In his chapter Technopoly, Postman describes two distinct ages. The first, technocracy describes a time when technology was dominate, but traditional principles and rules still had a place in the minds of the people. In the era of technopoly however, technology takes over every aspect of mind and replaces free-will with conditioned responses. This is the age that “A Brave New World” takes place in. Postman describes technopoly as a “totalitarian technocracy” (Postman 48). This is exactly how to describe civilization in the “new world.” This type of society is an extreme version of a technocracy, where only one side (technology) is important. Every aspect of a person’s life is revolved around technology starting before they are decanted, being conditioned to think and respond to certain environments in a specific way. This relates directly to when Postman declares that technopolies make alternatives to themselves “invisible and therefore irrelevant” (Postman 48). Because of the way the people are conditioned, there is no other way to think or for that matter nothing else to think about. Fredrick Winslow Taylor was the anchor of the technopoly movement who believed as machinery intelligence advanced, independent thoughts were going to become a thing of the past. Taylor’s ideas present the thought that “technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment” (Postman 50). This is illustrated in “A Brave New World” with the way humans are regarded in a way that their existence is solely to serve technology. This is the idea that Postman reflects with his theory of technopolies and Kurzweil with his idea of singularity (the thought that man and technology will one day merge). Although Postman and Kurzweil’s ideas are similar they approach the topic in a very different manner. Postman is warning mankind not to get too closely linked with technology because we could lose a big piece of our humanity, whereas Kurzweil looks forward to the day man and machine will merge.
