Mumford's "bribe" was always Faustian in my reckoning. At some maybe
unconscious level people know exactly what they're getting into but
think they can kick the can down the road. We hope at some unspecified
future time the beast can be appeased or tricked.
Baudrillard would, I think, follow McLuhan in blaming technology and pataphysics (e.g. the 'physics' of fiction) as opposed to "this is a conscious conspiracy to control people". A middle ground is that if CBS didn't do it, NBC would.
I've been in a conversation about "blaming technology" recently,
needing to disambiguate amorphous Technology (big-T) and it's
possibility of neutrality, from specific malevolent creations. To
disambiguate land-mines and AK47s from Penicillin and baby incubators.
There's a mile of difference between creating an attractive nuisance,
a "Trap" to borrow from Adam Curtis, and failing to account for
negative side effects. We're still very much in the era of apologetics
and rationalisation with regard to knowingly creating controlling,
addictive and deleterious technologies. There is a kind of tragic
death drive or celebration of Thanatos/atrophy going on there. I
actually think the modern word that best captures it is "convenience".
(it must be pronounced with a sigh of resignation). :)
