Comment by bigyabai

Stone tools, fire, the wheel and farming are forms of control. You learn that from prehistory; stone tools and fire provide the baseline for manufacturing, trade and warfare. Farming and transport creates a backbone for logistics and taxation. Each invention contributes to a greater degree of state-sanctioned control; "the people" rarely ever win.

The mischaracterization comes when people get comfortable assuming that technology cares about them. Your stone axe does not want to keep you alive; your iPhone has no self-preserving motivation to maintain privacy. Making these kinds of hopeful-but-foolish assumptions is how people become disenfranchised with progress and associate it with evil.