Abandoning Techno-Progressivism

Why Material Progress Doesn’t Equate with Human Progress

A significant theme in my thinking since around 2022 has been the question of how to create a positive vision within which we can orient politics and society.

Before this period, I did not believe this to be necessary or even important. I thought that people could rationally and abstractly decide what the best set of policies for humanity was simply because it is good to do so. From around the age of nine or ten, I generally no longer considered myself religious despite being raised in a Roman Catholic household, going to church every week, and attending Catholic schools for much of my life up to that point. While the specifics of my “deconversion” are beyond the scope of this article, I always ran into the challenge from religious people I talked to, whether it be Christians or Muslims, that my lack of belief in a god was leaving behind a structure of purpose to orient my life around. According to them, in the absence of god, nihilism inevitably awaits.

I didn’t take this claim very seriously, mainly because in almost every circumstance it was employed to argue for the truth of religion. In these conversations, discussing the value of believing in a religion always seemed like a dodge from the underlying reason why I abandoned religion. It wasn’t because I didn’t think religion was valuable to believe in, but because I didn’t think it was rational to believe in.

However, my response overlooked much of the substance of the point itself. Was meaning possible without religion? I believed and still believe it was, but it is only more recently that I have begun to appreciate the difficulty that the search for meaning in the absence of religion imposes. It’s not impossible, but it is more difficult than I initially gave it credit for. Higher religiosity is associated with lower levels of completed suicide, greater mental health over time, higher life satisfaction, and a greater sense of purpose in life, albeit all of these effect sizes are relatively small. But while these are small relationships, they suggest that the community and sense of purpose that religion brings do actually benefit individuals, and that conversely, the decline of religion in society has probably hurt people’s sense of purpose in life.

Most people benefit from some form of religion, and in its absence will try to find purpose in something else. There also appears to be a contingent of people who do not simply benefit from something like religion, but need a cause to latch onto for their whole identity and life’s mission. But in a world where the belief in a religion becomes increasingly difficult and would, in my view, require a sacrifice of the truth, where does one find this purpose? Many appear to find this in the “causes” of the day. Think of individuals who orient their entire identity around being an advocate for “x”, or activists who go from one issue to the next depending on what’s trending on social media.

The Expanding Moral Circle and Its Discontents

There is one cause that has become significantly influential in academia and many other institutions in an organic yet aggressive manner. There are many terms for it, but for analytic precision and to avoid getting bogged down in particular labels, I will refer to it as the “expanding moral circle”. Those who adhere to this set of ideas generally consider themselves on the “left”, while those who do not comply with this set of ideas generally consider themselves on the “right”.

The expanding moral circle is motivated by a particular moral psychology. According to Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, there are several innate psychological systems which are at the core of people’s “intuitive ethics”. Haidt’s original framework consisted of five different moral foundations, which include care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity. Research shows that individuals who do not adhere to the expanding moral circle vision tend to care about all moral foundations equally. In contrast, those who adhere to this vision prioritize care and fairness, valuing loyalty, authority, and purity less. The expanding moral circle vision, abstractly conceptualized, prioritizes the elevation of the “low” and the diminution of the “high” as its end goal.

My full views of the expanding moral circle go far beyond the scope of this article. It is a topic which I have devoted immense thought to as someone who previously adhered to this vision, but it would take far too much writing to delve into. The point is that this cause, while it has had its benefits, has also had its costs. The expanding moral circle in its real-world applications has actively inhibited the pursuit of truth in a manner similar to how religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church, previously hindered scientists including Galileo from discovering fundamental truths about the cosmos, including the validity of the heliocentric model. The expanding moral circle is one value among many, which can be used for good and for bad. Creating a cause or vision out of it ignores this reality.

Unfortunately, history has been marked by visions or “causes” that, while they can create communities and a sense of purpose for many, can ultimately diverge from reality or the well-being of people in some way and undermine our pursuit of truth. But if visions are necessary for creating purpose, how do we make one which doesn’t fall into the pitfalls of previous ones?

It is this background of thought which led me to begin considering ways in which we can create a new vision, but more specifically, one that is compatible with the view of society as something which should be progressing towards an end goal. Those who adhere to the expanding moral circle narrative tend to frame society as having deviated from an idealized goal that can only now be realized through universal adherence to the narrative’s tenets. Many other ideologies or narratives view the entire world in relation to their ultimate goal. To a Marxist, everything in history is defined in relation to communism. To an anarcho-capitalist, everything in history is defined in relation to state intervention. What is that thing that we should judge history against which will enable us to improve society?

