After watching the compilation
of Future Shock videos I gained a sense of what technology has truly become in
recent years. It seemed as if in the
1970’s scientists were trying to come up with a resolution to every
problem. However, as Orson Welles’
narration summed it up best we use technology as a way to be “adapted to
momentary needs” (Future Shock).
I was struck by just how
many areas of our life people are working on changing. The beauty of life is about going through
natural changes and growing old, as did our parents and those before them. Now we have elderly people going in for
cosmetic surgery trying to look younger when in reality their “clock” is on its
final moments. While we can use these
upgrades in technology to cure a disease and expand the age of which we can
live there is a certain point where technology becomes to be too much.
Technology has not only replaced the
way humans look and act today but it has sometimes negatively affected humans
in other areas as well. There are many
jobs in which people have been laid off because a team of robots can do the job
better or faster. What we have to ask
ourselves is who is behind the mind of these robots? It is the people who have
created them and it is the people who need to put limitations on them because
it is causing many families to fall apart.
I don’t think one would be too happy if a company came out with a
machine that could do your job better than you.
All those years of work, studying and applying yourself for what
reason?
While technology may pave great
advancements for generations to come, we must not be totally reliant on these
machines to help us function. We need to
bring back the era of appreciating what we have and not throwing our favorite
toy away because the newest one came out, as shown in Future Shock. It is destroying the minds of the young
because we look to technology for answers instead of people. We prefer to “ask Jeeves” a question instead
of going to our moms and dads which is an issue that must be controlled by
limiting the power of technology.
But without the advances in technology (of even the past decade or two), we would never have found the Higgs Boson, or brought the cancer survival rate up to anything significant. We can bend the impossible with it, but do the negatives really outweigh the positives?
ReplyDeleteJob loss because of robots is the only technology I've found that could really be "pushed" on you. You can say no to anything else, but would you really want to? I believe we must select what technologies we embrace- and we will, through common sense and ethical limitations.
I agree that we should put a limit on technology. It is true that technology has taken away jobs froms some industries. But isnt it also true that over the last 100 years technology has created more jobs than it has taken away? I also agree that people are using technology to do things medically that were never meant to be done such as plastic surgery on elderly people when they have enough health problems as it is and a complication from the surgery could kill them . Over all I really like yoru post.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot that you've said here.. It definitely is amazing to actually take a good look and notice how much we really do rely on technology. I agree that we can rely on it too much at times. We need to recognize that some of what technology does can be done by us as well. I see your point about how it has taken many job opportunites from people, which is definitely a downfall. From another view point, it may be seen as postive because it has allowed more jobs to be made. I think learning about the effect technology has on jobs would definitely be something to think about and look into.
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