Technology

Humans > Humanity

The society the technocrats want to usher in to help humanity is one that is highly efficient in solving many problems, but will be terrible for actual humans.

The “Sputnik Moment” Delusion

For at least a century or more, Westerners have been conditioned to see each new discovery and invention as a point in some grand civilizational competition. Connected to this framing is the simplistic belief in material progress.

Technology Is Not Neutral

The Church has long pointed out the dangers of technology, with even the earliest pages of Scripture noting the connection between technology and the line of Cain.

The Catholic Response to Neuralink

We are not simply minds that happen to have bodies; we are integrated beings. Technologies like Neuralink, which aim to fuse the human brain with AI, could radically alter this conception of the human person.

Will Elon Musk Usher in a Utopia or a Dystopia?

The recent technical advances made by Elon Musk’s companies— from servant robots to catching rockets out of the sky—are amazing feats of engineering. But will they make the world a better or worse place to live? Should Catholics embrace his vision for the future?

Francis the Luddite

When the late William F. Buckley set out to find a religion editor for National Review, he was careful to choose a Protestant. Though a Catholic himself, Buckley feared that his magazine—by then, already the flaghship of American conservatism—was becoming “too Catholic.” Eventually, he settled on a bombastic Lutheran minister named Richard John Neuhaus. Alas … Read more

The Internet: Blessing or Curse?

Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles Robert Barron recently gave a pair of quite interesting talks at Google and Facebook. Now approaching 30 million views, Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire is the most influential Catholic evangelization ministry online. Bishop Barron is the ideal teacher, and this for two reasons: mastery of his subject and a genuine … Read more

Analog Technology Takes on the Digital Juggernaut

A quickly forgotten film last year painted the portrait of a tech company that ran amok with its ambition to know and share everything. Just as we often learn a lesson through extreme examples of what can happen, The Circle, based on a 2013 novel by Dave Eggers, provided a chilling look at what a … Read more

The Age of the Android: More Machine Than Man

I am not a techy-type and I never thought I would do it, but I did—I took the infernal trouble of customizing my cellular telephone’s ringtone. With tongue in cheek, but not without symbolic intent, I programmed my phone to emit the sound of Darth Vader’s ominous breathing for every incoming call. Though people start … Read more

Overcoming Our Smartphone Addiction

No artifact shapes our daily lives so much as the smartphone. Most of us are ashamed by our dependence on them, but we don’t consider tossing them out—for that seems impossible to do. Nor apparently, do many parents consider withholding them from teenagers, so necessary they seem to the new shape of social life. So … Read more

Sexual Liberation and the Emergence of Transhumanism

Sexual liberation and transhumanism share an anthropology. Both view the human person as an emergent phenomenon, and as something malleable. Both view the self as sovereign, the will as ultimately answerable to nothing other than its own prerogatives. Exploring the intersection between these two movements requires me to give an account of technology. In speaking … Read more

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