Technology the ultimate downfall of mankind?

Question

What kind of effect has our evolving technology had on the environment? Our resourses? Human morality? Family values? What has happened to our society?

TECHNOLOGY - and it's pervasive impact on everything we do.

Let me simplify and explain.

Our society has come farther in the last 100 years, in the realm of technology, than any society of mankind in the history of the world. Statistics will dictate that when you have a rapid rise in any area, eventually you will hit a "peak" and after that the tides will turn and what was a rise, will be a rapid fall.

It is my belief that technology has stolen just as much as it has given, and our ability to create and use anything we wish to attain whatever we want, as a culture, will back fire on us and be the utter downfall and obliteration of what our society has become.

What are your thoughts on technology as it applies to environment, social ability, and morality in America?

I am not talking about the "gun" or about how technology has made life easier.

I am talking about how rapidly our advances have come and how those advances have been abused due to the comforts that they allow.

ie: children used to regulary play outside, tey had to.....now you have 2-3 generations of kids who think the world will end if they don't have tv, the internet, or a playstation.
Technology, and the parents who simply want to appease are creating morally inept generations.

Also, look at how much damage we have done to our enviroment in just over 100 years of burning fossil fuels.....

soon we will have a completely internet addicted and reliant upon society. What will happen if we have a national blackout?

People don't know to funtion anymore without the modern comforts of "technology"

Answer 1

Certainly, many people feel as you do. Essentially, however, you seem to be suggesting two things: 1) that technology brings as much harm as it brings benefits . . . and 2) that technology will eventually get out of control in such as way as to spell our doom.

These are essentially two separate points, for one could certainly argue that technology brings more benefits than harm, and yet still argue that it will bring about our destruction. On the otherhand, one could also argue that technology's benefits do not outweigh its negatives, and yet also disagree with the view that technology will be our undoing.

So the two points are essentially separate, and one can believe in one without necessarily believing in the other. So let me address them both separately:

1) Do the benefits of technology outweigh the negatives? My personal feeling is that the evidence all points to yes. I'm not just talking about the fact that I enjoy my television set, or the luxory of being able to drive to the grocery store in order to get food (rather than having to hunt for it, or spend all my time growing it myself); but more significantly, in terms of what it has brought to the human life in the terms that you were addressing, namely, morally/ethically and environmentally.

It is certainly true that technology brings with it various negatives, such as global warming (though that is not necessarily tied to technology, but rather certain types of technology) or increases in cancer. Yet, the bottomline is that people in modern countries enjoy average lifespans of over twice as long as people used to live. People in the past really had to struggle just to survive, we do not. That hardly suggests, to me, that our environment is caving in around us making life unbearable.

With our basic survival needs addressed, modern people can focus on greater things than just the concerns about the body, the way animals or cave men live(d). We have time to read, to learn, to think creativity, to get involved on deeper levels in our relationships, to struggle to define or actualize ourselves, to spend time with our children, to live, to love. If we were still struggling day after day just to survive, all our time and resources would be spent on nothing but that, and we would consequently live the kind of dull, short lives that our ancestors lived.

Furthermore, modern countries have a whole set of moral values that really are vastly superior to our ancestors. And none of them would have existed for not technology. For example, we recognize that slavery is wrong. Our ancestors didn't. Even in the Bible slavery was condoned. And this is in large part due to our increased sense of what it means to be human, which comes from education -- which would not be possible as a widespread phenomena without technology -- and also machines which substantially reduced . . . nay, eliminated . . . the need for forced labor. It isn't coincidence that slavery and modernization do not go hand in hand, the way it did for our ancestors societies.

Another examples, women's rights. Why did women only gain equal rights after the introduction of technology? Coincidence? I doubt it! Indeed, technology removed a great deal of the natural advantages that a man's greater physical strength held over women. Who cares how strong you are today, unless you are a football player. Furthermore, with more time to focus on the deeper aspects of life, time granted by technology, human beings developed a deeper understanding of themselves, an understanding which included women, unlike in the past.

Television. Yes, it certainly brings a lot of negative impressions to people on a daily basis. But without TV and movies, would we so easily be able to absorb ourselves in the lives of other people, people whom otherwise we might not feel anything in common with. Is it coincidence that racial discrimination rapidly fell after the introduction of mass media? In my opinion, TV and movies played a large role in this development. Placing ourselves in other people's shoes makes us more tolerant of others, and becoming more tolerant of others IS becoming more moral.

Modern societies don't allow child labor, racial and ethnic discrimination, slavery, and religious persecution. Yet these were common in societies of the past, and indeed in societies less tehcnologically developed within today's world. In these spheres, modern societies are more morally and ethically advanced.

Furthermore, modern societies, technologically advanced societies, all have free forms of government. We enjoy lives of freedom and the right to speak freely without fear of persecution. Such freedoms were virtually nonexistent in the past, is this mere coincidence that technology and such freedoms would develop hand and hand?

Sure, the family structure is falling apart, but is this really the disaster some make it out to be? In premodern societies, it was rare to be able to marry someone you loved, most marriages were prearranged, or ordered by ethnic, religious, and racial lines. People today have the responsibility to bring love into their relationships, it is not forced upon them by law. Thus, human beings must learn to find that within them that is deeper, they must learn how to relate to love and never take it for granted. And we have a lot of learning to do, for sure, but at least in modern societies we have the chance, whereas in premodern societies the lack of freedom with regard to relationships meant that you had no opportunity to discover love's mysteries, or how to love more deeply.

