In the previous post, we talked about the promises of modern technology and how, according to Erich Fromm, these have not paid off.
How can we apply Erich Fromm’s criticism of technology to our everyday lives? Instead of catapulting us into a utopia of eternal youth and affluence, modern technology has condemned us to a life under constant surveillance, is destroying the planet, and, in the form of AI, now threatening to take away human employment on a grand scale. Rediscovering some of the ancient skills that we all once had may provide a way out of the problem.
This article is part of The Ultimate Guide to the Philosophy of Erich Fromm.
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Technology, capitalism and obsolescence
This kind of technological progress is particularly dangerous in combination with capitalism, which naturally leads to perverse strategies like planned obsolescence: the construction of technical devices that are intended to break a short time after their period of warranty is over, so that the customer has to buy the same thing again.
Having grown up in the logic of the capitalist system, most of us do see the point: if things kept working forever, there wouldn’t be enough demand for them to justify the existence of the factories that make them. But we also have to realise that we are not talking about pottery made of clay or chairs made of natural wood that will eventually decay and be recycled in nature. These things actually do keep for hundreds of years, as antique furniture shops and ancient vases found in excavations testify. What we are throwing away with wild abandon are products that are, for the most part, not recyclable: electronics that will leach heavy metals into the environment while they decompose; batteries that contain precious rare earth metals (in 2019, Tesla warned of a shortage of rare earth metals used in battery production, despite the fact that these can, actually, be recycled); and plastics of all kinds that decompose in nature and enter the our own food chain in the form of microplastics, now already found in many water sources and inside our bodies.
Source: centennialbulb.org
In California, there is one lightbulb that has been burning since 1901. It now even has its own Wikipedia page. This proves that lightbulbs, often a symbol for throwaway technology, could easily last a lifetime – if the companies that make them didn’t put their profits above both customer convenience and the environment. Meanwhile, the lightbulb industry has pushing us for decades towards fluorescent, energy saving lamps – which is, where the energy is concerned, surely a good thing; but these lamps contain mercury and other poisonous materials that again end up in the environment after the lamp’s useful life is over.
The most infuriating example for planned obsolescence is what both Apple and Google …
Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)
