Your claim seems to be that technology failed to improve us in terms of spirituality, ergo it will always fail us.

The technology hasn't failed us. People who in the past wouldn't have good access to spiritual teachers, have that access now.

To give you an example - in the postcommunist Poland, virtually anything besides the catholic church was qualified as sect ~ 15-20 years ago. Thanks to the internet me & quite a few friends were able to read up about buddhism. We could practice meditation long before many teachers arrived, and listen to their teachings as well.

Right now, the access to the teachers is so much easier (again - mostly thanks to Google & Facebook Events), but there's also another thing. Apps, like Headspace, helped both me and quite a few friends, get into the rhythm of meditation and spiritual practice.

In other words - thanks to the internet, the access to teachers is far, far easier, and people get access to better quality materials. It's also so much safer to go to meetups, or figure out what your kids are into - when I was very young my parents were afraid of sects. Right now a parent can do a quick google to figure out more information about the group the kid is attending to.

Finally - even if the technology failed (which it didn't!), it doesn't mean that it would always fail. I'm surprised to see this kind of thinking on HN.

As for the article, I don't like it either. It mentions just one kind of a gimmick/gadget, and I don't think this approach (with gadgets that track your brainwaves) is proper. There are better solutions to meditation, Headspace being one of them.

There are two sides to this problem. One is that - making meditation to be a game where in, you don't understand exactly what you are paying attention to and why it matters but just that you need to increase your "game" score. This is probably not an optimal outcome because meditation can enable one to understand their inner world as well as they do their outer world. Such understanding could help solve the emotional crisis that they undergo. Another side to this story is that those who have spent time and effort understanding the "why" and "what" of meditation can probably benefit from some push to meditation more often. I believe we should let such choices to be left over to individuals.

But meditation is technology! We just don't think much of tech unless it exists outside ourselves to be consumed anymore

Interestingly, this actually gets closer to the original root meaning of the word than what it tends to mean these days:

> TECHNOLOGY: 1610s, "a discourse or treatise on an art or the arts," from Greek tekhnologia "systematic treatment of an art, craft, or technique," originally referring to grammar, from tekhno- (see techno-) + -logy. The meaning "study of mechanical and industrial arts" (Century Dictionary, 1902, gives examples of "spinning, metal-working, or brewing") is first recorded 1859.

Source: http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=technology