Editing Technological utopianism (section)

==History==

===From the 19th to mid-20th centuries===

[[Karl Marx]] believed that [[science]] and [[democracy]] were the right and left hands of what he called the move from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. He argued that advances in science helped delegitimize the rule of kings and the power of the [[Christian Church]].<ref name="Hughes 2004">{{cite book| author = Hughes, James | title = Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future | publisher = Westview Press | year = 2004 | isbn = 978-0-8133-4198-9 | author-link = James Hughes (sociologist)}}</ref>

19th-century [[Classical liberalism|liberals]], [[Socialism|socialists]], and [[Republicanism|republicans]] often embraced techno-utopianism. [[Radicalism (historical)|Radicals]] like [[Joseph Priestley]] pursued scientific investigation while advocating democracy. [[Robert Owen]], [[Charles Fourier]] and [[Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon|Henri de Saint-Simon]] in the early 19th century inspired communalists{{who?|date=May 2022}} with their visions of a future scientific and [[technological evolution]] of humanity using reason. Radicals seized on [[Darwinism|Darwinian evolution]] to validate the idea of [[social progress]]. [[Edward Bellamy]]'s [[Utopian socialism|socialist utopia]] in ''[[Looking Backward]]'', which inspired hundreds of socialist clubs in the late 19th century [[United States]] and a national political party, was as highly technological as Bellamy's imagination. For Bellamy and the [[Fabian Society|Fabian Socialist]]s, socialism was to be brought about as a painless corollary of industrial development.<ref name="Hughes 2004"/>

Marx and [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]] saw more pain and conflict involved, but agreed about the inevitable end. [[Marxism|Marxists]] argued that the advance of technology laid the groundwork not only for the creation of a new society, with [[social ownership|different property relations]], but also for the emergence of new human beings reconnected to nature and themselves. At the top of the agenda for [[Empowerment|empowered]] [[proletarian]]s was "to increase the total [[productive forces]] as rapidly as possible". The 19th and early 20th century Left, from [[Social democracy|social democrats]] to [[Communism|communists]], were focused on [[industrialization]], [[economic development]] and the promotion of reason, science, and the idea of [[Progress (history)|progress]].<ref name="Hughes 2004"/> 

According to historian Asif Siddiqi, technological utopianism was a "millenarian mantra" in the [[Soviet Union]] from its inception.<ref name=Siddiqi>{{cite book|last=Siddiqi|first=Asif|title=The Red Rockets' Glare: Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination, 1857-1957|date=2010|pages=5, 98|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0521897600}}</ref> The [[Bolsheviks]] imagined "a world of magnificent factories and mechanized agriculture that produced all of society's necessities," a new socialist machine age.<ref name=Josephson>{{cite book|last=Josephson|first=Paul|title=Would Trotsky Wear a Bluetooth? Technological Utopianism Under Socialism, 1917–1989|date=2010|pages=61-63, 123, 159|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|location=Baltimore|isbn=978-0801898419}}</ref> Siddiqi writes that "this obsession with the power of science and technology to remake society was partly rooted in crude Marxism, but much of it derived from the Bolsheviks' own vision to remake Russia into a modern state, one which would compare and compete with the leading capitalist nations in forging a new path to the future."<ref name=Siddiqi/> From the 1930s onwards, Soviet technological utopianism embraced a populist view of technological achievements, which Siddiqi summarizes as "technology for the masses."<ref name=Siddiqi/> Soviet science fiction was heavily focused on future technology, and often depicted a convergence between technological utopia and socialist utopia.<ref name=Siddiqi/> 

Sovietologist Paul Josephson argued that most strains of Soviet technological utopianism emphasized technology was apolitical, "serving the profit motive and the industrialist under capitalism, but benefiting all humanity under socialism."<ref name=Josephson/> To avoid technological dependence on capitalist states, the Soviet Union and other socialist governments influenced by its narratives sought to create domestic technological innovations, supported by autarkic engineering communities and supply chains.<ref name=Josephson/> 

Some technological utopians promoted [[eugenics]]. Holding that in studies of families, such as the [[The Jukes family|Jukes]] and [[Kallikaks]], science had proven that many traits such as criminality and alcoholism were hereditary, many advocated the sterilization of those displaying negative traits. Forcible sterilization programs were implemented in several states in the United States.<ref>Haller, Mark ''Eugenics: Hereditarian attitudes in American thought'' (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963)</ref>

[[H. G. Wells]] in works such as ''[[The Shape of Things to Come]]'' promoted technological utopianism.

