Overview

From previous edition: Heidegger, Marcuse, and Ellul warned against the rise of a technological mass culture. Philosophy of technology has since turned away from such dystopic views, promoting instead the view that we shape technologies just as technologies shape us. Yet the rise of Big Data has exceeded our worst fears about Big Brother, leading us to again question whether technologies are empowering us or enslaving us. Rather than engage in endless debates about whether technologies are making us better or making us worse, Nolen Gertz investigates what we think “better” and “worse” mean, and what role this thinking has played in the creation of our technological world. This investigation is carried out by using Nietzsche’s philosophy of nihilism in order to explore the ways in which our values mediate how we design technologies and how we use technologies. Examining our technological practices—practices ranging from Netflix and Chill to Fitbit and Move to Twitter and Rage—reveals how our nihilism and

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9781538193273

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Reviews

"A hugely engaging book. Gertz manages to both provide a compelling and rich introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche and nihilism as well as avoid the all too common reductionism of popular discourse around technology. The book is a lively and convincing read, which thanks to its wide appeal and accessible and often dryly funny prose, deserves to find a wide audience far outside the often-narrow confines of academic philosophical discourse. -- ""LSE Review of Books"" A provocative and unsettling philosophical inquiry into our increasingly compulsive technological practices, revealing how our nihilism and our technologies have been raveled in a twist. -- ""Hong Kong Review of Books"" At times uncanny, yet thoroughly unsettling, Nihilism and Technology is an unquestionable synthesis of Nietzschean philosophy of nihilism brought to bear on our often overlooked uses and co-construction of technologies. A timely and original text that should be given exposure beyond the walls of the academy. Its philosophical rigour and treatment of human-technology relations makes it widely readable. It comes highly recommended. -- ""Prometheus"" Nolen Gertz is remarkably adept at translating Nietzche's analysis of nihilistic living--which looks at how we develop strategies for coping with a way of life that undermines our very humanity--into instantly recognizable terms. -- ""The New Atlantis"""

Author Information

Nolen Gertz is assistant professor of applied philosophy at the University of Twente, and a senior researcher at the 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology. He is the author of The Philosophy of War and Exile. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Forbes, and on ABC Australia.

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