this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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There's no such thing as Just a Tool (deadsimpletech.com)
submitted 1 week ago by codeinabox@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I’m pretty sure the only requirement of a thought-terminating cliche is that they are

intended to end an argument and bypass cognitive dissonance with a cliché rather than a point

It genuinely doesn’t matter what Heidegger’s human-tool gestalt says if people are using “it’s just a tool” as a thought-terminating cliche.

The reason it sounded like a thought-terminating cliche to me was this part of the article itself:

What this response seems to mean is the following:

  • The technology being discussed has no bearing on the attitudes or ideologies of the person holding it: use or non-use is ideologically neutral.
  • The technology being discussed can be effectively separated from the people using it: nothing can be inferred about a person from the technologies that they use.
  • The technology is used fully consciously: you are always fully aware that you are using a technology and have complete volitional freedom to use a different technology at any time.
  • The technology does not influence the kinds of things likely to be done with it: use of the technology doesn't tend to encourage one course of action over another ("guns don't kill people, people do").

They’re describing aspects that are cliche and constructed to not have a point.

[–] queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago

The reason I decided to reply was this:

There’s a term for phrases like “it’s just a tool”: thought-terminating clichés.

Here you're treating thought-terminating clicheness as a quality inherent to the phrase "it's just a tool", not to the subjective motivations of the people using the phrase in a thought-terminating capacity.

I think, especially in discussions where strong opinions abound and form cliques, labeling certain phrases as "thought-terminating cliches" is itself a form of permission to forego any critical engagement with an argument. Or, to put it another way, to use a cliche to terminate thought. I think it's worth my time and effort to say, essentially, "hold on, I don't think we should immediately dismiss anyone who tries to distinguish the tools from the tool users, that line of thought has some important and useful ramifications for this conversation."