As a visiting student from the University of Waterloo, I came to SOCI 460 with a unique background that shaped my engagement with this course’s material. Having taken CS 492 (Social Implications of Computing) at Waterloo, which considers the impact of computing on individuals, organizations, and society and aims to equip the student to make informed judgements about the social and ethical consequences of the deployment of computing technologies”, I had been moderately familiarized with examining technology’s social effects. However, CS 492 approached these issues primarily through technical ethics and computer science frameworks, focusing on topics like algorithmic bias, privacy protection, and professional responsibility in software development.
What drew me towards SOCI 460 was a shift from CS 492’s technical ethics approach to sociological critical theory. Where CS 492 examined how to make computing systems more ethical within existing frameworks, SOCI 460 questioned the fundamental power structures and ideological assumptions underlying technological development itself. This transition from reformist to revolutionary analysis has been intellectually transformative and personally challenging.
I apologize for the frequent comparisons to a different course that might be scattered along. A driving factor behind my choice of this course was to see things from a different lens — I might even dare to compare their approaches as two sides of the same coin — one being the rigorous reiteration of implementation to make information technology serve us “best” ethically, whereas the other questioning if the insistent existence of specific pieces of technology are serving us in the grand scheme at all.
**Most Interesting Discovery: The Hidden Religious Architecture of Technology ** The most fascinating revelation came through David Noble’s “The Religion of Technology,” which exposed something completely absent from my CS 492 experience: the deep spiritual and religious underpinnings of Western technological development. This course went beyond “utopianism and dystopianism” in computing, examining the millennial Christian expectations that Noble demonstrates have driven technological development for centuries.
Noble’s documentation of how Francis Bacon, the Royal Society, and Freemasonry embedded religious transcendence into technological discourse completely reframed my understanding of the “innovation culture” I was immersed in at Waterloo. The revelation that engineers and scientists have functioned as a modern priesthood, promising salvation through technological prowess, suddenly made sense of Silicon Valley’s messianic rhetoric that had always seemed oddly religious despite its secular pretensions.
When tech executives promise that artificial intelligence will solve humanity’s problems or that genetic engineering will eliminate death, Noble revealed they’re drawing on thousand-year-old religious archetypes about recovering humanity’s lost divine nature. This connection became even more intriguing when contrasted with Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” in our latest assignment, which presents transcendence as explicitly anti-technological yet maintains the same elitist structure where a chosen few achieve salvation while the masses face extinction.
Most Important Learning: From Ethics to Power Analysis
The most crucial shift from CS 492 to SOCI 460 involved moving from ethical frameworks to power analysis. CS 492 focused on “fostering critical thought and professional responsibility” and teaching people to make “informed judgements about the social and ethical consequences of the deployment of computing technologies”. This approach assumes that better individual decision-making and more ethical algorithms can address technological harms while leaving fundamental power structures intact.
SOCI 460’s Marxist framework provided a radically different analytical approach. The course’s emphasis on the “logic of accumulation” and “logic of competition” explained technological development as serving capital accumulation rather than human welfare. This framework predicted exactly the outcomes CS 492 tried to address through ethics: surveillance capitalism, algorithmic discrimination, and worker exploitation through digital platforms.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal perfectly exemplifies this difference. CS 492 would likely frame this as an ethics violation requiring better privacy protections and algorithmic transparency. SOCI 460 revealed it as the inevitable result of treating personal data as private property within capitalist frameworks. While ordinary users provided their data through Facebook interactions, wealthy elites gained access to sophisticated psychological manipulation tools that could influence democratic elections globally. This isn’t a technical problem requiring better algorithms — it’s a structural feature of systems designed for profit maximization.
Similarly, CS 492’s examination of workplace automation and the impact on employment focused on managing technological transitions more ethically. SOCI 460’s analysis of high-tech sweatshops revealed how digital platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk enable “boundaryless exploitation” where workers can be surveilled and controlled 24/7. Dan Mage’s experience working for the Obama campaign for $2.85 per hour and Eric Limer’s account of performing “mind-numbing, tedious crap” for sub-minimum wages showed that the “gig economy” represents systematic exploitation rather than ethical lapses.
