Technology cannot justify itself by saving time because existence exists only by being spent

Evidence

And, furthermore, technics itself is not objectively justified; if it sets up as absolute goals the saving of time and work which it enables us to realize and the comfort and luxury which it enables us to have access to, then it appears useless and absurd, for the time that one gains can not be accumulated in a store house; it is contradictory to want to save up existence, which, the fact is, exists only by being spent, and there is a good case for showing that airplanes, machines, the telephone, and the radio do not make men of today happier than those of former times. But actually it is not a question of giving men time and happiness, it is not a question of stopping the movement of life: it is a question of fulfilling it. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 85

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• QUESTION: The claim that technology does not increase happiness is asserted rather than demonstrated — worth flagging whether Beauvoir’s argument needs the empirical point at all.