It’s easy to answer this question by saying something like “whatever is good for society”. However, this doesn’t answer the question; it merely raises a new one: how goodness is defined. A narrative must be tangible; it cannot simply be the regurgitation of abstract values.

What About Techno-Progressivism?

In trying to answer the question in a meaningful way, I turned to the idea of “Techno-Progressivism” as I’ll call it. Techno-Progressivism views progress as synonymous with the increase of technology. Technology, after all, is the most direct application of knowledge, attained through the pursuit of truth. In some sense, it could never be incompatible with truth because it is the practical extension of truth. It also provides a concise narrative of history, which culminated in a significant improvement in the living standards of people over the past 200 years. Technology, as economists including Nobel Prize winners Robert Solow and Paul Romer demonstrate, is the fundamental driver of economic growth. In this respect, because it benefits everyone, technology is a narrative that everyone, in theory, can get behind.

There is also the added advantage of Techno-Progressivism's ability to indirectly and implicitly deconstruct other narratives that undermine the pursuit of knowledge. Due to technology being the direct application of knowledge, any narrative that opposes the pursuit of knowledge will be directly challenged when it contradicts technological development. In the case of the expanding moral circle narrative, this would take the form of knowledge required to build certain technologies that directly contradict the premises the narrative presupposes. The most clear and damaging one will be the knowledge necessary to construct genetic engineering technologies, which will inevitably and indirectly highlight the reality that differences and even inequalities between individuals and groups on virtually any dimension are not entirely socially mediated, as the expanding moral circle narrative assumes.

Despite these advantages, part of me recognized that simply pointing to technological advancement as a new narrative didn’t fully suffice as a solution to the meaning crisis. Questions lingered in my mind and in the minds of others whom I would try to sell this idea to: Is technology in and of itself good, or is it only good in relation to how it affects humanity? Answering that technology is in and of itself good is untenable, as it suggests that we should put the interests of technological development ahead of the interests of people. If the answer is the latter —that technology is only good in relation to how it affects humanity —then a new question arises: Is it possible to have a technological innovation that might harm humanity? Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine such an innovation.

I reconciled this conundrum by suggesting that technology, although not always beneficial, leaned in that direction on the net, as can be seen through the aforementioned increase in living standards over the past two centuries. Therefore, any current kinks or issues in any technology should be overlooked, as proceeding full steam ahead would ultimately benefit more people in the long run. Accelerating technology was, ultimately, for the greater good.

This solution to the challenge helped address some of the concerns, but it felt too convenient and simplistic. It seemed like I was brushing away legitimate worries about technology that can’t be merely set aside. And this philosophical tension ultimately reached a breaking point when I had the opportunity to attend a seminar hosted by the American Enterprise Institute on “Technology’s Challenge to Public Life,” which took place at the organization’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. In preparation for the seminar, all students who signed up were given a 400-page “course reader”, consisting of various book chapters, articles, and essays from individuals with vastly different perspectives and writing in vastly different periods in vastly different social contexts.

Reading these materials, combined with extensive discussions I had with other students during and outside the various sessions during the actual seminar, led me to have significant doubts about the idea of a “Techno-Progressive” narrative. Although I don’t think I’ve fully formulated my thoughts on the issue, I believe I still have some interesting points to make that would critique this proposal for a new narrative. My reasoning for rejecting Techno-Progressivism can be summarized in two broad points.

Reason #1: There are Present Costs to Many Technologies That Shouldn’t be Ignored

As mentioned earlier, it doesn’t take much imagination to see that there are clear costs associated with many technologies that exist today. For example, the prevalence of addictive content on many social media apps has ultimately done more harm to the mental health of many young individuals. Suicides among teenagers as well as mental health crises have risen significantly since 2010, precisely at the time when social media apps and the like were increasing in popularity and smartphones became universally used.

One could argue that these harms are simply temporary hiccups with technology that will be alleviated with time, and that because they are temporary we shouldn’t consider halting the development of technology. Oftentimes, these arguments appeal to periods of the past where technological development initially had a detrimental effect on the quality of life of the people living at that time, but was followed by substantial gains for everyone. The most prominent example of this is in the discussion of the Industrial Revolution.

As many have pointed out, the Industrial Revolution, through its development of technologies that unlocked vast economies of scale and brought production outside the household, caused enormous disruptions to families, leading to poverty, domestic violence, and social damage. While the Marxian view that capitalism will inevitably lead to its own destruction seems unlikely now, at the time Marx lived, it was not an unreasonable belief to hold. Most of the 19th century was characterized by recessions and bank runs, which occurred at such a rapid pace that it would make the past fifty years appear extremely stable in comparison. The Luddites, despite often being mocked today, weren’t entirely unjustified in their concerns that the Industrial Revolution was harming everyday people.