2) Will technology be our undoing? My opinion is yes and no. This is a much more difficult question to answer, and I've already spent a lot of time on this question. One's opinion with regard to this essentially boils down to, I think, whether one feels we human beings are evolving -- I don't mean merely physically, but psychologically and spiritually -- and whether technology is a part of that process. My opinion is that it is. Fundamentally, the universe and consciousness are much larger than we humans. The problem I have with those who argue that technology will spell our doom, is that they seem to hold a view that human beings and the universe are two separate things. In my opinion, the universe is evolving, and technology is just as much a part of that evolution as we human beings are.

It is precisely because I see what is happening as larger than just us humans that I feel technology will simultaneously be our undoing, and not so. It will not insofar as evolution shall continue, that consciousness, love, creativity, freedom, and spirituality shall continue to blossom. It will be, however, to the extent that inevitably, technology will replace human beings as the masters of this world. Whether that be that we human beings slowly begin to transform ourselves into machines, or whether machines, such as A.I. simply replace us, I cannot say. But I do not see a cap to where technology can go . . . and unfortunately, I do see a cap with regard to what human beings, in our current capacity, are capable of. But the assumption that machines will not be conscious, living beings, capable of feeling and love -- an assumption many people hold -- is likely wrong in my opinion. So my view is that machines and technology will, one day, in some fashion or another, make the world we know today obsolete. On the otherhand, I imagine the transition will be smooth, such that it will really be us that evolve into more advanced forms of life (and by that, I do not mean biological life, obviously), and so at no stage will we undergo what would otherwise be experienced as an "undoing".

Answer 2

I disagree. Mankind is a very adaptable animal, and while technological advancements have caused upheavals in the past, I don't think that human civilization overall has declined after them. For example:

The industrial revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries caused a lot of people to give up agricultural life for factories. There was a period of time where the balance of power shifted from royalty to merchants and manufacturers, but we survived that and went on. Working conditions improved, and I would argue that civilization didn't collapse or even decline. The same could be said for the 2nd industrial revolution that occurred about the beginning of the 20th century. Automobiles, assembly lines, etc. created massive amounts of change. Did civilization collapse?

I think you don't give enough credit to the adaptability of mankind. Every major advancement causes some ripples to spread through society, but overall, we have adapted and moved on. Yes, some groups and some areas didn't fare so well, but on the whole, mankind was better off.

Answer 3

we did not turn the last century but rather we are sufficating in information,staffing costs, controlling andinformation,remember? before the computer the cost of everything was going through the roof because of the paper trail, now we went through 2000 and the glitch, this was much more that what most thought it was, first the glitch showed how the computer is worshipped and what could or could happen and was put on a pedestal., back to the paper cost i was refering to at the end of the last age of inventions just before the computer here i see that there was this story about bring back the volkswagon bettle in the new millinium and other things that were in the last century and soon there was a muffled end to all of it, entreprenuerially i saw the skills of life shifting to a safe mode, a real lack of a new century, could they have documented enough to force the world back one hunderd years and get away with it>> i think they did<

Answer 4

technology ultimate downfall mankind

Answer 5

You are right,technology is the downfall of mankind.
Before we became technological we had a chance to live for millions of years.
When we learned to speak and developed the ability to be objective we will be lucky to survive the next 300 years.

Answer 6

It will be technology that nudges a planet killing asteroid off its path from destroying humanity. All we need is 10 years advanced warning to launch an interdiction satellite, lets hope technology is developed enough to accomplish this feat in time. It's an astronomical certainty that this event will happen.

Answer 7

"Everything in moderation", and "The middle path", are usually reliable guidelines regarding on how to "live a life" for both the individual and a culture. Obviously, neither has been adopted in our culture, in respect of all aspects of life, not just technology. Thus, (unpleasant) consequences will follow until balance is achieved.

Answer 8

I think that America is just greedy. If you think about it, we are at a point now when we have the ability to make a substitute for gasoline out of corn. We understand what will happen if we continue to pollute our air and kill people in Iraq for oil. Yet people are so greedy, that they will not risk doing that simply because we make so much money off of a dying resource.

Don't blame technology, blame the greedy people who use it in the ways that they do.

Answer 9

None...technology is a tool.

Technology is being abused...that's man's choice...that's not technologies fault.

Yes...I do blame the person and not the gun. Even when the gun goes off accidentally it's the person that allowed that possibility.

Answer 10

Technologies has bring better life to human kinds for all aspects of life.

Now, some people has use the new technologies for financial gain and ignoring the moral aspect and code. For example, telephone and television bring information and communication closer to people. But telephone and television also bring porn and junk information to household also. There are many , many regulations on technologies but there are little regulations on how people use that technologies.

Like a knife, it was mean to help people but there are people who will use it to slit someone's throat. is that means a knife is a bad thing ?

Dynamite is invented for constructions but people use it to kill.

Answer 11

No it is not the downfall of mankind.
Mankind has the unique ability to adapt.
Mankind is probably the only species that will live forever.