The Age-Old Urge to Destroy Technology

In 1980, a group of French IT technicians set fire to the data archives of a multinational corporation in protest against computerization. They were not teenage hackers with naïve slogans, but IT workers who described their action as “an intelligent act of sabotage” against “the dangers of information technology and telematics.” It is strange to think that anger toward technology is by no means a recent phenomenon, but rather an ancient, almost instinctive impulse. The central argument is this: the impulse to rebel against and even destroy new technologies is not a passing fad of our digital age, but a recurring feature of human history. More importantly, it doesn’t stem solely from a fear of the new—often, it is a lucid, critical, even poetic response to the idea that technological progress is inevitable and always positive. In his book “Techno-Negative,” Thomas Dekeyser compiles stories that challenge the official narrative. It's not just the famous English Luddites, who smashed looms in the early 19th century to defend their jobs: in Paris in 1830, revolutionaries destroyed thousands of gas lanterns, which they saw as the eyes of the State watching over the streets. CLODO, the French group from the 1980s, went so far as to bomb regional computer archives, denouncing a society “where we connect like trains in a freight yard, desperately hoping to reduce chance.” Their fear? That digital recording would become an existential cage, a prison of data. While today it seems normal to feel uneasy about artificial intelligence threatening creative work or about social media undermining young people’s mental health, Dekeyser shows us that this feeling is as old as the word “technology” itself. He writes that even the ancient Greeks feared that technē—meaning the art of building, of engineering—carried with it something dark, almost demonic. It is no coincidence that they created very few durable machines, distrusting anything that could bring humans closer to the role of the gods or diminish the value of human beauty. In the Middle Ages, the Church associated technology with pride and diabolical temptation: a 12th-century chronicler accused Pope Sylvester II of using black magic to have a talking head built that could predict the future for him. Dekeyser summarizes the Church's position as follows: “The hidden condition of technology is sin.” With the Industrial Revolution, distrust turned into social conflict. Not only is there fear of machines replacing human labor, but also of people being reduced to cogs in a machine. A forgotten episode: in 17th-century Vienna, anyone who damaged a street lantern risked having their hand amputated. And it was not only Europeans who rejected technology: Osei Bonsu, the African king of the Ashanti, turned down gifts such as lathes and music boxes from the British, aware that these mechanisms were colonial Trojan horses. Yet those who resisted were immediately branded as backward, savage, and doomed to succumb. The paradox, Dekeyser points out, is that today, those who turn off their smartphones or choose slower technology are not just nostalgics: they are performing a political act, a small act of sabotage against the dominant narrative. But here is a perspective you don't often hear: resisting technology serves not only to halt the new, but also to remind us that the way we accept it is never truly neutral. Acts of sabotage—even though they often fail, like those of the Luddites or CLODO—help us to question the idea of inevitable progress. And perhaps, as Dekeyser writes, “there is not enough hatred for this technological world.” The final sentence: Rebellion against technology is not ignorance, but an ancient way of defending human freedom. If, while listening, you thought that you too would sometimes like to light a match against certain algorithms, on Lara Notes you can indicate this with I'm In – it's not a 'like,' it's the gesture of someone who identifies with this perspective. And if this story comes to mind the next time someone complains about ChatGPT or a new gadget, on Lara Notes you can mark the conversation with Shared Offline — because certain ideas need to be discussed, not just listened to. This piece comes from The New Yorker and has saved you at least twelve minutes of dense reading.