Whether it’s artificial intelligence, genome editing, Big Tech monopolies, or Facebook-induced depression: we moderns live in a world that is being reshaped by technology from the ground up. In the process, it’s become dangerously easy to forget who we are. How do we stay human?

This issue addresses challenges ranging from the lure of transhumanism to the science of transgenderism to the erosion of silence by the smartphone. Technophobia is no answer, our contributors agree – but neither is a refusal to tackle real dangers. They ask: Why not try living without a computer or a television? Why give tablets to children when Steve Jobs refused to give them to his kids? Why write using a keyboard when you could wield a fountain pen?

Technological asceticism of this kind won’t solve society-wide dilemmas. But it can help us maintain the spiritual independence needed to respond to them rightly. The reward is worth having: the prize of staying human.