
Why is the world so troubled right now? Rejection of modernity and technology - jseliger
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/03/isis_and_other_neomedievalists_reject_technology_modernity.html
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jseliger
"Why is the world so troubled right now?" also reminds me of Neal Stephenson's
comments in _Some Remarks_ and "Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out"
([http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/opinion/17stephenson.html?](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/opinion/17stephenson.html?)):

 _Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as
the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and
the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes.
The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are
being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details,
as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is
more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the
most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard
of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out._

One can see the bizarrely powerful rejection of science in parts of the right
(regarding climate change), the left (regarding vaccines) and obviously in
much of the Middle East.

