This page provides a glossary of terms beginning ‘T’. Each term usually provides links to other relevant materials on the FRAW site, and/or to Wikipedia and other on-line sources.
‘Technocracy’ (a compounding of the label ‘technology’, and the suffix ‘-cracy’, denoting the governance of society) is an analysis of power relations that describe the bureaucratic state and technical elite that emerges from a particular phase of industrial and technological development. In Medieval times, the technocratic elite were monarchies and state religions – since religion controlled knowledge just as much as it controlled the powers of the monarch. As the world commercialized and industrialized, it was the mercantile class who administered businesses and systems of imperial trade, which flowed from mass manufacturing, who controlled society. In the modern era, especially as Neoliberalism has weakened the role of the state through economic globalization, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or economists have as much power as many government officials in deciding state policy; and with many Western states now moving services on-line, Internet platforms have taken-on the role of service providers in lieu of the roles once performed by states. Unless this synergism between technology and bureaucracy is understood – as explored by figures such as Jacques Ellul, or Lewis Mumford, or David Graeber – it is not possible to understand how political and economic power are enforced within the Technological Society.
A ‘technofix’ is an action, usually based around modifying industrial processes or regulatory procedures, intended to fix some public ill that has suddenly become a political or media talking point. Technofixes, and especially the call for ‘more research’ which usually precedes such actions, are a delaying measure intended to allow ‘business as usual’ to continue unabated while undertaking some ameliorating stepe to lessen the impacts of concern. However, these actions are intended not to question or criticize the political or economic structures which underlie the problem, and therefore do not create the kinds of system-wide structural changes which address the problem seriously.
While ‘progress’ has been a theme in debates since The Renaissance, within the framework of Modernism that has been reduced to a generic mechanistic process – ‘technological progress’: Today ‘progress’ is measured within inflexible economic and technological boundaries, amplifying the dominant Neoliberal narrative, rather than the commonality of all humanity; and within that framework it is the ever-greater speed of consumer and corporate technologies which directs change. The idea of improving society is no longer a matter of arts, culture, or philosophy (which is how it was first framed in The Renaissance), it has become a reliance upon growing technological dominance, and the shaping of society around more elaborate technological processes. Today ‘progress’ is simply a synonym for Neoliberalism’s ever greater mechanization of society within a strict economic dogma – and it is this technological dogma which Neofeudalism has used to turn ‘progress’ into a project for the ever-greater economic control of global society.
Following-on from the Industrial Revolution, the Technological Revolution of the first-half of the Twentieth Century saw the application of first electric motors, and then electrical control systems more generally, to the operation of industrial processes. Electrification massively increased industrial efficiency: Firstly because of the higher efficiency of electric generation over steam power; and secondly, because electrical control systems allowed more complex machines to operate with far less people involved in production. This process reached its height in the Second World War, and spurred by the evolution of micro-electronics after 1950 initiated the Information Revolution.
A technology trap is an existential crises created by the reliance of society upon certain forms of technology, and the economic processes which operate around those technologies: Some of those are ‘weak’ traps, such as when the choice of a particular brand or type of technology locks the user into that single system, preventing change without an expensive wholesale replacement; others are ‘strong’ traps, operating at community- or society-level, where past choices lock society into certain actions and should that system fail then the entire society is at risk of collapse. The electrification of society is often flagged as a key example, where if the power grid completely fails then everything grinds to a halt and may take many weeks to repair. Another is the reliance of many human societies on cereal agriculture, or other single crops which support most of society, where a breakdown in supply creates social unrent and/or famine. The key problem is that technology inevitably simplifies, deskilling its human users from the knowledge which existed before its adoption, and making it very difficult to create structural change because of the impact that would have for society as a whole.
A temporal illusion is the deliberate engineering of a persons’ perception of time passing, or permanence, or historical continuity, within their everyday lives: After travelling down a road at high speed in a car to a long period, decelerating to walking pace in a car everything seems to move in slow motion; when we are engaged in a long periods of concentration (e.g. video games or ‘doom scrolling’) we can lose track of time; and the scale of a physical development, or the presentation of an organization, can give the impression of power or permanence when in fact it may be on the verge of collapse. Humans are by nature prisioners of cultural traditions and learned patterns of action. By changing how we experience the passing of events or of traditions it is possible to make people believe certain ideas. Temporal illusions are key to political and economic power since the sense of permanence or historical persistence which make them appear inevitable – when in fact their structure may only have existed for a few decades. The ability to play with our perception of time is also key to the way that cinema, or theatre, and especially immersive video games, create a sense of time passing or historic structure which directs our attention toward certain ends while disregarding our immediate senses. Once a person realizes how perceptions of time, tradition, or historic continuity can be engineered to create an impression of power or certainty, these illusions can be deconstructed in order to truly understand the intent at the root of the illusion.
The ‘tobacco industry playbook’ is a set of business and public relations strategies – initially developed in the 1960s and 1970s by leading tobacco manufacturers – to first deny, then obfuscate, then delay, then forestall action by regulators to protect the public from harmful products or processes. From climate change, to forever chemicals, to emerging problems such as high frequency radio waves, industries use their economic power and influence, both within government but especially within expert groups and academia, to resist calls for research, investigations, and regulatory action. From paying allegedly independent ‘experts’ to exonerate the company or criticize its opponents, and using the media to create confusing or distracting reports, companies seek to create ‘fear, uncertainty, and doubt’] (FUD) so that a consensus for action is cannot be reached. This is because the levels of profit being made by such industries far exceed the costs of paying politicians or PR agencies to spin these tactics; and more importantly, by creating a sufficiently long window before regulation takes place, industries can divest activities and restructure liabilities in order to avoid paying large damages when they must finally admit the harms being caused.