Hanna Arendt

I was at a city hall meeting in Beaverton, Oregon, the other day when a few questions I had for the presenters dropped jaws. We’ll get to that later, the jaw-dropping effect I and those of my ilk have when we end up in the controlled boardrooms and chambers of the controllers – bureaucrats, public-private clubs like Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and both political operatives and those who liken themselves as the great planners of the world moving communities and housing and public commons around a giant chessboard to make things better for and more efficient in spite of us.

Humanity indeed finds itself embedded in a technological world. This is a world where human beings consume technology, and where technology in turn incorporates human identities. It shapes human interaction, and it shapes the future. There have been many unforeseen byproducts from the advancement of technology and technologic science. The nonplussing lack of “miracles,” and astounding strides in progress, for example, reveal the deep-seated complexities that arise from the dynamic relationships inherent to science, technology and human society.