02-26-2011, 02:35 AM
quote:
Originally posted by PaulW
"We have been dreaming that technology will make our lives better but with close examination we find technology has only made itself better."
Science is the single most successful agent in making our lives better. Nothing else has come close. Maybe you think life still isn't great but it sure was a heck of a lot worse. maybe one day it will reach your standards, but only by more science and technology.
What alternatives are you thinking of? Back to nature?
Are you sure you've picked the right word? I don't know many people against being individualistic, besides totalitarian dictators, which I assume you're not. Are you residing somewhere else that's less individualistic?
I think one of the marks of someone who is following a meme without much thought is when they say something is better without providing a definition of what "better" means to them. Always focusing on the benefits, but never the costs.
Is it better to have an oil rig spew billions of gallons of crude in an ocean that is now leaving dolphins washing up dead on the gulf coast?
Was it better to have Bophal, Chernobyl, or Hiroshima? Is it better to have Meth, thalidamide, and BPA? Is it better that I cannot walk to a creek and drink the water? Is it better that millions of people work in sweat shops in Asia? Is mountain top mining better? Is it better to save a man from cancer so he can work at a mind numbing job for the rest of his life?
But again, it is hard to see this when you are individualistic. You see how it it benefits you personally and give it much more weight on your scale than the immensity of how it damages the whole. Yes, maybe individualistic is the wrong word, maybe selfish? Greedy? Sociopathic?
And you say that it was a lot worse in the past, but who told you that story? The myth of technology is that it saved us, but no one can say from what and for how much. But the myth is part of the propoganda of technology.
I offer no alternatives, that would be more tinkering with things that do not need to be fixed. Everything finds its own balance. We will be fixed of technology in time. I am just looking for others who understand this and wish to soften the ride down.
And as Harry Tuttle said in the movie Brazil "We are all in this together kid."