Technology is fundamentally Utopian. The promise of technology has always been that by investing in its continued advancement, it will eventually relieve humanity of the daily struggles of survival. When this happens, the prophets say, we will be free. Truly free to pursue whatever course in life we choose. Or to pursue nothing at all.
But the Utopian undercurrent runs much deeper than promises. It is embedded into technology itself.
The keystone upon which all modern technology rests is the computer, and this arrangement is no accident. Computers are more than just machines. They are machines that are capable, at least in theory, of simulating any other machine – including other computers, physical objects, even the Universe itself.
This property makes them Utopian by their very nature. Because they can simulate anything, computers are in the process of replacing or augmenting nearly everything humanity has ever invented. In this sense, computers represent the culmination of our species' multi-thousand-year investment in technology. They are threatening to unify all of us, and all of our inventions, ideas and interests, under a single, shared idea: computation.