Technology

[Lord Viper]

I've wanted to post this for a while. Ok, it's been said that technology is both helpful and harmful. Many people can agree it's mostly helpful, but in a lot of ways it's self sacrfice. Automobiles for example, there used to travel for miles faster than on foot or a bike, but the fosile and/or petroleum fuel hurts both the environment, both those items are non-recyclable, so once it's gone, we can never use again which.... hurts us. Also computers, the helpful reason is that they hold all kinds of information, it's like an international dictionary. The harmful, random people that want to steal, or kill have a easy way of knowing where they want to go by Map Quest, any News website, etc.

With those few examples, all I'm explaining is that technology is good, but it will always come with a price. Having no technology is good, were not disrupting the balance of nature, but would we have lived this long without knowing as much as we do now?

Discuss?

 

[marthanoob]

This question is one that is determined by consensus.
Axiomatically, knowledge is power. Generally, the consensus wants more power.
Empirically, side effects will always follow where some part of the populace uses this power counteractively.
That's just part of the trade-off.

 

[manhunter098]

Virtually every creation of mankind can be abused. Hell look at what agriculture has done to this planet and thats not even what we would consider remotely technological.

As for your argument about cars, its not really the case, as eventually we WILL switch to more effective electric cars and our efficiency with fuel economy can only increase probably approaching perpetual motion, but never getting there. But even without getting that far the potential our technology now has to "save" the environment is definitely there. How long it will take us to really start putting that potential to use and developing it on a larger scale, who knows.


But basically people can abuse just about everything, its in our nature to be able to comprehend many more than just an intended use out of something, in a way you can say that its our ability to even create technology and innovate that allows us to abuse technology.

 

[Greenstreet]

Perhaps the social consequences of increasing technology should be mentioned here as well. Although I am a pretty strong advocate for protecting the environment and doing what is right for the environment as a whole, I find that in the lives we lead, the relationships we gain/lose/change/ignore are equally important. And technology has a similar hold over relationships as you claim it does with the environment (in that it can help and hinder). Btw, I guess I am more interested in the technological side of communication.

So..

The Help: Well, this one is pretty obvious and I prove my own point as I type this out. Technology gives us the ability to forge new relationships with people that would be physically impossible to socialise and meet without technology. People from around the world can easily communicate freely between countries, giving people the ability to keep in touch with loved ones, exchange ideas on any number of topics (this board as proof) and learn a multitude of new things, without even leaving the home. Contacting people in times of emergencies is easier as well.. which is an obvious improvement in the lives of those involved compared to similar situations before this kind of technology was available.
It allows us to hear world news as it happens. I could probably go on, but the point is, the ability for the internet and other technology to connect people is almost limitless, like nothing ever seen before.
But does this come at a price?

The Hinderances: With this communication phenomenom being as life changing as it is, is there a negative side? To me, the answer is yes. And we've all heard this before, mainly because alot of us spend alot of time on computers. But the gist of it is, that technology is ruining the ability to have a relationship with someone as it stunts the ability to talk face to face with another person. It removes some emotion from the equation. It often removes facial expression and body language, which is a large % of communication in itself. It removes immediate feedback through these mediums. you can no longer judge a response by the look on their face for instance. But the main point I hear from those who oppose texting/IM/Myspace/Facebook etc is that it hinders the ability to perform properly in a social situation. And I think it does. I don't feel that a relationship can be as deep and as meaningful when the statements of love/friendship/ even regular conversation are merely read on a screen rather than heard and seen on the person's face. It removes intimacy, not just the romantic kind, but as the following definition states.

"familiarity: close or warm friendship;"

..

But I think the most important thing that should be raised in regard to technology either helping or hindering the world is moderation. We must realise that although the internet can be a great communicating tool, we should only embrace when necessary. Don't let it complete replace face to face communication, because in the real world, this is the most important form of communication. We need to be able to use and utilise technology efficiently, but have the ability to perform without it also, otherwise our dependency may become our downfall.. No one seen Wall-E?

So in this case, technology is good, and comes at the price of possible shortfalls in social ability.

I think in this aspect, we could have reached the society we are today without technology, although the process would have been slower. Technology is quite funny like that. Now that we use it to connect to the whole world, it grows even more sharply because ideas and communication have become faster and people can work from anywhere in the world.

Having no technology is good, were not disrupting the balance of nature, but would we have lived this long without knowing as much as we do now?

If you mean would we have survived as a species? The question is kind of vague. Where does no technology stand? Are you saying, if we had never progressed past horse and cart? If we never progressed past electricity? Or if we ever progressed past the wheel? The answers will vary in all three cases, so to which are you referring to?

If we electricity was never discovered, sure we would still be here, alive and well, but society would continue to be more closed, as it was back then.

Well, let me know what you meant by your question, and I'll be able to give more input on it..

 

[Lord Viper]

@Greenstreet: I was saying in that sentence what if the human world didn't discover and/or created... anything, kind like if the world was like when Adam and Eve was first created. Though saying that now it would be impossible to even think that the world will never change. One example, how would people survive a natrual disaster? They have to think of somthing to survive with means a new discovery is born and how it works is technolgy. But as manhunter098 said, people can abuse technology and able to ruin other peoples lives, like making a survival house for themselves from a natural disaster and forget the other peoples lives in the process.

