Science and technology give people great operative power, but they entangle them into a stringent network of demands and coercions. Powerful means have allowed people to do many excellent things, but those means have facilitated the creation of an increasingly totalitarian world adorned with empty slogans. The book speaks about the natural world and human activities. We address the issues of ecology, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. New technologies open great possibilities, but they bring great perils. They may radically change the natural world and improve human life, but they may also distort life in an ugly way.

We live in the knowledge society, but our knowledge has been reduced to the skills of using technological means. Procedural people perform tasks in the framework of the ruling paradigm, without questioning its values and aims. The advance of technological power does not necessarily bring the progress of humanity in terms of understanding, ethical behaviour and aesthetic experience. To create a better world, we must use our knowledge and means in the way that minimizes suffering, ignorance and destruction. We must become the poets of existence and ephemerality, instead of being voracious consumers of the soil from which we grow.