This shift from ethics to power analysis has practical implications for my career in computer science. Rather than focusing solely on writing “ethical” code or implementing “fair” algorithms, I now understand the importance of questioning who benefits from technological systems and how democratic control can be asserted over technological development.
**Most Challenging Learning: Confronting Technical Complicity ** The most intellectually and emotionally challenging aspect involved confronting my own complicity in systems of technological domination. CS 492 positioned computer scientists as potential reformers who could make technology more ethical through better design choices. This was comfortable — it suggested that technical expertise could solve social problems while maintaining our privileged position within technological hierarchies.
SOCI 460’s analysis of surveillance capitalism forced me to recognize that the skills I’ve developed may directly serve systems of control and exploitation. Training to write efficient algorithms, design user interfaces, and optimize data processing — skills CS 492 presented as ethically neutral tools — enable the very surveillance and manipulation systems the course critiqued.
Understanding Michel Foucault’s analysis of panoptic surveillance made me realize that platforms like Facebook represent sophisticated behavior modification systems, not neutral communication tools. CS 492 covered “privacy and social control” and “public perception of computers” but approached these as problems to be solved through technical means rather than as inherent features of systems designed for profit extraction.
The revelation that social media platforms were designed from inception to be addictive — using what former Facebook president Sean Parker called “narcotic-like, slot-machine effects” — forced me to confront how my technical training contributes to these manipulative systems. Every time I optimize an engagement algorithm or improve recommendation systems, I’m potentially contributing to the addiction and manipulation mechanisms the course exposed.
Transformation of Belief System: Beyond Technological Solutionism
This course fundamentally challenged the technological solutionism that permeates computer science education. I was taught that technical innovation represents human progress and that social problems can be addressed through better and ethical technology. For example, CS 492 examined “utopianism and dystopianism” in computing but generally maintained faith that informed ethical analysis could guide technology toward positive outcomes.
Frank Webster’s critique of information society theories challenged this assumption by demonstrating that quantitative increases in information technology don’t necessarily produce qualitative social transformation. His analysis forced me to reconsider what constitutes genuine progress and whether technological capability automatically translates into human liberation.
This transformation extends beyond academic understanding to fundamental questions about my career trajectory in computer science. The course taught me to be deeply skeptical of Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” mentality and its promises that disruptive innovation will solve social problems. Instead, I now recognize that technology deployed within existing power structures typically reinforces rather than challenges those structures.
**Emotional Challenges: From Privilege to Responsibility **
The emotional dimension of this learning process was more intense than anything I experienced in my previous courses. Computer science education generally presents technical work as ethically neutral and socially beneficial. We’re encouraged to see ourselves as innovators solving humanity’s problems through clever algorithms and efficient systems.
Reading about high-tech sweatshops and surveillance capitalism generated feelings of guilt about my privileged position within technological hierarchies. As a student with access to high-quality education and generally favourable career prospects, I benefit from the same systems that exploit gig workers earning sub-minimum wages on platforms I might someday help build or maintain.
The surveillance material produced anxiety about my own digital footprint and complicity in data extraction systems. CS 492 covered privacy and security issues from a technical perspective, focusing on cryptographic solutions and data protection protocols. SOCI 460 revealed how these technical protections are largely irrelevant when users voluntarily provide personal data to platforms designed for behavioral manipulation.
Most challenging was confronting the implications of Noble’s analysis of technological spirituality. Computer science culture at Waterloo is permeated with exactly the millennial expectations Noble documents — a certain sort of belief that artificial intelligence will solve climate change, that biotechnology will eliminate disease, that space exploration represents humanity’s transcendent destiny. Recognizing these as religious rather than rational commitments forced me to question fundamental assumptions about technological progress and my role within technological development.
However, these emotional challenges ultimately proved productive. The discomfort forced me to move beyond passive acceptance of technological inevitability toward more critical engagement with the social implications of technical choices.
Conclusion The course concluded with important questions about whether humans can gain democratic control over powerful technologies before they cause irreparable harm through ecological destruction or authoritarian manipulation. These questions feel particularly urgent for someone entering the computer science field, where I’ll be directly involved in building the systems that shape social relations.
