I'd like to offer a suggestion as someone who is entirely sympathetic with what you are up to in your writing, but also as someone who is deeply immersed in the implementation of "digital technology". I think your use of the term "digital technology" is overly broad and not as specific as it needs to be to get at the issues you are rightly concerned about. As a technologist, my reaction to "digital technology" is that it subsumes everything from cell phones to pace makers and MRI machines. From video games to the super computers that facilitate scientific research. Some digital technologies truly are life-saving. Others are corrupting, and rob us of critical mental faculties. So the conceptual net you're casting by using the term "digital technologies" subsumes more, I suspect, than you intend. Just a guess, but wording the technology your survey is targeting a bit more specifically might help elicit more discerning responses to your survey. Just a thought. I'm very much a fan of your work in any case.
and I was struck by the way Illich used the word tool rather than technology, and observed that the very same tool becomes counter-productive once it crosses a threshold of scale. Scale in the case of your work here might be translated as "number of minutes per day of exposure per person." I have a hard time saying that technologies are "bad," for fear that we slip toward "humans are bad" and "nature is good."
As I was taking this poll I couldn't help but feel the complexity of many of these questions. I work as a nurse taking care of patients immediately after cardiac surgery, and am constantly wrestling with how heavily modern medicine relies on digital technological advances. Some days I'm mind-blown by these advances and how they truly have the power to extend a persons life, allowing them to live even decades longer than they would have fifty or more years ago. Some days I'm incredibly disturbed by the illusion these technologies create, causing people to think they can cheat death so that they avoid preparing for it. This relatively new phenomenon-- the perpetual avoidance of human mortality pared with an idolatrous reliance on technology-- seems to cheapen the experience of really living and of dignifying the death that comes for us all. I look forward to reading your thoughts/suggestions/revelations, because these are really complex issues.
Several times I wanted to say, "define what you mean by that..."
I have relationships that have blossomed into something in real life that started as connections online. So I think that real connection CAN happen online. I think in a lot of cases, it's the algorithms and software rather than the hardware or interfaces that are the issue.
"Digital technologies are fundamentally different in how they affect humans compared to earlier technologies such as the printing press, TV, etc."
I put "Maybe" because of the inclusion of TV. I think that because it is a screen and you sit down and stare at it, it is basically the same as computers and modern phones.
If had just be the printing press, I probably would has said "agree".
"Recently, Ruth and I had an encounter with a NASA researcher, a quantum physicist, and an Orthodox priest at a major center for theoretical physics." At first I thought this was a joke...a NASA reseacher, a quantum physicist, and an Orthodox priest walk into a bar...
I had to answer "maybe" to nearly all of these, because for me it's clear that it all depends on whose hands these technologies are in and what how healthy the energy behind their use is.
My concern is not with technology per se but the lack of functioning, non-corruptable mechanisms for risk benefit analysis and accessibility of that data to inform individual and societal decision making. Given the scale of today’ technology, it is foolhardy to move forward without these assessments. Something will break. With potential catastrophic consequences.
using technology as a complimentary tool for Mysticism. As an artist, technique and technology are keys to developing human capacity. It’s also true that whenever techniques and technology become more important than the heart and soul- we lose the art and the artist. We
lose soul which I believe is the greatest technology available. My book the Art of Ensoulment centers the dance of body and soul as primary to human life. At this point a soulful humanity appears
stunted rather than evolving. Bring in the artists! See The Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen, and the 2021 book, The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, by Annie Murphy Paul. Both
I gave what might appear contrarian answers as ‘digital technologies’ is so broad as to lose all meaning, and I think the question really matters. At the moment it includes all hardware and all software, and then you could make arguments for not typical definitions like Campanology. Most digital technology is not addictive or harmful at all. A pocket calculator is neither addictive nor dangerous and a benefit to society. Neither is a professor chip. Nor is the technology in a solar panel or electric car. I think you are primarily referring to social media which is a disaster but a small part of the digital world.
