Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systemization.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that technology governs all aspects of modern life, including fundamental human experiences.
Jacques Ellul's quote reflects on the extent to which technology influences and organizes every facet of civilization, from the beginning of life through to its end. He expresses concern that human experiences, such as death and procreation, are increasingly subjected to the demands of technical efficiency and systematic control, highlighting a critical viewpoint of how technology can dominate and shape our existence.
In practice
In a seminar discussing the impact of technology on society.
The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.
There is one act par excellence which profanes money by going directly against the law of money, an act for which money is not made. That act is giving.
It is inconceivable that the God who gives Himself in His Son to save us, should have created some people ordained to evil and damnation. There can only be one predestination to salvation. In and through Jesus Christ all people are predestined to be saved. Our free choice is ruled out in this regard. God wants free people, except in relation to this last and definitive decision. We are not free to decide and choose to be damned.
Education no longer has a humanist end or any value in itself; it has only one goal, to create technicians.
We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.
Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress.
Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.
Human language is the new UI layer, bots are like new applications, and digital assistants are meta apps. Intelligence is infused into all of your interactions.
The optimism that many felt in the 1960s over labour-saving technology is giving way to a fearful question: 'Will your labour be good for anything in the future? Or will you be replaced by a machine?'
I think that technologies are morally neutral until we apply them. It's only when we use them for good or for evil that they become good or evil.
What's great in the modern world is that it's becoming easier and easier for people to create without having access to large sums of money. They need access to certain technologies, but the cost is far less than it used to be.
Every time you write an email, it is in the public domain. There are all these ways where security is not as good as people believe.
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