Techno-Progressives, who might agree that the industrial revolution had harms, would point to the long-run gains in living standards and life expectancy that emerged from the period, and therefore argue that any concerns that may have been present during the period should not be addressed if it means slowing down development. This gets to questions surrounding how much one weighs present gains or losses over future gains or losses. Would it have been moral for those living in the Industrial Revolution to have deliberately slowed it down so that families could have more effectively adjusted to the technological changes occurring around them? What if the total gains made by future generations achieving higher economic growth sooner outweighed the total losses experienced by people at the time of significant social disruption?

The answer that Techno-Progressives would have to give to this is that the people living during the Industrial Revolution, regardless of the hardship they faced, were morally obligated to accelerate the technological development occurring at the time, even if it meant that they experienced a lower quality of life as a result. The Techno-Progressive response is indicative of the fundamental meta-ethical framework within which Techno-Progressives operate. This framework is referred to as “Utilitarianism,” or the view that the most ethical action for someone to take is that which maximizes the well-being of all individuals. The suffering or hardship of those today doesn’t matter if more people in the future benefit as a result of the suffering or hardship.

I identified with Utilitarianism for much of my middle school and high school years, but ultimately rejected the philosophy. The fundamental challenge I inevitably had with Utilitarianism is the challenge I have with most systems of ethics, and also by extension, most political philosophies when dogmatically adhered to. The challenge is that these schools of thought value the creation of a system above the underlying psychological and biological predispositions of people. It constructs a framework with little to no regard for how humans actually are, and expects humans to mold perfectly into it.

In the case of Utilitarianism, this problem manifests itself in how the philosophy overlooks the fact that humans naturally have special obligations towards people based on their relational proximity, which is heavily dependent on factors such as genetic similarity, social trust, and reciprocity. For example, empirical research has shown that human social groups are organized into concentric social circles, where emotionally closer circles are naturally smaller and emotionally more distant circles are naturally larger. People are only capable of having a maximum of approximately 100-200 stable relationships with others, whether measured by the exchange of Christmas cards or even conversations on Twitter, where there are fewer barriers to communication with a high number of people. This general number has often been rounded to 150, a number known as “Dunbar’s Number”, and is essentially a function of the way human brains are structured.

Humans are neither purely self-serving nor purely other-serving, but rather a mixture of both. This is a) because of the benefits that were associated with living in communities where there are high levels of cooperation and coordination in the context of hunter-gatherer societies; and b) because there can often be an evolutionary advantage in protecting those most genetically similar to oneself, as it constitutes the preservation or passing on of one’s genes in effect. This latter reason is expressed in Hamilton’s rule, which discusses the conditions under which reproductive altruism can evolve. It follows that, since people value those of a closer genetic or relational proximity, humans would naturally not view themselves as having equal obligations towards everyone in humanity. To view people’s special obligations towards immediate relationships as negative would be as inhuman for all practical purposes as viewing people’s desire to reproduce as negative. It simply doesn’t make sense from any natural perspective.

Techno-Progressivism demands this inhuman response in a similar manner. It requires that people don’t have special obligations towards people who live today versus those who will live tens of thousands of years from now. In fact, in some ways in which the philosophy is represented, Techno-Progressivism is not incidentally or unintentionally anti-human, but explicitly embraces that tendency. Nick Land, one of the premier philosophers of Accelerationism —the idea that technology must be advanced as rapidly and unrestrictedly as possible —asserts that it will inevitably lead to the “disintegration of the human species” once artificial intelligence advances far beyond human capabilities, and welcomes this future. Technology, in other words, is put ahead of humanity.

In the more common camp, which views technology as a means to improve human well-being, another movement is taking many elite tech circles by storm: Effective Accelerationism (or e/acc for short). This philosophy is an outgrowth of Effective Altruism, a movement that attempts to apply utilitarian ethics in the 21st century in a practical manner. Whereas Effective Altruism primarily concerns itself with the most effective personal lifestyle changes and charity donations an individual can make to maximize civilizational well-being, Effective Accelerationism concerns itself with how to maximize technological growth to bring about solutions to many of today's problems. But with the utilitarian foundations comes the same weaknesses.

