Tech Agnostic

How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation

Greg Epstein (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

360 Seiten

2024
MIT Press (Verlag)
978-0-262-04920-7 (ISBN)

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An urgently needed exploration of global technology worship, and a measured case for skepticism and agnosticism as a way of life, from the New York Times bestselling author of Good without God. Today s technology has overtaken religion as the chief influence on twenty-first century life and community. In Tech Agnostic, Harvard and MIT s influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein explores what it means to be a critical thinker with respect to this new faith. Encouraging readers to reassert their common humanity beyond the seductive sheen of 'tech,' this book argues for tech agnosticism not worship as a way of life. Without suggesting we return to a mythical pre-tech past, Epstein shows why we must maintain a freethinking critical perspective toward innovation until it proves itself worthy of our faith or not. Epstein asks probing questions that center humanity at the heart of engineering: Who profits from an uncritical faith in technology? How can we remedy technology s problems while retaining its benefits? Showing how unbelief has always served humanity, Epstein revisits the historical apostates, skeptics, mystics, Cassandras, heretics, and whistleblowers who embody the tech reformation we desperately need. He argues that we must learn how to collectively demand that technology serve our pursuit of human lives that are deeply worth living. In our tumultuous era of religious extremism and rampant capitalism, Tech Agnostic offers a new path forward, where we maintain enough critical distance to remember that all that glitters is not gold nor is it God.

Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard & MIT, and the Convener for Ethical Life at MIT s Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life. TechCrunch s first 'ethicist in residence,' he is the author of Good Without God and has also written for MIT Technology Review, CNN.com, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and Newsweek.

Introduction
Part I: Beliefs
1 Tech Theology
2 Doctrine
Part II: Practices
3 Hierarchies and Castes, or, Utopia for White Men
4 Ritual
5 Apocalypse(s)
Part III: Beloved Community, or, the Reformation
6 Apostates and Heretics
7 Humanists
8 The Congregation
Conclusion: Tech Agnosticism is a Humanism
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	16.10.2024
Zusatzinfo	28 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUS.
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie
	Naturwissenschaften
ISBN-10	0-262-04920-1 / 0262049201
ISBN-13	978-0-262-04920-7 / 9780262049207
Zustand	Neuware