techno-fundamentalism

English

Etymology

From techno- +‎ fundamentalism.

Noun

techno-fundamentalism (usually uncountable, plural techno-fundamentalisms)

1. A body of beliefs that places unwavering faith in the power of technology to solve all societal problems and advance human progress. [from 1990s]
   • 2003, Simon Cooper, Technoculture and Critical Theory: In the Service of the Machine?, Taylor & Francis, page 116:

     Virilio argues thar the latest and most pervasive form of technology as ideology is techno-fundamentalism. Such fundamentalism is, for Virilio, merely a furtherance of the scientific will to power, but one that begins to become the dominant frame through which our existence is measured.

   • 2008 January 15, spinoza1111, “A note on computing thugs and coding bums”, in comp.programming‎^[1] (Usenet):

     I'm afraid your techno-fundamentalism is as mindless and as full of evil potential as Christian fundamentalism (or Islamic fundamentalism, etc.)

   • 2008 February 18, Deidzoeb, “Support or reject this new form of religion, logically, if you can:”, in Atheism vs Christianity‎^[2] (Google Groups):

     They call it "techno-fundamentalism" because there's no reason to believe we will necessary find technology to solve all our problems in time to prevent disasters. There's only faith in the potential of technology.

   • 2012, Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry), University of California Press, page 76:

     Techno-fundamentalism assumes not only the means and will to triumph over adversity through gadgets and schemes but also the sense that invention is the best of all possible methods of confronting problems.

   • 2017, Kat Braybrooke, Tim Jordan, “Genealogy, Culture and Technomyth: Decolonizing Western Information Technologies, from Open Source to the Maker Movement”, in Digital Culture & Society, volume 3, number 1, →DOI, page 34:

     However, in 2011 Say Chan found that something interesting had started to happen to OLPC’s XO laptop in Peru. In the rural region of Puno, locals recognized the deep techno-fundamentalism of its “air drop” deployment model, noting that “when they arrived, there was no option [other than to accept them]” (2014).

   • 2019, Daniel Neyland, Vera Ehrenstein, Sveta Milyaeva, Can Markets Solve Problems?: An Empirical Inquiry into Neoliberalism in Action, Goldsmiths Press, page 267:

     Instead of solutionism and techno-fundamentalism, we need to carefully explore the terms on which problems and solutions are made.