In his most recent novel, Seveneves, sci-fi author Neal Stephenson coins an intriguing term: “Amistics”.
Amistics describes “the choices that different cultures made as to which technologies they would, and would not, make part of their lives.” Derived from the Amish principle of the selective use of technology, the example Stephenson’s novel has in mind is not – as you might expect – weapons or artificial intelligence. Instead, his imagined future selects an increasingly ubiqui...