> But we live in a concrete society, [and] with concrete social and historical circumstances and political realities in this society, it is perfectly obvious that when something like a computer is invented, then it is going to be adopted will be for military purposes. It follows from the concrete realities in which we live, it does not follow from pure logic. But we're not living in an abstract society, we're living in the society in which we in fact live.
-- Joseph Weizenbaum, http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html
That's not pearl clutching, that's being serious, and ignoring it for long enough will make it impossible to build a robust egalitarian culture -- because the potential for oppression and the conditioning of being subject to automatic processes, confusing "measurements" with things, and "labels" with people, will have been amplified extremely, not to mention the sheer capabilities of mass manipulation and control, with rather little to show for on the other side of the scale.
The real solution is to build a robust egalitarian culture, not to clutch pearls every time something potentially harmful and potentially useful is created.