Has Technology Ever Improved the Human Condition?

Reflections on Blockchain

I get that the wheel, the printing press, and the steam engine make it possible to move more quickly, coordinate human action better, increase gains from trade, re-conceptualize our political life, and so on…but have these improved the human condition in a more basic sense?

Law is a kind of social technology that restrains the worst human impulses. Centralized power mediates tribal conflicts in such a way that people can enjoy the benefits of less infighting. But has any social technology succeeded in eradicating the human propensity for self-dealing or self-delusion?

Perhaps the mathematization of certain questions has allowed people to follow an impersonal truth rather than opinion or intuition, thus allowing for space travel and biomedical innovation. But has a better understanding of STEM, or stronger AI, made us less biased, over all?

The Pauline critique of the Law—that it can adjust behavior, but not the source of the behavior—might just as well be a critique of Technology, and thus, of Technocracy: We can improve human outcomes through innovation, but not the human character.

It is in the context of this line of questioning that we might dwell on the utopian aspirations of Blockchain Technology.