HACK BASICS (theory):
Intellectual tradition of criticism of technological progress

When: Wednesday, August 2, 20:00
Languages: English; or Russian if everyone understands it

Nowadays we often hear concerns about modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, alternate or augmented reality, neural interfaces and genetic engineering. In the announced talk I'll try to show that this isn't a modern trend but criticism of technological progress is an important part of public debates since the very beginning of mankind. I'll cover a plenty of authors with different levels of concern, appreciation and radicalism, from Plato through Orwell to Kaczynski. Also it will be shown how the hacker culture tends to solve the problem with a good balance between concern and respect to technology.