The technological bluff - Ellul, Jacques; Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans, 1990)
Preliminary thesis: The great innovation -- 1. Multiple progress -- 2. Social discourse -- 3. The great innovation -- Excursus on Simon, The ultimate resource -- 4. The aristocrats -- Part I. Uncertainty -- I. Ambivalence -- 1. All technical progress has its price -- 2. Technical progress raises more and greater problems than it solves -- 3. The harmful effects of technical progress are inseparable from its beneficial effects -- 4. Technical progress has a great number of unforeseen effects -- 5. Our lack of awareness -- II. Unpredictability -- 1. Introduction to unpredictability -- 2. Our failure to foresee and relative unpredictability -- 3. Conditions that make forecasting impossible -- 4. Absolute unpredictability -- 5. Foresight -- III. Double feedback -- 1. Positive feedback -- 2. Negative feedback -- IV. Internal contradictions -- 1. Thresholds of reversal -- 2. Fragility -- 3. Compensations -- Part II. Discourse -- V. Humanism -- VI. Is there a technical culture? -- 1. Imperatives and hesitations -- 2. What can we call culture? -- 3. A technical culture is impossible -- VII. Human mastery over techniques -- VIII. Rationality -- IX. A sketch of the ideologies of science -- 1. Classical ideology -- 2. The new ideology -- Excursus on science and faith -- X. Experts -- Part III. The triumph of the absurd -- XI. Technical progress and the philosophy of the absurd -- 1. Technical absurdity -- 2. Economic absurdity -- 3. Human absurdity -- 4. Conclusion -- XII. Unreason -- 1. Dissociation -- 2. Paradigms -- 3. The main areas of unreason -- 4. Complementary examples -- XIII. The costs: The new relation between technique and political economy -- XIV. What use?: The world of gadgets -- 1. Needs -- 2. The world of gadgets -- XV. Waste -- 1. Private waste -- 2. Social and collective waste -- 3. Responsibility -- XVI. The bluff of productivity -- 1. The state and science -- 2. Productivity -- 3. Entropy -- Part IV. Fascinated people -- XVII. From information to telematics -- 1. Information -- 2. Television -- 3. Telematics -- XVIII. Advertising -- XIX. Diversions -- 1. Games -- 2. Sports -- 3. The automobile -- 4. Mechanistic art -- 5. Ultimate idiocies -- XX. Terrorism in the velvet glove of technology -- Last words: -- 1. Inventing humanity -- 2. The great design.
Translation of: Bluff technologique.
Keywords: Technology Philosophy.Technology Social aspects