Stop the Machines: How Emerging Technologies are Fomenting the War on Civilization

The Fourth Industrial Revolution promises to transform contemporary societies. Similarly, emerging technologies are affording countless new applications that assure an overall and widespread improvement of living standards. At the same time, their potential misuse has sparked concerns. In particular, the possibility of terrorist organizations adopting such technologies has dominated the scholarly debate. Consequently, there is a growing literature that deals with the motivational and technical factors potentially underlying the malevolent resort to emerging technologies. Enthusiasm for emerging technologies is, however, only one side of the coin. The last decade has, indeed, witnessed a re-emergence of forms of Neo-Luddism. Nevertheless, a thorough understanding of these developments is still lacking. This paper investigates and maps the main debates and dynamics in the Anti-Technology Movement in order to understand the rationale behind—and the prospects of—this resurgence. In doing so, it focuses on two radical fringes, namely the Insurrectionary Anarchist Milieu and the Radical Environmentalist Milieu. The paper argues that, although based on different narratives and end goals, these milieus share a similar commitment and operational approaches as well as a marked apocalyptic millenarian thinking that has set them on an escalatory path.