The Anti-Tech Backlash Is Going to Grow Stronger
The deleterious impact of technology on everyday life is generating a growing backlash in Western societies. At its most radical fringe, this includes a political subculture that promotes violent struggle against technological civilization as a whole.
Anti-technology extremism will likely grow in significance as the impact of technology on human life becomes ever more overbearing. (Seung-il Ryu / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In August 2011, a mail bomb exploded at the Monterrey Institute for Technology and Higher Education in Mexico. Two scientists at the institute were injured — one mildly, escaping with light burns, the other more seriously, with shrapnel from the bomb piercing his chest and perforating his lung.
At first, the Mexican authorities did not know who had carried out the attack. State Attorney General Alfredo Castillo Cervantes told the press that it might have been the action of a criminal gang, or perhaps a disgruntled student. Yet they soon realized that it had been a deliberate terrorist attack.
The bombing formed part of a campaign against scientists involved in the development of nanotechnologies. The perpetrators called themselves the Individualists Tending Toward the Wild (ITS), a group that would go on to proudly adopt the label “eco-extremist.”
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