While it is consistent to say that technology in general is not to be considered flawed, it is equally consistent to understand it individually as flawed. I do not give my consent where mankind starts to make itself superfluous by means of technology. As far as I am willing to go along with this, I would have to ask myself how many people are actually "too many", because one cannot make oneself superfluous and at the same time be many who want to bring themselves into voluntary dependence on each other, which is commonly called "cooperation". Where the many are replaced by few technological means, these many fall down as a result. Where do they fall?
Quantitatively, the machine is always superior to man. It produces more, in faster time to large numbers with less and less human need to maintain the machine.
I no longer give much weight to the argument that it is not the knife that does the evil, but always the man who wields it. This is a misconception and a very intelligent argument, admittedly, but it disguises the fact that technology, as we use and perceive it, has a rather alienating effect on humans. It is legitimate to say that the atomic bomb is a devastating weapon and yet it has been detonated. Of course, in retrospect it is possible to philosophize about it in one way or another, but how insane would someone have to be to deliberately use it again?
Just because we're dealing with more subtle technologies today doesn't mean they're less destructive. At some point I have to say: it is a stupid belief, a belief in technical utopia.
What it brings, we now see in all its glory: isolation. We have not yet landed in the actual extreme, but where we will inevitably come to if we think that a centralized control of our electricity, our water, our food and last but not least our social and individual existence can be done by computer technology. Without any relationship to our direct neighbor.
I often talk to craftsmen. Who fortunately still come into the house. I find in these people a balanced and refreshing way to deal with life. They themselves meet many people in the course of their professional life, like so many practitioners. Computer technology turns us into theoretical idiots who forget how to live, if the connection to the practical, the pragmatic and the real is not maintained at the same time.
I reject: mechanized birth of babies and mechanized death of dying people.
But I think washing machines are great.
Excellent thoughts, nothing to add, I share your conclusions. :)