---
title: 6 Trusting our tools means trusting the people who built those tools
date: 2022-06-16
icon: 🔖
tags:
- commodity fetishism
- GUI
- technology
category: Zettelkasten
categories: Zettelkasten
lastMod: 2022-06-21
---
Our digital tools and systems, like note-taking apps and search algorithms, are created by people. Our biases and ideologies are built into the tools. John M. Culkin follows this line of thought when giving a brief explanation of *The Medium is the Message.*

> Life imitates art. We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.[^1]

So, when we trust tools built by other people, we are also trusting their biases and ideologies to shape us and our ideas.

[^1]: [[A schoolman's guide to Marshall McLuhan]] by [[John M. Culkin]], 1967

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- Are our tools part of the cyborg assemblage creative expressions? See [4 Creative works are cyborgs]({{< ref "4 Creative works are cyborgs" >}}).