Hello! I’m very interested in your upcoming article and the conversation around the people of earth vs machines. I know it’s too late now to change anything in your poll but had a recommendation that I don’t see here (but if I missed it and this is redundant, apologies).
The statement “digital technologies, will one day improve life by giving us superhuman mental abilities,” has two different statements embedded in it. “Digital technologies will one day improve human life,” is a standalone statement. So is, “digital technologies will give us superhuman mental abilities.” People may think differently about each but because they’re combined you won’t get that nuance and may have skewed data. To achieve what I think you were trying to accomplish, you’d have to have one statement about technology improving human life, one about it giving humans superpowers, a third statement saying that the result of achieving superhuman abilities through technology is a benefit to humanity, and one that says it harms humanity.
I'm fairly new to Substack, and one of those new subscribers to your publication, so I've looked, but haven't found the answer yet. How would I access the PDFs of the two articles you mention above?
It'll be interesting to see the conversations that come out of the poll. I actually found it difficult to take because at each turn of each question I felt like I wanted to more fully define "digital technology" and "basic human nature" and phrases like that before I could honestly answer. I guess my takeaway is that we have more work to do (ALL OF US) talking about what it means to be human. Thanks for all that you guys do, Peco and Ruth, to continually bring this most precious inquiry to mind so frequently.
Ruth and Peco, thanks so much for sharing my writing in this wonderful newsletter. And I look forward to seeing the results of this poll!
I think digital technologies — and by that, for these purposes, I essentially mean the internet — have been a net positive in my life. But I see their ability, too, to fuel forms of distraction, information addiction, and so much more in me and others. It's an endless challenge.
The entire human world is now ruled by the paradigm of scientific materialism which has deprived humankind of all profundity of view, relative to the nature and significance of the World Process, and relative to Divine Nature of Reality Itself.
It is a global cultural program which has so effectively supported the separate and always separative ego's motive to achieve a perfectly independent state of self sufficiency (independent of the vagaries of nature) that, as a result, the human collective has brought itself to the point of global destruction.
It could be said that this situation began when the early Christian movement was co-opted by the Roman State thus providing the "religious" justification for all of the inevitable slaughters of the Holy (sic) Roman Empire, and all the consequent Western empires too, including the current world-dominant US empire.
If the medium is the message what kind of message to weapons of any kind communicate, especially in the now time of "beautiful bombs". What kind of message do the hundreds (even thousands) of US military bases communicate!
All day long, the phrases “digital identity” and “digital tyranny”, or “autocracy” were ringing in my ears, and I couldn’t shake them. I had seen some technology articles about machine vision or artificial intelligence and none of it made sense. It was 745pm, I was quietly reading psalms when the Lord spoke:
Deception, child, is only the beginning, for you have been led astray, blinded and made numb, rendered mute.
Consider carefully what your hands have built: machines, contrivances, engines. As marvelous and intricate as these are, hear me child:
THEY DO NOT SEE NOR HEAR!
Those who speak of seeing machines or machine vision or even thinking machines are full of deceit. For who among you will stand to face Me, to speak directly to Me, and say what your machines “see” without power or electricity?
You, my beloved children and all my beloved creatures see and hear, taste, touch and smell as I created, and none require wires or batteries, none require power save that which I breathe into them.
Yes, child, I am very aware of the deceitful headlong rush to make machines that imitate my beloved humanity. Answer me now, My engineer, do you not know this truth? Have you not with your own hands built and used what you call sensors? Beautiful devices to allow what you call input from the world around you to detect and measure: light, sound, heat, moisture, vibrations, salinity and so much more.
You measure and count, integrate and process, yes, then you even control what you call output. I watch every invention, every experiment. I know the divisions of what you perceive as time. I see every crystalline structure of silicon or copper, gold or silver. Consider, child that I made all of your so-called rare-earth elements.
I have spoken to you about what you call semiconductors, and I am not deceived as so many of my children are, deceived by the falsehood of something called artificial intelligence. You may process as fast as you can, you may devise neural abstractions all you wish – it is not intelligence, just as your machines do not see. Remove electric power, child then report to me what your computers see and do.
