Technology and the Moral Order

An early approach in statistical analysis to weight the technoenvironmental variables causal to basic social and cultural patterns.

The tendency to assert a single factor--economic, biological or technical (determinism); maybe: "the" system-- to explain "where we're headed"-- as if the big shift shifts everything in the same direction all at once-- polarizing, or whatever it is that makes the shark tank feel safe. But what would we do without the tank? A cloud of particulars surrounds supply and demand, transaction costs and the unintended consequences of the platform economy on social and urban life. Without abstraction, technology would be as useless and as dangerous as an abyss.

The results are in by 1964. Technology influences culture, obviously, and only in the last instance, and by a hair (not a hare). The question is not which technologies prove the stability of societies but does technology operate on society in advance of the tools the civilization will soon be needing?