Following the arguments put forward by M. Weber in Wissenschaft als Beruf, this brief paper comments upon the role of the technical progress in shaping social conditions. The paradox of incapacitating processes in the midst of a fully technological social world is formulated as a political and policy problem. The possibility of a cognitive social crisis assuming the political form of populism is delineated. The specific risk of Italy – deprived of any strategy towards the knowledge society – will undermine our ability to formulate and to implement rational (first of all: social) policies. only subscribers can see the full article