaneously liberator and enslaver, which the whole chapter will argue. Also resonates with the ‘politics decides the outcome’ theme from reading on bases and empire. — connects to: Big Tech’s control of digital identity is a deliberate US government political choice — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 303; Technology carries no inherent politics; usage determines its effects; Technology itself is neutral; class interests corrupt its organization — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1238 (+9 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Actually borderline — the duality point is a nice epistemological frame but fairly conventional philosophical ground; I won’t over-tag it.

Broader Connections

• Technology carries no inherent politics; usage determines its effects #expands (0.92)
• The free digital universe was produced by political decisions, not inevitability #exemplifies (0.90) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 82
• Technology itself is neutral; class interests corrupt its organization #qualifies (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1238
• Nationalization alone cannot alter technology’s embodied rationality #complicates (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 164
• Technology acceptance depends on whose interests it serves, not the technology itself. #expands (0.82) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 21
• Technology itself is neutral; harmful outcomes stem from power relations, not technical necessity. #qualifies (0.82) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 262
• Technology’s political neutrality collapses when it becomes the universal form of production #qualifies (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 572
• Technological development is contingent and political rather than following autonomous logic. #corroborates (0.80) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 122
• Technology’s cultural effects are mediated by late capitalism not deterministically #expands (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 410
• Scientific-technological ordering is inherently political #corroborates (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 618