Heidegger, Marcuse, and Ellul warned against the rise of a technological mass culture. Philosophy of technology has since turned away from such dystopic views, promoting instead the view that we shape technologies just as technologies shape us. Yet the rise of Big Data has exceeded our worst fears about Big Brother, leading us to again question whether technologies are empowering us or enslaving us.

Rather than engage in endless debates about whether technologies are making us better or making us worse, Nolen Gertz investigates what we think better and worse mean, and what role this thinking has played in the creation of our technological world. This investigation is carried out by using Nietzsches philosophy of nihilism in order to explore the ways in which our values mediate how we design technologies and how we use technologies. Examining our technological practicespractices ranging fromNetflix and Chill toFitbit and Move toTwitter and Ragereveals how our nihilism and our technologies have become intertwined, creating a world of techno-hypnosis, data-driven activity, pleasure economics, herd networking, and orgies of clicking.

Nolen Gertz is Assistant Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Twente, and a Senior Researcher at the 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology. He is the author of The Philosophy of War and Exile. His work has appeared inThe Atlantic, The Washington Post,Forbes,and onABC Australia.

1. Nietzsche and Chill / 2. The Will to ¯\_()_/¯ / 3. The Hammer of the Gods / 4. Ecce Hulu / 5. Amor Fitbit / 6. The Uber Mensch / 7. Thus Spake Zuckerberg / 8. The Trolling of the Idols / 9. Google is Dead