To many philosophers, the horrors of [[World War II]] and the [[Holocaust]], as [[Theodor Adorno]] underlined, seemed to shatter the ideal of [[Condorcet]] and other thinkers of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], which commonly equated [[scientific progress]] with social progress.<ref name="Adorno1983">{{cite book|last=Adorno|first=Theodor W.|title=Prisms|url=https://archive.org/details/prisms0000ador|url-access=registration|access-date=31 March 2011|date=29 March 1983|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-51025-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/prisms0000ador/page/34 34]}}</ref>

===From late 20th and early 21st centuries===

{{quotation|The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1989-06-14 |title=Reagan Gets A Red Carpet From British (Published 1989) |work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/14/world/reagan-gets-a-red-carpet-from-british.html |access-date=2023-08-12 |last1=Rule |first1=Sheila}}</ref>|[[Ronald Reagan]]|14 June 1989}}

A movement of techno-utopianism began to flourish again in the [[dot-com company|dot-com]] culture of the 1990s, particularly in the West Coast of the United States, especially based around [[Silicon Valley]]. The [[Californian Ideology]] was a set of beliefs combining [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] and [[Anti-authoritarianism|anti-authoritarian]] attitudes from the [[counterculture of the 1960s]] with techno-utopianism and support for [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] economic policies. It was reflected in, reported on, and even actively promoted in the pages of ''[[Wired Magazine|Wired]]'' magazine, which was founded in San Francisco in 1993 and served for a number years as the "bible" of its adherents.<ref name="Borsook 1996">{{cite journal |author=Borsook, Paulina |author-link=Paulina Borsook |year=1996 |title=Cyberselfishness |url=https://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1996/07/borsook.html?welcome=true |url-status=dead |journal=Mother Jones |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929125249/https://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1996/07/borsook.html?welcome=true |archive-date=2007-09-29 |access-date=2007-02-06}}</ref><ref name="Borsook 2000">{{cite book|author = Borsook, Paulina|title = Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech| publisher = PublicAffairs|year = 2000|isbn = 978-1-891620-78-2}}</ref><ref name="Barbrook and Cameron 2000">{{cite journal |last1=Barbrook |first1=Richard |last2=Cameron |first2=Andy |year=2000 |title=The Californian Ideology |url=http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/theory-californianideology.html |journal=Science as Culture |access-date=2007-02-06}}</ref>

This form of techno-utopianism reflected a belief that technological change revolutionizes human affairs, and that digital technology in particular – of which the [[Internet]] was but a modest harbinger – would increase personal freedom by freeing the individual from the rigid embrace of bureaucratic big government. "Self-empowered knowledge workers" would render traditional hierarchies redundant; digital communications would allow them to escape the modern city, an "obsolete remnant of the [[industrial age]]".<ref name="Borsook 1996"/><ref name="Borsook 2000"/><ref name="Barbrook and Cameron 2000"/>

Similar forms of "digital utopianism" has often entered in the political messages of party and social movements that point to the [[World Wide Web|Web]] or more broadly to [[new media]] as harbingers of political and social change.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Natale|first1=Simone|last2=Ballatore|first2=Andrea|date=2014-01-01|title=The web will kill them all: new media, digital utopia, and political struggle in the Italian 5-Star Movement|journal=Media, Culture & Society|volume=36|issue=1|pages=105–121|doi=10.1177/0163443713511902|s2cid=73517559|issn=0163-4437|url=https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/14858/1/2014-Natale_and_Ballatore-The_Web_will_kill_them_all.pdf}}</ref> Its adherents claim it transcended conventional "[[Left–right politics|right/left]]" distinctions in [[politics]] by rendering politics obsolete. However, Western techno-utopianism disproportionately attracted adherents from the [[Right-libertarianism|libertarian right]] end of the political spectrum. Western techno-utopians often have a [[Economic liberalism|hostility toward government regulation]] and a belief in the superiority of the [[free market]] system. Prominent "[[oracles]]" of techno-utopianism included [[George Gilder]] and [[Kevin Kelly (editor)|Kevin Kelly]], an editor of ''Wired'' who also published several books.<ref name="Borsook 1996"/><ref name="Borsook 2000"/><ref name="Barbrook and Cameron 2000"/>