I have blessed my children with spectacular ability to imagine, to conceive, to make so much – Yet you will now begin to learn a new way, many new ways of “thinking”, as you talk with Me, for I AM CREATION.
And know for certain that My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and there are no thoughts emanating from any contrivance you make.
I know your calculations, your algorithms, your postulates and theorems. I know your so-called laws of physics and your quantum divinations. Tell me, are there orders of magnitude beyond Me?
You peer into the heavens into the vast universe around you; you attempt to see into and beneath what you call My atomic, molecular structure. Yet do you see Me there?
What of your exalted science and technology am I not aware of, child? Are My eyes deceived by your so-called digital graphics? The fools and deceivers among you believe – and Woe to them! – believe that electronics and genetics, technology and systems are not precious gifts and tools, but power and control, and thus abuse and death. Tell me, does your technology render righteousness or justice?
My enemy, the one who hates you, has spun out an aura, a fragrance of My non-existence. How many ways has this been tried, child? With money, with pleasure, with torment and weariness, with war and conflict, with hunger and loneliness. Now, in your present age, he tries with technology and the despicable idea of your digital identity. Stand and say to Me, child, what you know of your identity!
“You are my True Identity, Father. In Christ Jesus I am made whole. In your Spirit, Lord, I exist.”
I have warned you, so many of you, that many contrivances of your present condition will not continue. Do not be shocked or moved, then, when changes manifest, when machines and electronics and systems behave as I direct. For there is human, earthly change, and there is My Spirit, My Son, My Glory, My Kingdom, all for you, My beloved children.
I'd like to offer a suggestion as someone who is entirely sympathetic with what you are up to in your writing, but also as someone who is deeply immersed in the implementation of "digital technology". I think your use of the term "digital technology" is overly broad and not as specific as it needs to be to get at the issues you are rightly concerned about. As a technologist, my reaction to "digital technology" is that it subsumes everything from cell phones to pace makers and MRI machines. From video games to the super computers that facilitate scientific research. Some digital technologies truly are life-saving. Others are corrupting, and rob us of critical mental faculties. So the conceptual net you're casting by using the term "digital technologies" subsumes more, I suspect, than you intend. Just a guess, but wording the technology your survey is targeting a bit more specifically might help elicit more discerning responses to your survey. Just a thought. I'm very much a fan of your work in any case.
I am intrigued by the good/bad question. You're likely familiar with Ivan Illich's work. I just recently listened to an interview between Gordon White and Dougald Hine on Illich https://runesoup.com/2023/10/christianitys-surprising-resurgence-an-ivan-illich-perspective-dougald-hine/
and I was struck by the way Illich used the word tool rather than technology, and observed that the very same tool becomes counter-productive once it crosses a threshold of scale. Scale in the case of your work here might be translated as "number of minutes per day of exposure per person." I have a hard time saying that technologies are "bad," for fear that we slip toward "humans are bad" and "nature is good."
Thank you for your important work.
As I was taking this poll I couldn't help but feel the complexity of many of these questions. I work as a nurse taking care of patients immediately after cardiac surgery, and am constantly wrestling with how heavily modern medicine relies on digital technological advances. Some days I'm mind-blown by these advances and how they truly have the power to extend a persons life, allowing them to live even decades longer than they would have fifty or more years ago. Some days I'm incredibly disturbed by the illusion these technologies create, causing people to think they can cheat death so that they avoid preparing for it. This relatively new phenomenon-- the perpetual avoidance of human mortality pared with an idolatrous reliance on technology-- seems to cheapen the experience of really living and of dignifying the death that comes for us all. I look forward to reading your thoughts/suggestions/revelations, because these are really complex issues.
Several times I wanted to say, "define what you mean by that..."
I have relationships that have blossomed into something in real life that started as connections online. So I think that real connection CAN happen online. I think in a lot of cases, it's the algorithms and software rather than the hardware or interfaces that are the issue.
