Is technology to blame?

We know that as worldview fidelity decreases, time to collapse shortens. But what bends the line? What actually introduces feedback distortion or delay.

Let’s look at technology, because it complicates things. It doesn’t break the above model, but it introduces time lags and feedback insulation.

At its core, technology is a buffer. It extends capacity, softens consequences, and postpones the return of feedback. Irrigation lets you farm longer before drought matters. Antibiotics let you survive behaviors that used to kill you. Fossil fuels let you scale production far beyond ecological yield. The pain that wouldn’t corrected your behavior is deferred.

So low-fidelity worldviews survive longer if backed by high-powered technology. Collapse is delayed, not avoided. The worldview says, “We’re right.” The tech says, “We’ll make it look that way…until we can’t.”

But tech doesn’t just delay feedback…it also creates false signals. GPS replaces intimate knowledge of land. Social media simulates community. Processed food simulates nutrition. Air conditioning simulates a habitable climate. This builds confidence in the system, even as it drifts further away from reality. “Look how well it’s working!” (Says the thermostat on a house with a collapsing foundation.) It enables deeper detachment from feedback, which enables more elaborate simulation.

But is technology neutral? Clearly its effects depend on the worldview using it.

In high-fidelity cultures, technology extends sensitivity, preserves balance, and enhances feedback clarity (e.g. indigenous fire-stick farming, soil renewal techniques, wind-based navigation).

In low-fidelity cultures, technology conceals damage, extracts faster, delays correction (e.g. industrial agriculture, geoengineering, financial modeling). Tech isn’t a villain…but in hands of a distorted worldview, it’s something of a sorcerer’s apprentice.

Here’s the twist: tech amplifies either trajectory. It’s an amplifier, not a course corrector. It can scale either sustainability or simulation / collapse. It gives a low-fidelity culture (like the one we’re part of) more time and reach, but also makes the eventual collapse larger and more system-wide.