Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

by Kentaro Toyama

The focus is not on pushing packaged interventions onto every community, but on matching packaged interventions with a community’s aspirations.

Those of us who care about social change have a similar choice to make. The long, hard road focuses on mentorship, aspirations, and intrinsic growth, which are difficult to support in a technocratic world. They’re not easy to measure. They resist quick scale-up. They’re fraught with questions of values. They don’t glisten with innovation. They violate all of the Tech Commandments.

Mentorship and intrinsic growth won’t solve all of the world’s problems. But if packaged interventions amplify human forces, then in a world already full of incredible technologies and brilliant technocratic ideas, what we need much more of is heart, mind, and will.25 Technocratic forces take care of themselves. We don’t need to push for mobile services to reach every corner of the world – telecommunication companies have already done that. We don’t need to worry about spreading profitable loans – eager banks will do so. We don’t need to spark democratic protests – frustrated citizens will rebel on their own. Packaged interventions will thrive, with or without our help, because the easily replicable parts have built-in rewards.

What doesn’t thrive on its own is quality education for all; the returns arrive after long delay and are hard to measure. Or economic on-ramps for hopeful strivers; there’s no dollar value on aspiration. Or stronger communities and organizations; they require expensive person-to-person interaction. Or compassion among the rich and powerful; they can get along without it. In other words, we should focus on those goals for which technology and technocracy are ill suited: serving poor communities, educating the less educated, reforming dysfunctional institutions, organizing marginalized groups, preparing for long-term crises, encouraging self-transcendence, and eliciting responsiveness from those with power. There are ready incentives for technocratic goals. What’s left to be done is by nature difficult.2...

Packaged interventions are relatively easy. Nurturing individual and collective heart, mind, and will is hard. What we need is mo...

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