"Digital technologies are fundamentally different in how they affect humans compared to earlier technologies such as the printing press, TV, etc."
I put "Maybe" because of the inclusion of TV. I think that because it is a screen and you sit down and stare at it, it is basically the same as computers and modern phones.
If had just be the printing press, I probably would has said "agree".
"Recently, Ruth and I had an encounter with a NASA researcher, a quantum physicist, and an Orthodox priest at a major center for theoretical physics." At first I thought this was a joke...a NASA reseacher, a quantum physicist, and an Orthodox priest walk into a bar...
I had to answer "maybe" to nearly all of these, because for me it's clear that it all depends on whose hands these technologies are in and what how healthy the energy behind their use is.
My concern is not with technology per se but the lack of functioning, non-corruptable mechanisms for risk benefit analysis and accessibility of that data to inform individual and societal decision making. Given the scale of today’ technology, it is foolhardy to move forward without these assessments. Something will break. With potential catastrophic consequences.
In 2008 I began understanding and
using technology as a complimentary tool for Mysticism. As an artist, technique and technology are keys to developing human capacity. It’s also true that whenever techniques and technology become more important than the heart and soul- we lose the art and the artist. We
lose soul which I believe is the greatest technology available. My book the Art of Ensoulment centers the dance of body and soul as primary to human life. At this point a soulful humanity appears
stunted rather than evolving. Bring in the artists! See The Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen, and the 2021 book, The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, by Annie Murphy Paul. Both
What an excellent poll! Great statements for us to consider ànd respond to. Thank you.
I gave what might appear contrarian answers as ‘digital technologies’ is so broad as to lose all meaning, and I think the question really matters. At the moment it includes all hardware and all software, and then you could make arguments for not typical definitions like Campanology. Most digital technology is not addictive or harmful at all. A pocket calculator is neither addictive nor dangerous and a benefit to society. Neither is a professor chip. Nor is the technology in a solar panel or electric car. I think you are primarily referring to social media which is a disaster but a small part of the digital world.
Hello! I’m very interested in your upcoming article and the conversation around the people of earth vs machines. I know it’s too late now to change anything in your poll but had a recommendation that I don’t see here (but if I missed it and this is redundant, apologies).
The statement “digital technologies, will one day improve life by giving us superhuman mental abilities,” has two different statements embedded in it. “Digital technologies will one day improve human life,” is a standalone statement. So is, “digital technologies will give us superhuman mental abilities.” People may think differently about each but because they’re combined you won’t get that nuance and may have skewed data. To achieve what I think you were trying to accomplish, you’d have to have one statement about technology improving human life, one about it giving humans superpowers, a third statement saying that the result of achieving superhuman abilities through technology is a benefit to humanity, and one that says it harms humanity.
Trying to be helpful for future polls!
Anyway, interested to see your next article.
I'm fairly new to Substack, and one of those new subscribers to your publication, so I've looked, but haven't found the answer yet. How would I access the PDFs of the two articles you mention above?
It'll be interesting to see the conversations that come out of the poll. I actually found it difficult to take because at each turn of each question I felt like I wanted to more fully define "digital technology" and "basic human nature" and phrases like that before I could honestly answer. I guess my takeaway is that we have more work to do (ALL OF US) talking about what it means to be human. Thanks for all that you guys do, Peco and Ruth, to continually bring this most precious inquiry to mind so frequently.
Ruth and Peco, thanks so much for sharing my writing in this wonderful newsletter. And I look forward to seeing the results of this poll!
I think digital technologies — and by that, for these purposes, I essentially mean the internet — have been a net positive in my life. But I see their ability, too, to fuel forms of distraction, information addiction, and so much more in me and others. It's an endless challenge.
The entire human world is now ruled by the paradigm of scientific materialism which has deprived humankind of all profundity of view, relative to the nature and significance of the World Process, and relative to Divine Nature of Reality Itself.
