Thoughts on Tech Agnostic - Introduction - Beginnings of Seeing "Tech" Through a Religious Lens

This is I suppose the first part of a book report, so I can parse through the information I read on this, express feelings outwardly to the something, and feels fairly ironic considering the messages this book presents even just in its 25 page introduction. I find this book covers thoughts I have already presented to myself, that the social spaces of the internet and the world wide web have brought are slowly becoming less inherently pagan, for lack of a better term, and are becoming one whole Tech. Greg M. Epstein, the writer of this book, begins with a concise sprawl on the influence of Constantine the Great, and the formation of Christianity into the religion it shows itself as historically, and how it correlates to the very contemporary pivot that Tech has taken in our time.

I think I understand the concepts provided, ways of seeing things religiously have always been possible, as at least from the perspective I have been given in my studies, and affirmed in this book, religion is primarily the total social ties of a group that share a common belief that then can provide communal aid, comfort, ritual, value, ideals, and edge case benefits, all packaged into a ideological group. Here we see how technology in its current state provides all of those points. We live online, socialize across the landscapes the internet provides (that irony I spoke of in the first chapter aligns here), and use this device for near everything that isn't required to be put directly into our bodies as sustenance, and even it can provide that to those in need of it. It in itself is a culture, or is essential to the culture tied to it, and as something I can speak on with a certain experience in-depth, it provides a place where you can, as John F. Haught provided to this book, show a sense of reassurance to the world. It provides a place where you can lay back and relax, things become not your problem and you become detached from feelings of shame, or guilt, as you feel that you are not the creator of your own problems.

A strange way I would go out of my way to view that is through the way people interact in (commonly more competitive) video games, as silly as it may sound. Some people find the opportunity and allure of anonymity as something to use to escape the problems of their own life, and to attack other people in lieu of placing any sort of self worth into themselves. This in my mind, comes from being in a position of "power" they seek that fulfills their sense of worth that they cannot find within the love they must give themselves, or the comfort and vulnerability to search inward, instead of lash outward, which from secondhand sources of friends I have known that have been through a much darker world than I, is more common in the modern religious structures than many would like to admit.

The structure religion provides can be seen in the new idea of Tech, which I'm fairly certain the author presents in a way as a new word, separate from "technology" or "technological", but instead as a proper noun in the way the word God is seen, as Tech itself being a single, identifiable thing. That's a strange place to really go to in my mind, but considering how the word is used in common conversation nowadays, it doesn't really seem too off. Tech as a term then is what is presented as the new multi-billion person community of people who use tech at almost every single moment of their day. This is visible from Desktops for work to watches for checking messages on the machine already in your pocket, we are covered in its regalia, and show it proudly to the world whenever possible.

This is a side-note to the idea of carrying around this technology anywhere, our new regalia and all that, I wanted to comment on a metaphor made within the book that turned out to be more literal than intended. Page 13, the Author comments on how we search for the sublime to fulfill ourselves as people, and how technology is always pushing the sublime to be something monetized, with a sense of grandeur, and the one used was slot machines, a machine purely built to pull the eyes, to drag attention and cause a sense of awe-inspiring magic that is there, and compared our smart watches and phones to the slot machine, yet with the recent surge in prediction markets (commonly seen as legal gambling, I would claim), it is quite literally true that we have moved the sublime, the awe-inspiring experiences, into our watches and phones. Our phones, when over dramatized, are slot machines.

Similarly to contemporary Christianity, Tech also performs a grander effect, referencing the past two paragraphs, in which I would claim that it fills the role that religion provides. An example I have that is similar is the Protestant work ethic and how its mere existence as commonplace in the United States has made me wish I had a job since I was fifteen. As someone who is personally agnostic, I never found the place that is that ritual location, where I see the same people at select times to enact in the same things that religion apply broadly (communal aid, comfort, ritual, value, ideals, etc.). This fulfills the same purpose that tech does in many people's lives now, and tech now does something similar, for those who completely commit in the more working class individuals, they are submitting to a higher power, they are in the same boat as those who worshiped Constantine the Greats' new Christianity, people who need something to believe in, while the world feels like it is forever slipping away, and a group of people who need that same level of reassurance. The author through this book intends to drag the reader through the steps of understanding technology and its grasp on you, and becoming in some fashion tech agnostic.

I myself, before I reach much farther into this book, hope I am in the ways I imagine "Tech Agnostic", but even the clutching of Tech sometimes breaks my feeble mind and pierces past my veil of reason, yet I fight daily as a countermeasure to the easy life's ideal world we are being advertised on every billboard in the west, to think openly about what I am being provided. I will return later with more chapters.