The Technological Society

What Hacker News says

1. thomaswoodsonMay 2026
   New around here, but… For those interested in a deep dive, I highly recommend reading the Technological Society, by French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul.
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2. rramadassMay 2026
   Nice pertinent reference to Jacques Ellul's work. The wikipedia page is a bit sparse but the article Confronting the Technological Society (linked in the bibliography) is a must read to understand the main ideas - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/confronting-the-...
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3. DyslexicAtheistNov 2025
   a better starting point for technologists to engage with philosophy than Nietzsche would be Jacques Ellul's La Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Technological_Society

   this article feels like the authors were trying to pander to those few people working in AI research telling them how crucial philosophy is "to the future of humanity". When in reality it has always been important long before AI came along and not only for AI but also for anyone working in Tech or any subject in Tech. so it is nothing more than news-jacking (or buzzword jacking) of a topic that has always been important but probably not in the isolated / cherry-picked manner that it is being done (isolating the topic to AI, or Nietzsche).

   And the only thing that this article highlights if anything, is that we we should have never defunded the humanities.

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4. rramadassSep 2025
   Oh Man; You need to shake off your naivete asap!

   Our entire Social/Economic/Psychological value system has been completely remade to value only Money and Power. Humanity/Ethics/Morals/Community/Individuals are only useful in so far as they sustain the system in pursuit of the above objectives else they are all just a hindrance and must be manipulated/overlooked/removed.

   Our very mastery of Science and its consequent Technology has enabled the exercise of all "our" (i.e. Individuals/Groups/Corporations/Governments/etc.) powers in service of Money/Power to a degree unimaginable before the Scientific Revolution. Nothing matters but only the sustaining of "The System" which has taken a life of its own independent of the Humans (and other life forms) who inhabit it.

   To explain using pop-culture references, you are mere disposable "Soylent Green" in "The Matrix" all of which are embedded in omniscient "The System".

   References:

   1) Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_Nationalism

   2) Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control by Kathleen Taylor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing:_The_Science_of_T...

   3) Reflexive Control - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_control

   4) Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes by Jacques Ellul - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_M...

   5) The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Technological_Society

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5. rramadassAug 2025
   Jacques Ellul's classic The Technological Society is very relevant here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Technological_Society

   What he said in the 1950's has come true now;

   From Confronting the Technological Society - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/confronting-the-...

   Rather, it [i.e. Technique] is “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency … in every field of human activity. ... The machine has created the modern, industrial world, but it was originally a poor fit for society; technique was the process of adapting social conditions to the smooth churning of the machine,”

   Ellul distills the essential characteristics of technique to a list of seven. The two most obvious ones, he says, have been addressed so often by other scholars that he can set them aside: rationality (for example, systematization and standardization) and artificiality (subjugation and often the destruction of nature). The other five characteristics of technique are less widely discussed. They are automatism, which is the process of technical means asserting themselves according to mathematical standards of efficiency; self-augmentation, the process of technical advances multiplying at a growing rate and building on each other, while the number of technicians also increases; wholeness, the feature of all individual techniques and their various uses sharing a common essence; universalism, the fact that technique and technicians are spreading worldwide; and autonomy, the phenomenon of technique as a closed system, “a reality in itself … with its special laws and its own determinations.”

   Also see Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society Overview - https://medium.com/@NimaCheraghi/jacques-ellul-the-technolog...

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6. rramadassAug 2025
   Jacques Ellul's two classics The Technological Society and Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (wikipedia has an excellent overview - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_M...) should be required reading for every educated person today. With the rise of AI and its unconstrained applications his works seem even more prescient than before.

   Technology and "Technique" have become so inherent and intrinsic to modern society and life today that hardly any intellectual is able to stand apart from it and critique it like Ellul was able to. We are already in the early stages of a social dystopia but are unable to recognize it since the paintings of it (by vested interests) are so very seductive.

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