SOCI 460 suggests that achieving democratic control requires both educational and structural interventions. Computer science education needs to incorporate critical analysis of power relations and structural constraints, moving beyond the ethical frameworks that currently predominate. Simultaneously, democratic institutions need the capacity to regulate powerful technologies in the public interest rather than allowing private corporations to deploy them according to profit maximization logic.
Most importantly, the course demonstrated that technology is socially constructed and can therefore be reconstructed according to different values and priorities. This recognition provides hope for computer scientists who want to contribute to human liberation rather than domination. However, it requires abandoning technological solutionism in favor of solidarity with broader social movements working for structural change.
This represents the most valuable outcome of my time as a visiting student at Athabasca University — learning to see beyond the mystifying rhetoric of technological transcendence toward the concrete social relations that shape technological development, and discovering the possibility of changing those relations through critical analysis and collective action
The most fascinating revelation came through David Noble’s “The Religion of Technology,” which exposed something completely absent from my CS 492 experience - the deep spiritual and religious underpinnings of Western technological development. This course went beyond “utopianism and dystopianism” in computing, examining the millennial Christian expectations that Noble demonstrates have driven technological development for centuries.
When I enrolled in SOCI 460, I thought I would be learning about algorithms, digital infrastructure, and maybe some history about computers or the internet, I didn’t expect this course to it so close to home. I had no idea I would end up thinking about the Catholic Church, the masculine foundations of science, spiritual longing, Facebook content moderators, or the invisible ands that curate and control my daily life. More than that, I didn’t expect to be sitting with guilt, grief, awe, and a renewed sense of responsibility.
My most significant realization is that personal transformation and political awareness are deeply interconnected. Caring is not enough—we must critically analyze the systems we operate within, the narratives we perpetuate, and the assumptions we unconsciously hold. I now feel more committed than ever in questioning dominant narratives in my work and creating space for truth-telling, relational accountability, and systemic change.
What I expected of this course would be examples of the most successful social movements of all time and I was not wrong on this count. What I did not expect was that the most successful social movements in our living history were social movements created by massive multi-corporate alliances.
By the time we explored the public relations industry and propaganda, I was beginning to see that nearly every institution I had once trusted—church, school, media, government—spoke a language of compliance. The assigned chapters from A Century of Spin were almost comically dark in how they pulled back the curtain on PR’s role in manufacturing reality. I began noticing it in everything - how political campaigns reframe policy as “freedom,” how consumer brands adopt woke messaging to sell soda, how even well-meaning institutions use symbols to signal virtue instead of engaging in real reform. The Matrix analogy felt less like a metaphor and more like a documentary.
I would like to say that the course exceeded my expectations. The material offered a learning experience that goes beyond the classroom and the examples provided; it is practical learning that the student can apply the concepts to everyday life. This practical applicability is what truly captivates me and makes me feel happy and fulfilled. Realizing that the concepts of social movements are not just relevant to large-scale protests, but also to the small things in daily life, made me feel more connected as a human being and a citizen. It gave me a stronger sense of how I can help and contribute to the society I live in. For me, SOCI288 brilliantly combined theory with practical application, allowing students to link each unit to the readings and their own individual experiences.
Initially, when I reviewed the course materials and the website, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of resources, readings, and course deliverables. It seemed like an insurmountable task to read through everything and internalize and retain the information. However, as I began to dive into the material, I found it deeply engaging, informative, and thought-provoking, which made the learning process much more enjoyable than I had anticipated
If I can be entirely personal in this part of my answer, I would say that this course has given me a great chance to examine the belief systems I was raised in. I was raised Roman Catholic, a faith I rejected long ago, but I've never really sat down and thought about the fear that religion caused in me. This course made me do that. I had to answer questions that caused me to remember the horrific bloody portraits on my grandmother's wall, and the whispered threats of the priests and nuns who taught in my Catholic elementary and high school. I was always afraid. Afraid of the God I had disrespected by not eating fish on a Friday, afraid that I hadn't fasted long enough before taking communion on a Sunday, and afraid, most of all, that I had unwittingly committed a mortal sin that guaranteed my place in hell. What a terrible thing to do to a child. I'm really glad I've had a reason to rethink it all.