[rojosewe]

I've been trying to find this article I read on HN a while ago on "The Germany technology effect". German researcher invents technology, Germans are suspicious of it and refuse to use it, another country picks it up and delivers a lot of value to the world with their name on the tech. Germany, like Scandinavians, has huge safety nets, free Healthcare, education and social housing. I'd say the more comfortable a country is the more reticence they have to adopt new technologies as it can disrupt the balance they stand on.

Fear of technology is not fear of capitalism. That's an immediate American perspective. Liberalism is their current enemy because it's corroding their society. What they fear is new tools for their oppressors to push the imbalance further. Socialist China and USSR had no qualms about using technology against their people and I imagine it scared the hell out of their citizens. This is the difference between many Cyberpunk's and Star Trek's vision of a post scarcity future. In the ones where we understand technology as a social sickness, the balance is tipped inequvocally towards one side and oppressing the masses.

[chr1]

> Socialist China and USSR had no qualms about using technology against their people and I imagine it scared the hell out of their citizens.

USSR was a rather techno-optimist place, and to this day Russia and other post soviet countries have more positive attitude towards technology than most of the Europe. Experience of socialism have produced distrust only to social and political systems, not sciense and technology.

[rojosewe]

As someone coming from a currently socialist country and married to a post soviet citizen, I somewhat disagree. It's true there was optimism towards infrastructural technology but there is sever distrust to communication technology. As the main form of oppression is misuse of surveillance, people are very uncomfortable with these new technologies.