Someday, it’s possible that surveillance technology may become sophisticated enough to read your mind as you’re walking down the street. If that dystopian future comes to pass, you’ll probably want one of these stylish thought-blocking accessories: When they detect scanning …
While many of us dream of green forests and a restored natural world, there are others who embrace the machine to the extent of desiring to become one. Echoing the horrors of dystopian sci-fi novels, transhumanism and singularity advocates celebrate …
Since the anti-wizard who disenchanted the world was Capitalism, we must assume that Capitalism will have to vanish by evolutionary necessity in order for re-enchantment to triumph.
Some readers have wondered why a print publication with such a strong, longtime criticism of modern technology would bother with a website.
“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously; any sound that Winston made, above a whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen …
The Korean Anarchist Federation hosted an international peace conference October 28-31 in Seoul. Approximately two dozen delegates from 15 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America attended, with all expenses paid for by the Korean comrades. It was a …
We live in a technological life-world, more so by the hour. Our ecology is now all too largely technology, which has been irreversible, directional, and cumulative. The process that now characterizes civilization is a generalized technicization. Its success is measurable …
FE staff note: Mike Ochs, a reader from Pennsylvania, sent us an obituary from The Nation for one of its former editors (1970-1976) Emile Capouya–saying “I thought of your efforts when I read it.” Remembering Capouya’s radical prose, Ted Solotaroff …
Critiques of economic development, material progress, technology and industry are not a discovery of the Fifth Estate. Human beings resisted the incursions from the earliest days, and many of North America’s best-known 19th century writers, among them Melville, Hawthorn and …
For those who may argue an “appropriate,” “soft” technology characterized by solar, wind and water power against the massive nuclear and coal-burning forms taken by “hard” technology, the photograph below should raise some problems. Pictured is a machine designed and …
Ann Arbor—A nonprofit exhibition and sale for the benefit of EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology, Inc.) will take place at the studio of artist Robert Rauschenberg from June 5 to 7.
This issue’s theme opens up a universe of vigorous discussion and argument. All three concepts invoked by the title can be defined differently, depending on contexts, philosophies, ideologies, and world-views. The subject of technology often raises emotional responses as we …
Staff writers at the Fifth Estate collective have been vigorous critics of technology for more than two decades. Rather than isolate particular tools or situations for a contextual attack, our challenges to the totalitarian tenets of the megamachine look to …
The old fashioned mail surveillance described on the opposite page is surprising since now most government snooping is done by modern technology. Apparently, however, the old-fashioned, J. Edgar Hoover-type is still around, although it too is being replaced by technology.
MILITARIZED POLICE AROUND THE WORLD routinely use what they designate as “riot control agents” against their rebellious civilian populations. Because the substances travel with the whims of the wind and are often used in large quantities, a person does not …
As the importance of social technologies increases, many users fail to pay sufficient critical attention to the political incursions that such technologies invite.
FE Note: This is a response to “More Minneapolis Anarchy,” the letters beginning on page 15 of this issue.
CAUTION! There are terrorists among us. THEY infest this planet from Washington to New York, from Nuremburg to Moscow, from Peking to Santiago. THEY detain millions of hostages every day and give them the ultimatum—become a slave to the state …
To the hysterical marxist-leninist cult, the Spartacist League, the above photos from their publication illustrate their view of what is possible for Asian women: “A woman computer technician in Soviet Central Asia [or] an enslaved Afghan woman under the veil.” …
Well, there’s not much “organized” activity for June, since all the cinemas have run their course until the Fall. But with nice weather here at last it shouldn’t be too hard to enjoy ourselves.