If value systems weight possibility, technology changes the speed, scale, and topology of that weighting.
Technology is often treated as a collection of tools, neutral in themselves and ethically charged only by human intention. From a relational ontology perspective, this is a serious understatement.
Technology is not neutral. It is an engine for the reconfiguration of possibility.
Technology as Possibility Amplifier
At its most basic, technology does not add new meanings to the world. It alters what can happen, how easily, how often, and at what cost.
A technology accelerates possibility when it:
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lowers the effort required for an action
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increases the reach of an effect
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stabilises a coordination pattern
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compresses time between action and consequence
The wheel, the printing press, the steam engine, the internet, and machine learning systems all operate in this way — not by persuasion, but by reweighting feasibility.
Acceleration Without Intention
Crucially, technologies do not need intentions to have effects.
Once introduced, a technology reshapes the field regardless of anyone’s plans. Possibilities that align with it become easier and more attractive; those that do not become comparatively expensive or obsolete.
This is why technological change often feels inevitable, even when no one explicitly chose its outcomes.
Acceleration is structural, not psychological.
The Compression of Time
One of the most profound effects of technology is temporal.
Technologies shorten feedback loops. They reduce the delay between action and consequence, between signal and response, between deviation and correction.
This compression:
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favours fast-reacting systems
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penalises slow deliberation
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amplifies volatility
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privileges metrics over judgment
What looks like a cultural preference for speed is often a technological constraint masquerading as taste.
Scale and Asymmetry
Technology also scales possibility unevenly.
Some actions become globally consequential with minimal effort. Others remain local, slow, or costly. This creates asymmetries where small interventions can have massive effects — not because actors are powerful, but because the system is highly leveraged.
Power here is not a property of agents. It is an emergent feature of accelerated possibility.
Automation and the Freezing of Value
When technologies automate decisions, they do not eliminate value systems. They lock them in.
Automated systems:
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embed prior valuations
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reduce opportunities for renegotiation
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stabilise particular outcomes as default
Once automated, a value system becomes harder to contest — not because it is justified, but because it is fast, scalable, and infrastructural.
This is why technological change often outpaces ethical reflection: the system moves before meaning catches up.
Technology Without Meaning
Like value systems, technology operates without meaning.
A recommender system does not “understand” preference. A predictive model does not “know” risk. A control system does not “intend” stability.
Yet all of these systems powerfully shape possibility.
Meaning may be added later — in policy debates, cultural narratives, or personal experience — but by then the field has already been reweighted.
Human Agency Revisited
Technology does not eliminate agency, but it relocates it.
Agency no longer resides primarily in moment-to-moment choice. It resides in:
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design decisions
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infrastructural commitments
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standards and protocols
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default configurations
By the time a user “chooses,” most of the work has already been done.
This is not a loss of freedom; it is a shift in where freedom can be exercised meaningfully.
The Myth of Control
The fantasy of technological control assumes that systems can be steered from the inside, through intention alone.
But accelerated systems are governed less by intention than by:
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feedback dynamics
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path dependence
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lock-in effects
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runaway amplification
Control gives way to modulation. Governance becomes a matter of shaping conditions, not issuing commands.
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