During the late 1990s dot-com boom, when the [[Dot-com bubble|speculative bubble]] gave rise to claims that an era of "permanent prosperity" had arrived, techno-utopianism flourished, typically among the small percentage of the population who were employees of Internet [[Startup company|startups]] and/or owned large quantities of high-tech stocks. With the subsequent [[Stock market crash|crash]], many of these dot-com techno-utopians had to rein in some of their beliefs in the face of the clear return of traditional economic reality.<ref name="Borsook 2000"/><ref name="Barbrook and Cameron 2000"/>

According to ''[[The Economist]]'', [[Wikipedia]] "has its roots in the [[techno-optimism]] that characterised the internet at the end of the 20th century. It held that ordinary people could use their computers as tools for liberation, education, and enlightenment."<ref>{{Cite news |date=9 January 2021 |title=Wikipedia is 20, and its reputation has never been higher |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/international/2021/01/09/wikipedia-is-20-and-its-reputation-has-never-been-higher |url-status=live |access-date=29 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221231224550/https://www.economist.com/international/2021/01/09/wikipedia-is-20-and-its-reputation-has-never-been-higher |archive-date=31 December 2022 |issn=0013-0613}}</ref>

In the late 1990s and especially during the first decade of the 21st century, [[technorealism]] and [[techno-progressivism]] are stances that have risen among advocates of [[technological change]] as critical alternatives to techno-utopianism.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://technorealism.org/|title=TECHNOREALISM|website=technorealism.org}}</ref>{{primary inline|date=September 2022}}<ref name="Carrico 2005">{{cite web|    author = Carrico, Dale|    title =  Technoprogressivism Beyond Technophilia and Technophobia|    year = 2005 |   url = http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2005/06/technoprogressivism-beyond.html| access-date=2007-01-28|    author-link = Dale Carrico}}</ref>{{SPS|date=September 2022}} However, technological utopianism persists in the 21st century as a result of new technological developments and their impact on society. For example, several [[Technical journalism|technical journalists]] and social commentators, such as [[Mark Pesce]], have interpreted the [[WikiLeaks]] phenomenon and the [[United States diplomatic cables leak]] in early December 2010 as a precursor to, or an incentive for, the creation of a techno-utopian [[Freedom of information laws by country|transparent society]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42148.html |title=The state, the press and a hyperdemocracy |publisher=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] |author=Mark Pesce |date=December 13, 2010}}</ref> [[Cyber-utopianism]], first coined by [[Evgeny Morozov]], is another manifestation of this, in particular in relation to the [[Internet]] and [[social networking]].

[[Nick Bostrom]] contends that the rise of [[machine superintelligence]] carries both [[existential risks]] and an extreme potential to improve the future, which might be realized quickly in the event of an [[intelligence explosion]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nick Bostrom on the birth of superintelligence |url=https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/superintelligence/ |access-date=2024-04-07 |website=Big Think}}</ref> In ''Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World'', he further explored ideal scenarios where human civilization reaches technological maturity and solves its diverse coordination problems. He listed some technologies that are theoretically achievable, such as [[cognitive enhancement]], [[reversal of aging]], [[Self-replicating spacecraft|self-replicating spacecrafts]], arbitrary sensory inputs (taste, sound...), or the precise control of motivation, mood, well-being and personality.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bostrom |first=Nick |title=Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World |date=March 27, 2024 |isbn=978-1646871643}}</ref>

In [[North Korea]], technological utopianism remains one of the key themes of the state's [[Juche]] ideology.<ref name=Josephson/> The pursuit of advanced strategic technologies is promoted as an integral part of autarkic economic development.<ref name=Josephson/> North Korean technological utopianism essentially rests on three narratives: the rejection of consumer society and culture, an emphasis on heavy industry, and a belief in the ability of the masses of workers to make great technological achievements under the [[Workers' Party of Korea]].<ref name=Josephson/> In practice, this has resulted in most of North Korea's technological resources being utilized for large scale, resource intensive, infrastructure and military projects, many of which have primarily symbolic importance.<ref name=Josephson/> Domestic innovations in nuclear and space sciences continue to play a major role in the state's propaganda narratives, which seek to portray North Korea as a modern regional power.<ref name=Josephson/>