Stefan Heidenreich

What Malcom Gladwell writes on technological innovation and problems in the first place is naive:

The lesson here is that just because innovations in communications technology happen does not mean that they matter; or, to put it another way, in order for an innovation to make a real difference, it has to solve a problem that was actually a problem in the ?rst place.

What if technology created the problem? Or even better: if it creates the first place where the problem was to be located? The deeper question may be compared to the chicken and the egg problem. But it could also be answered with the idea of an a-priori. Not in the sense of an absolute a-priori, but more regarding the differing interdependencies of discourses and practices. The ‘first place’ would always be taken by the most independent discourse. Also not meant in an absolute sense, but only as the most directional independent discourse being neverthless influential for the dominant practice.
For our economy of production technology has achieved the position on an a-priori. For other discourses, like religion, it remained a negligible factor, even that might work out differently on a longer perspective.