Technology as Gift

This moment is a unique gift from God. As was the moment before, and as will be the moment after. You didn’t choose to enter this world, and you don’t choose many of your circumstances.

But you can choose to acknowledge and accept the gift of life. As well as the gifts of each breath and your family and of food and resources and of knowledge and work. And much more.

Further, you can choose to discover and use the unique skills given to you to give back to God and the world of people and animals and places that God created around you.

I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
Matthew 25:36

Giving is not an exception.

It is easier to look at a young child and understand that each one is a gift, both to their parents and to the wider world. And it is clearer to see that these children do not survive without gifts from their parents and others.

It is much harder to look at adults – especially in circumstances of stress or tragedy or deception – and remember that each one is also a gift.

But we must remember.
And we must rejoice.

And then we must realize that giving is at the very core of our being as humans. We can reject or ignore the gifts that surround us, and the giving potential that each of us has. But we cannot deny that giving is at our core.

And once we realize that giving is at the core of human experience, we can more clearly see that utility and reciprocity do not determine or direct our lives.

At the end of his life, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs – the greatest Promethean of the most Promethean national culture in history – writes a letter that is shockingly Epimethean, rather than Promethean:

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

I do not make any of my own clothing.

I speak a language I did not invent or refine.

I did not discover the mathematics I use.

I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.

I am moved by music I did not create myself.

When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.

I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.

I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.

Steve Jobs’ email to self in 2010.
One year before his death.

For many, this letter acknowledges a truth of dependence that we all know and experience daily. The fact that this observation from Steve does not surprise us reveals an even deeper truth.

If the mythical pirate of Silicon Valley is no different from us in his recognition of the mutual dependence that we all must face – what does that say about our own lesser Promethean pursuits? Does it reveal that our belief in a Promethean individualistic existence has never had any grounding? Does it reveal that our rationalizations for Promethean strivings can only lead to false ends?

Are we better served to take the perspective of Steve Jobs in this letter at the end of our lives or at the beginning of our lives? Is the lesson of Steve Job’s life not one of tragedy and betrayal and Promethean failure, instead of striving and innovation and successfully stealing fire from the Gods?

Written July 2024.

The questions at the end of this essay, upon further review in December 2025, are perhaps slightly too harsh. However, the core point holds, that it is far too easy for us to be filled with Promethean pride. The better question is perhaps “What actions would Steve Jobs have taken differently if he’d encountered his Epimethean/Marian recognition earlier in life, instead of at the end of his life?”

Addendum
After writing this essay, I learned about Ferdinand Ulrich and his detailed writings in Homo Abyssus on Being as Gift. I have started connecting more of my work to Ulrich and other Christian authors such as Josef Pieper who write in the frame of gift.

Further, it is important to note that I am constantly working in all my writings and thinking to avoid a Manichean trap, which I define as any frame that results in an overly reductionist “good vs evil” dichotomy. I need to write much more on this topic, which is mostly inspired by the works of St. Augustine.

I made this rough list of postulates on June 26 2024 after making the breakthrough in gift orientation for technology:

1) Daily life is a gift from God, as part of the gift of his creation.
2) Work is a gift, especially in light of Christ’s new Adam gift of forgiveness to us.
3) Knowledge and mastery is a gift of revelation from the Trinity.
4) Technology is thus also a gift.
5) We are judged by God based on how we use all these gifts, and how we give to others.
6) It is our job to give, both through plans and Fiat Mihi opennes to God’s providence.
7) We give products, papers and services to others based on how we are being called, but it is ultimately up to God in how these are finally received.
8) We can have plans and ideas on the market, the Katechon, the eschaton. But only God will ever know the reality of these and how they manifest in time.
9) Thus we must wake and give newly each day in faith, hope, planning and watchfulness.

This approach roots technology and knowledge in God’s constant gift of being and life to us, and calls us to be giving to others, as God is to us.

I’ve written more within this frame in Catastrophe of the Soul. Catastrophe of the Soul is built on this new insight of technology as gift and uses it in combination with concepts from Gunther Anders, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Blaise Pascal, Johannes Kuhn, Nick Bostrom and others to enable us to better articulate and address catastrophic civilizational problems.

Both this essay and Catastrophe of the Soul have changed how I approach all of my actions in business and life. I hope readers of both essays will find the same inspiration, energy and joy in giving to others that I have.

Thank you to Wolfgang Palaver for recommending Dietrich Boenhoffer, and for extensive discussion while I worked on an improved theory of technology in a Christian context, attempting to move beyond materialist, utilitarian, and katechonic roots.

Thank you to Peter Thiel for feedback on these ideas in early 2025 and for writing both Politics and Apocalypse (with others) and Zero to One, which was my longtime technology philosophy, using the definition of technology as ‘doing more with less.’ The gift frame expands beyond this view to see all creation and life as gift, with technology that does “more with less” as a uniquely important gift. This gift frame better enables us to find appreciation and wonder in all moments and objects of life, including those that are not considered technological or immediately measurably productive. Peter’s work has been a longtime inspiration for me intellectually and professionally, despite my major departure from his frame in the last few years. Peter has not seen this exact essay, but in early 2025 he did review a print copy of my essay Catastrophe of the Soul. Catastrophe of the Soul is built on this new insight of technology as gift and uses it in combination with concepts from Gunther Anders, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Blaise Pascal, Johannes Kuhn, Nick Bostrom and others to enable us to better address catastrophic civilizational problems.

Thank you to Paul Scherz for his work in Tomorrow’s Troubles, which elucidates several major problems in our current Promethean culture. And thanks to my old friend Nick Morozowich for getting married and inviting his uncle Father Mark Morozowich, who first recommended Paul Scherz’s work when he heard of my interest in the Promethean / Epimithean dichotomy and my goal of developing an improved theory of technology and Christianity.

Thanks to Monsignor Brockman for answering my many challenging questions on Catholic theology and work.