Nowadays, the idea of technology is tied to a notion of progress. We all take for granted that technology exists on a scale of constant improvement and reinvention: we must cast aside old technologies in favor of consuming new ones; those with better technology are more advanced than those with lesser technology. Philosophers Jacques Ellul and Martin Heidegger described technology as a 'cultural system that restructures the entire social world as an object of control.' In other words, technology is not merely a built world of things - a device, or a piece of software, or a cotton gin - but a system of thinking, and one with the potential to take over, like an infection. To paraphrase philosopher Andrew Feenberg:

[Technology] is characterized by an expansive dynamic which ultimately overtakes every pre-technological enclave and shapes the whole of social life. The instrumentalization of society is thus a destiny from which there is no escape other than retreat. [...]