 

[manhunter098]

@Greenstreet: I was saying in that sentence what if the human world didn't discover and/or created... anything, kind like if the world was like when Adam and Eve was first created. Though saying that now it would be impossible to even think that the world will never change. One example, how would people survive a natrual disaster? They have to think of somthing to survive with means a new discovery is born and how it works is technolgy. But as manhunter098 said, people can abuse technology and able to ruin other peoples lives, like making a survival house for themselves from a natural disaster and forget the other peoples lives in the process.

Well using your technology for yourself isnt exactly abusing it. Its when you use it against other people that it becomes abuse. But even in your scenario the man who made a shelter probably wouldnt just keep others out, he would recruit them to help him out to better survive, that is what human instict it, we need each other to survive so its rare that people will truly abuse technology and hurt people with it, there are just so many people now that these abuses seem to be more common than they normally would, and I am sure the state of society has something to do with it.

 

[Greenstreet]

Whether against yourself or another person, technology can still have negative effects.
I still stand by my comment that people should be able to use technology sufficiently to ease and aid their general living/whatever but also have the ability to survive without, whether it be socially or literally.

As for would we have made it without any technology?
Unfortunately, there's no way to tell, I mean, the fact we are intelligent kept us alive, we were always heading in a more technically advanced direction. And if we weren't? Then I'm not sure how things would have panned out, perhaps we could have coped living fully off the natural land (as growing your won food requires some sort of technology).
And whether we would beat out the competition? That's even harder to answer..

 

[TigerWoods]

All humans strive daily to produce technological improvements for the good of man kind.

As much as I would like to believe that, it's just not true. As far as risks vs. benefits, I believe technology is worth the risk because of its importance in our world today. If you think about it, the industrial revolution skyrocketed the world from farm working peasants to what we have today. Yes, it obviously WILL have its abuses, but if you think about it, What can't be abused? I'm not really sure as to what you are asking, but I'll elaborate more later.

 

[RDK]

I've wanted to post this for a while. Ok, it's been said that technology is both helpful and harmful. Many people can agree it's mostly helpful, but in a lot of ways it's self sacrfice. Automobiles for example, there used to travel for miles faster than on foot or a bike, but the fosile and/or petroleum fuel hurts both the environment, both those items are non-recyclable, so once it's gone, we can never use again which.... hurts us. Also computers, the helpful reason is that they hold all kinds of information, it's like an international dictionary. The harmful, random people that want to steal, or kill have a easy way of knowing where they want to go by Map Quest, any News website, etc.

With those few examples, all I'm explaining is that technology is good, but it will always come with a price. Having no technology is good, were not disrupting the balance of nature, but would we have lived this long without knowing as much as we do now?

Discuss?

All this nonsense about humans and our technology "disrupting the balance of nature" is ridiculous. If anything, our time on this earth has shown us that we're the dominant species, and rightly so--our conscious mind that gives us the ability for rational thought allows us to use technology to our advantage. Cars, electricity, etc. adhere to the same exact concept of a beaver building a dam out of sticks. Both humans and beavers are using natural resources to their advantage; we're just doing it on a larger and more advanced scale.

So technically, anything created by man is inherently "natural". For some reason we just have this idea of "machine (or technology) vs. nature", when in fact our technology is a product of human evolution and natural selection.

Don't get me wrong--I certainly don't think we should go around annihilating inferior species. That would be rephrehensible and irresponsible. But I don't think we all need to be hardcore tree-huggers.

 

[IWontGetOverTheDam]

Not to quote Spider Man or anything, but with great power comes great responsibility. It's perfectly fine to develop technology that advances our knowledge of the world around us and helps in every day lives, but we have to be careful of the world itself. I greatly support alternative fuel sources and the like, but we can't put everything else on hold while we do. So until we get there, we have to do what we can. /Prius owner

 

[Greenstreet]

All this nonsense about humans and our technology "disrupting the balance of nature" is ridiculous. If anything, our time on this earth has shown us that we're the dominant species, and rightly so--our conscious mind that gives us the ability for rational thought allows us to use technology to our advantage. Cars, electricity, etc. adhere to the same exact concept of a beaver building a dam out of sticks. Both humans and beavers are using natural resources to their advantage; we're just doing it on a larger and more advanced scale.

So technically, anything created by man is inherently "natural". For some reason we just have this idea of "machine (or technology) vs. nature", when in fact our technology is a product of human evolution and natural selection.

Don't get me wrong--I certainly don't think we should go around annihilating inferior species. That would be rephrehensible and irresponsible. But I don't think we all need to be hardcore tree-huggers.

This is true. We just need to be aware of how we use technology and how it effects the environment. You don't have to go save trees or go anti-whaling, basic common sense and a sense of morality should be enough for us to sustain 'nature' (even tho technically everythings natural lol). Responsibility isn't hard to accomplish, but in the face of greed it can be.