Conspiratio: 5th issue

Conspiratio #5 is online. You can read it here.

In Tools for Conviviality, Illich warned of crossing the watershed after which technology turns counterproductive; when it turns from a means for human purposes to enslaving ends.

In this 50 year old book written in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Illich outlined criteria by which to recognize that turning point. Curiously, it was in 2000, at a scientific meeting in that very city, that the Nobel Laureate in biochemistry Paul Crutzen pronounced the era of the “Anthropocene”, an era during which techno-scientific civilization has decisively interrupted natural rhythms to the detriment of well-being. The “Anthropocene” may have been avoided if Illich’s argument was taken seriously.

The 5th issue of Conspiratio (scheduled for December 2, 2023) is given to a dissection and elaboration of Illich’s arguments concerning tools.