What Are Technics? is a short series about culture and technology, and how the two emerge from each other. What sort of culture invents an iPhone, for example, and then how does that technology shape the culture in-turn? And with that cyclical interplay, which outcomes are democratic? Which are authoritarian? What are the implications of that? This series explores these big ideas by looking through history, time and place, and the work of sociologist Lewis Mumford, who published prescient insights on these themes throughout the end of his life during the last century. Each episode in the series speaks with an expert on a specific theme of technology and society, and presents their views on how they see the techno-world today, and what they think of Mumford’s ideas.