Technoableism is a belief in the power of technology that considers the elimination of disability a good thing, something we should strive for. It’s a classic form of ableism—bias against disabled people, bias in favor of nondisabled ways of life. Technoableism is the use of technologies to reassert those biases, often under the guise of empowerment.
Belonging Is a Right, Not a Reward
CW: Ableism Disabled people have been made to prove their worth for too long. Society sees value in work, earnings, or productivity, and anyone who doesn’t meet these standards is expected to…
Smart glasses controversy sidelines the benefits for disabled people | Letter
Letters: Guardian readers reflect on the ableism rife in the debate about Ray-Ban Meta eyewear, despite the life-changing difference they can make
Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who... book by Ashley Shew
Buy a cheap copy of Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who... book by Ashley Shew. When bioethicist and professor Ashley Shew became a self-described hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus, there was no returning... Free Shipping on all orders over $20.
Out of Sight; Out of Mind - Ewan’s Blog
Disability did not become fashionable. Disabled people became harder to ignore.
A Real Political Economy of Technology - The Ideas Letter
Two technological futures are competing for political and material priority: generative AI and the green transition. Benanav argues that while AI is marketed as a world-reordering breakthrough, its productivity gains…
The Socialist Charcuterie Board - The Ideas Letter
Taking issue with Benanav’s institutional vision of a democratic political economy of technology, Morozov argues that generative AI exposes a deeper problem that socialism has yet to solve: how to…
Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet
It’s not about whether technology is inherently good or bad, liberating or oppressive. Architecture shapes incentives; incentives shape outcomes.
AI as Normal Technology
The normal technology frame is about the relationship between technology and society. It rejects technological determinism, especially the notion of AI itself as an agent in determining its future. It is guided by lessons from past technological revolutions, such as the slow and uncertain nature of technology adoption and diffusion. It also emphasizes continuity between the past and the future trajectory of AI in terms of societal impact and the role of institutions in shaping this trajectory.
Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object & Tool
Uses of advanced artificial intelligence are changing how societies organize labor, govern, produce knowledge, and make meaning. In light of these developments, this essay argues that AI models, tools, and systems pose three interrelated imperatives for social science: they demand renewed attention to social theories of how technology, human experience, and social order are entangled; they require study as objects of inquiry in their own right; and they offer capabilities that may transform—or upend—the practice of social investigation itself. From Weber’s analysis of rationalization to Du Bois’s study of technology and inequality to contemporary scholarship on algorithmic governance, the essay examines what social science distinctively offers: the capacity to historicize the apparently unprecedented, to trace connections across scales, and to center those most affected by technological change. It identifies how algorithmic systems are remaking the distribution of opportunity and risk as a central task of social inquiry and asks what futures social science might help bring into being.
Practical Decentralization
The point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology.
AI, I tried to love you – Writings and rehearsals by Nathan Schneider
Among my peers who study the cultures and economies surrounding technology, I often find myself more tech-positive than most. On the whole I like computers, like the internet, and like in general the emergent human creativity that these things have enabled and revealed. A source of my appreciation is that I expend a lot of effort on the practice of “slow computing,” which is to say, choosing tools and technical communities that I can feel in right relationship with. I tend to approach new socio-technologies (like gig economies, blockchains, and social media) not from a perspective of why is this so bad? so much as asking how could we do this right?
Functional Information: Towards Synthesis of Biosemiotics and Cybernetics | MDPI
Biosemiotics and cybernetics are closely related, yet they are separated by the boundary between life and non-life: biosemiotics is focused on living organisms, whereas cybernetics is applied mostly to non-living artificial devices.
The 1989 CBC Massey Lectures, "The Real World of Technology"
Technology has always been a part of human existence. Today though, says the experimental physicist, Ursula M. Franklin, technology has large-scale effects on culture itself. Ursula Franklin is an experimental physicist, University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, a former board member of the National Research Council and the Science Council of Canada, and a companion of the Order...
How Open Protocols Are a Key Part of Regenerative Technology - Identity Woman
TLDR Infographic: What does it actually take for digital technology to be regenerative? The question matters because most of the digital tools being adopted right now in bioregional movements, community organizing, regenerative finance, and the broader systemic-change ecosystem are being chosen without anyone asking it carefully. The slide decks are beautiful. The intentions are sincere. […]
Pluralistic: Digital sewer socialism (08 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Hardly a day goes by without my getting an email from someone looking for a way to do good with technology. From computer science students thinking about post-grad careers to seasoned coders with decades of experience, there's an army of hackers looking for a way to turn their expertise into public goods.
Hyperproblems: New Ways of Doing and Communicating Science - Hyperproblems
Hyperproblems: Hyperproblems are scientific challenges whose scale, complexity, novelty and interdependence overwhelm traditional research models, requiring…