The reality is that the Industrial Revolution, while producing positive outcomes in the long run and from a utilitarian perspective, was damaging to the society within which it occurred. Real harms were being done to the quality of life of the people at that time. The problems that the people of that time endured, while unimportant today, were important to the people of that time. In recognizing that technology can cause these problems, both historically and today, I do not think that its worship and valorization as an end in itself or as always a net good can be reasonably justified.

Reason #2: Techno-Progressivism Can Perpetuate Existing and Dominant Causes of Today

There is another significant issue with Techno-Progressivism as a vision for society, which positions itself as an alternative to the prevailing expanding moral circle vision. Despite my discussion on how technology undermines certain assumptions that the expanding moral circle makes, in some ways technology creates the very conditions through which the expanding moral circle vision can cement its power.

The first and most direct means is through technologies such as social media, which function as an informal mode of social control, thereby increasing the ability for censorship and virtual mobbing to occur. Many individuals regard the 1950s during the era of McCarthyism as a particularly egregious period of American history where rampant censorship occurred against American civilians. Despite the government overreach that happened during that time, only 13 percent of Americans reported self-censoring their viewpoints. Today, in the absence of government censorship in the United States, that number has increased to 40 percent, and technological changes between the 1950s and today, such as the emergence of the internet and social media, almost certainly play a role in the shift.

In his essay entitled “The Reaction Economy”, sociologist and political economist William Davies discusses how the age of social media has led to a public sphere dominated by “reaction chains”, where reactions provoke reactions, which provoke reactions, and so on. People become relegated to mere nodes in a vast interconnected network, receiving and sending information for others to receive and send out. Each reaction to a piece of information is another piece of information to be sent out and reacted to by others, leading to the emergence of many behaviors that would have been seen as inexplicable to those living in previous periods. In the landscape that this dynamic creates, the incentive structure leads people to be more interested in how others will respond to their actions than in whether those actions are valuable. It makes perfect sense that many people end up self-censoring when reprisal from others becomes a fundamental aspect of the social environment within which our technology has situated us. And when the dominant vision of the time is the expanding moral circle, reprisals will manifest themselves in going after those who verbally oppose the expanding moral circle vision.

A more indirect means through which technology can cement the expanding moral circle as a vision comes in the form of an unintended byproduct of technological development. Technology alleviates material problems on an absolute level, guaranteeing that everyone maintains a living standard that would have been unimaginable just a few hundred years ago. However, with the absolute living standard of people becoming less critical in public discussion, the salience of other issues increases. One of these concerns will naturally be about inequality, how much people have relative to one another. Many who adhere to the expanding moral circle vision are deeply concerned about inequality, particularly the disparities in outcomes between groups. This will naturally become an increasingly visible concern when other concerns have been alleviated. Thus, much of the underlying motivation behind the contemporary cause of the expanding moral circle might actually risk exacerbating itself in the context of further technological advancements.

Technological advancement, while it can undermine the expanding moral circle vision in some ways, risks cementing it in others. Techno-Progressivism cannot be seen as an alternative to the expanding moral circle, as it often risks perpetuating the underlying motivations of the expanding moral circle or amplifying their influence.

Is There a Solution to the Crisis of Visions?

The problems with Techno-Progressivism as a new meta-narrative – whether it be its practical implementation issues, or its inability to counteract the effects of the expanding moral circle narrative entirely – mean that I cannot reasonably consider myself a Techno-Progressive. Despite my concerns about technology, I am still generally optimistic about the future of technology. However, I recognize that technology cannot be seen, in principle or effect, as an end in itself.

But of course this raises the question: what should our narrative or societal vision actually be? What can provide people with the same sense of purpose and direction in their lives that religion and ideology have done for so many people?

I don’t have the answers to this question, but I have some general thoughts. What the problems with Techno-Progressivism reveal is that a proper narrative, whatever it may be, cannot reflect anything external to humanity, but must instead center on humans as they are. How exactly this should or will manifest is difficult for me to answer. Perhaps we should come up with a new conception of elevating the well-being of humans as the end goal, such as Maria Skoutaridou’s notion of “Human Flourishing”. Perhaps we should begin asking ourselves what else, beyond a simple sense of purpose, we might have lost from religion which was truly valuable. The Catholic Transcendentals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness come to mind as a possible way out of the meaning crisis that still places humanity as a focal point and elevates us towards something greater.

This is a question which will take decades of grappling to fully address. But there is no cause for despair. With the failure of past and current narratives to combine truth and meaning comes the opportunity to create something new and grander than what we have been given. And maybe a way out from our current predicament.