ABSTRACT
The future configurations of our society are not simply about technical and scientific dynamics but are also about human factors embedded in political, economic and social power relations. Despite the attempts to rationalize the anticipation, the state of uncertainty remains extremely high. The technique per se is neither a benchmark, nor the solution; it is a component of a larger edifice. Subsequently, the future, along with the past, should be considered as an interrelation between technique, social structures and social interrelations. In order to elaborate this line of thinking, this chapter puts emphasis on work activities. This is primarily because techniques and technology are profoundly tied to human working activities. They are a support, a help, but are also codification carriers of standards in the ways of producing, working, consuming and value carriers (objectives, goals, sense of action tied with diverse and opposing interests). They are therefore both supports and stakes in the debate of standards and values that go through a society, debates made of tension, conflicts that guide the future of human society.