It is a global cultural program which has so effectively supported the separate and always separative ego's motive to achieve a perfectly independent state of self sufficiency (independent of the vagaries of nature) that, as a result, the human collective has brought itself to the point of global destruction.
It could be said that this situation began when the early Christian movement was co-opted by the Roman State thus providing the "religious" justification for all of the inevitable slaughters of the Holy (sic) Roman Empire, and all the consequent Western empires too, including the current world-dominant US empire.
If the medium is the message what kind of message to weapons of any kind communicate, especially in the now time of "beautiful bombs". What kind of message do the hundreds (even thousands) of US military bases communicate!
Here's what I heard from the Lord:
Deception of the digital
Posted on November 25, 2022
Friday 25 November 2022
All day long, the phrases “digital identity” and “digital tyranny”, or “autocracy” were ringing in my ears, and I couldn’t shake them. I had seen some technology articles about machine vision or artificial intelligence and none of it made sense. It was 745pm, I was quietly reading psalms when the Lord spoke:
Deception, child, is only the beginning, for you have been led astray, blinded and made numb, rendered mute.
Consider carefully what your hands have built: machines, contrivances, engines. As marvelous and intricate as these are, hear me child:
THEY DO NOT SEE NOR HEAR!
Those who speak of seeing machines or machine vision or even thinking machines are full of deceit. For who among you will stand to face Me, to speak directly to Me, and say what your machines “see” without power or electricity?
You, my beloved children and all my beloved creatures see and hear, taste, touch and smell as I created, and none require wires or batteries, none require power save that which I breathe into them.
Yes, child, I am very aware of the deceitful headlong rush to make machines that imitate my beloved humanity. Answer me now, My engineer, do you not know this truth? Have you not with your own hands built and used what you call sensors? Beautiful devices to allow what you call input from the world around you to detect and measure: light, sound, heat, moisture, vibrations, salinity and so much more.
You measure and count, integrate and process, yes, then you even control what you call output. I watch every invention, every experiment. I know the divisions of what you perceive as time. I see every crystalline structure of silicon or copper, gold or silver. Consider, child that I made all of your so-called rare-earth elements.
I have spoken to you about what you call semiconductors, and I am not deceived as so many of my children are, deceived by the falsehood of something called artificial intelligence. You may process as fast as you can, you may devise neural abstractions all you wish – it is not intelligence, just as your machines do not see. Remove electric power, child then report to me what your computers see and do.
I have blessed my children with spectacular ability to imagine, to conceive, to make so much – Yet you will now begin to learn a new way, many new ways of “thinking”, as you talk with Me, for I AM CREATION.
And know for certain that My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and there are no thoughts emanating from any contrivance you make.
I know your calculations, your algorithms, your postulates and theorems. I know your so-called laws of physics and your quantum divinations. Tell me, are there orders of magnitude beyond Me?
You peer into the heavens into the vast universe around you; you attempt to see into and beneath what you call My atomic, molecular structure. Yet do you see Me there?
What of your exalted science and technology am I not aware of, child? Are My eyes deceived by your so-called digital graphics? The fools and deceivers among you believe – and Woe to them! – believe that electronics and genetics, technology and systems are not precious gifts and tools, but power and control, and thus abuse and death. Tell me, does your technology render righteousness or justice?
My enemy, the one who hates you, has spun out an aura, a fragrance of My non-existence. How many ways has this been tried, child? With money, with pleasure, with torment and weariness, with war and conflict, with hunger and loneliness. Now, in your present age, he tries with technology and the despicable idea of your digital identity. Stand and say to Me, child, what you know of your identity!
“You are my True Identity, Father. In Christ Jesus I am made whole. In your Spirit, Lord, I exist.”
I have warned you, so many of you, that many contrivances of your present condition will not continue. Do not be shocked or moved, then, when changes manifest, when machines and electronics and systems behave as I direct. For there is human, earthly change, and there is My Spirit, My Son, My Glory, My Kingdom, all for you, My beloved children.
So much do I love you!