The irony of progress and risk
Although progress shapes how humans think about time, Bridle mentions that ironically, as technology becomes more exponentially powerful, there is an increase in the risk humans face in their relationship to technology. He even mentions ways that past technological advances have changed the risk of modern day life. He mentions the implicit danger of reliance on technology.
The survival irony
Many people feel competent, but ironically, survival skills have been largely forgotten through time as life continues improving. Each generation ends up saying, 'Back in my day, we didn't have those fancy gadgets.' That means also that ironically, as a culture, we have veered away from our own survival instincts, because life has been improving in terms of comfort. A couple hundred years ago, air conditions, cars, airplanes, internet, electricity, cell phones—none of those things were around, but many of those people knew how to survive off the land, more or less.
The ironic rate of change
In many ways, technology is what drives the economy today, because as technology companies profit from improving the quality of people's lives, more companies are started to try and do the same thing. This means that, ironically, the rate of change in technological innovation is non-linear. As time goes on, the unimaginable nature of technology increases faster and faster, until a state of luxury becomes the new normal.
The irony of surveillance
Although technology has made the average citizen's life better, because of increased technologies in the government, the average citizen is monitored much more closely. There are agents like the NSA that have the ability to listen in on phone calls, and to watch people through technology—sometimes their own smart phones and televisions.
The ironic instability of economies
The book shows that any technological change could have drastic effects on the economy. Not only do the technology companies contribute greatly to the economies of their nations, but also, technology literally shapes the economy, because in the past, there were no computer banking systems, no databases, no internet, and cryptocurrency has the potential to do the same thing again, says Bridle.
