Zerzan and Carnes had assembled some of the most important critical appraisals of technology written to the date of its publication in 1991 with this book. Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Langdon Winner, Joseph Weizenbaum, Carolyn Merchant, Morris Berman, George Bradford, Jerry Mander, Stanley Diamond, Russel Means and many others offer a searing indictment of technology and its catastrophic social effects. Almost all of these essays or excerpts have appeared elsewhere, but this single text has collected many of the essential topics and critiques levied from some of the greatest critics of technoculture.Contents:PART I: TECHNOLOGY: IT'S HISTORY AND OUR FUTUREQuestion 1. How has technology developed - or encroached? Are the computer, nuclear power, and recombinant DNA comparable to the wheel, the printing press, and gunpowder - or do they represent an entirely new order?1. Authoritarian and Democratic Technics by Lewis Mumford2. Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum3. The Silicon Idol by Michael ShallisQuestion 2. Was there a point in history when technology came to dominate the individual? How could this have happened?4. In Search of the Primitive by Stanley Diamond5. The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant6. The Technological Society by Jacques EllulQuestion 3. How has industrial technology adversely affected individuals, societies, and the planet as a whole?7. We All Live in Bhopal by George Bradford8. The High Cost of High Tech: The Dark Side of the Chip by Lenny Siegal and John Markoff9. The Re-enchantment of the World - I by Morris BermanQuestion 4. What is the future of human culture with respect to technology? Is there a solution to the reality of being diminished by high tech?10. Civilization Is Like a Jetliner by T. Fulano11. Fighting Words on the Future of the Earth by Russell Means12. An End to Technology by Sally Gearhart13. The Re-enchantment of the World - II by Morris BermanPART II: COMPUTERS AND THE INFORMED INDIVIDUALQuestion 5. Are computers a force for increased individual autonomy - or a route to a new totalitarianism?14. The Rise of the Computer State by David Burnham15. The Conquest of Will: Information Processing in Human Affairs by Abbe Mowoshowitz16. Housebound by Joan Howe17. Technostress by Craig BrodQuestion 6. Some in the Artificial Intelligence field claim that soon computers will not only think but also feel and possess consciousness. What are the implications of such staggering claims?18. Of Two Minds by Patrick Huyghe19. The Biology of Computer Life by Geoff Simons20. What Computers Can't Do by Hubert L. DreyfusQuestion 7. What does one learn from interaction with a computer? How does it affect relationships with people?21. The Heart of a New Machine by Gregg Easterbrook22. Technostress by Craig Brod23. The Technological Threat to Education by Robert J. Sardello24. Man Bytes Dog by James GormanPART III: TECHNOLOGY: THE WEB OF LIFE?Question 8. Contemporary society can be described in phrases like "Information Age" and "global communications network". What do the "information" and "comunications" consist of?25. The Implosion of Meaning in the Media and the Implosion of the Social in the Masses by Jean Baudrillard26. Mythinformation by Langdon Winner27. Who Knows: Information in the Age of the Fortune 500 by Herbert I. SchillerQuestion 9. How - and how effectively - is the technological outcome of science regulated? Is there some research and development that should be off-limits?28. Overskill: The Decline of Technology in Modern Civilization by Eugene S. Schwartz29. Technology - Humanism or Nihilism by Gregory H. Davis30. Politics and the Restraint of Science by Leonard A. Cole31. Saturn and Scientism by T. FulanoQuestion 10. Is technology "neutral"?32. Industrialism and Domestication by John Zerzan and Paula Zerzan33. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander34. Electronic Illusions: A Skeptic's View of Our High Tech Future by Ian Reinecke35. The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul