Technology: A New Life, Or A Tragic End For Us?

[OMGAKITTY]

820's all refers to everyone alive on the planet right now.
Dark's all refers to the human race.

[820reborn]

Oh... Well, he should have been specific!
Well, there is a chance that something can happen. Anything can happen and kill all of us. A leak of sorts, an Astroid, global warming... Who knows? Honestly.

[820reborn]

Bump.

[820reborn]

bump

[The Dark One]

As a rule, I do think that technology has a positive impact on the world, but I'm just going to play devil's advocate here for a second and provide some counter-arguments for you guys.

There are numerous studies on human happiness, fulfillment, etc. in the department of psychology. Hard work and the surmounting of obstacles has a direct impact on happiness. By cutting people out from work, we are, in a sense, making it more difficult for them to achieve a sense of "fulfillment" or "happiness" in life. Ideally, as labor-intensive jobs are filled by machines (physical labor, waiters, secretaries, court scribes, mechanics, etc.), humans would dedicate their time instead to critical and creative thinking pursuits. (which we should have more of anyways) But to be honest, we're pleasure-seeking animals, and I'm not at all certain that there won't be large numbers of people who don't really do anything productive for society (be it technological, philosophical, cultural, whatever) and that are really quite unhappy. These people will indulge in the pleasures of life without bothering with higher thinking.

The other worry is the advancements taking place in weapons technology. By increasing the power of our weaponry, we are further abstracting the concept of might. In a knife fight, a person with good eyesight, coordination, and flexible and strong muscles will do better than someone without those advantages. If a nuke goes off, that person is dead regardless.

Now, at first you would argue that we are simply making evolution favor intelligence, creativity, etc. --> The scientists producing the new weaponry and the politicians rallying their countries are now the evolutionary peak of society. But consider, intelligence won't protect you from a bomb. Neither will charisma. Obviously, these characteristics can have a certain effect. Scientists can work out ways to shoot missiles down before they hit, etc. But by further abstracting this process, bringing the benefits of a trait farther away from the trait itself (simply the knowledge of what you need to do to shoot down a missile isn't going to instantly allow you to do so. There is equipment to consider, time investure, cost, labor, etc.) you are making natural selection a less reliable process. The effect of this? You drastically slow or possibly even halt the evolutionary process. Because selection is more random, a large variance in traits begins to emerge, with very dumb and very smart people. Very good hearing, very bad hearing, etc, etc. Inbreeding causes excellent people to produce less than excellent offspring, further slowing down the evolutionary process.

So, in a way, is it possible that technological advancement, as least in the weapons department, would completely and utterly bring human evolutionary progress to a standstill?

[820reborn]

Hehehe... The way that you compare this tech world today... You make it seem as if evolution is hindering us... And you're right... But it's still ironic...

Basically, you're saying that technology will eventually turn against us and kill us all? I beleive you. It's scary but true.
Have you ever heard of the Doomsday Clock...?

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Clicked this thread expecting something along the lines of "cell phones vastly deplete the bee population with waves or something, forget the details, and due to their importance within ecosystems, human extinction is said with supporting evidence to occur within four years of bees' extinction, so cell phones are directly linked to human extinction" and was sorely disappointed. It's actually true too. Lol.

As for the topic at hand, the use of technology as you use the word is entirely optional. If you don't like it, don't.

However, technology is essentially anything that's been discovered to be something that we can use to help us go about life. So to be technical, food is technology, because if the technological discovery that "shoving something in your mouth, comping, and digesting sustains us" wasn't made, we wouldn't have such advanced technology as food and we'd all be dead. If you shun technology completely, you'll be dead too.

[820reborn]

So we're stuck in a loop. If we evolve tech it will destroy us. If we don't, we destroy ourselves.
So who wins here??? Not us.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Or just keep eating and don't use shit that's directly related to the extinction of the human race. Just a thought.

[820reborn]

Heh... We're all gonna die someday! Why not enjoy ourselves!?
I don't know what to do, personally. Should I be a critic or a supporter? Dunno.

[OMGAKITTY]

(09-10-2009 08:47 PM)~ P O L A R I S ~ Wrote:  Clicked this thread expecting something along the lines of "cell phones vastly deplete the bee population with waves or something, forget the details, and due to their importance within ecosystems, human extinction is said with supporting evidence to occur within four years of bees' extinction, so cell phones are directly linked to human extinction" and was sorely disappointed. It's actually true too. Lol.

As for the topic at hand, the use of technology as you use the word is entirely optional. If you don't like it, don't.

However, technology is essentially anything that's been discovered to be something that we can use to help us go about life. So to be technical, food is technology, because if the technological discovery that "shoving something in your mouth, comping, and digesting sustains us" wasn't made, we wouldn't have such advanced technology as food and we'd all be dead. If you shun technology completely, you'll be dead too.

I wouldn't agree that food is technology. I'd say that we have developed technology to enhance our ability to create/harvest food.

[The Dark One]

(09-10-2009 10:59 PM)OMGAKITTY Wrote:  

(09-10-2009 08:47 PM)~ P O L A R I S ~ Wrote:  Clicked this thread expecting something along the lines of "cell phones vastly deplete the bee population with waves or something, forget the details, and due to their importance within ecosystems, human extinction is said with supporting evidence to occur within four years of bees' extinction, so cell phones are directly linked to human extinction" and was sorely disappointed. It's actually true too. Lol.

As for the topic at hand, the use of technology as you use the word is entirely optional. If you don't like it, don't.

However, technology is essentially anything that's been discovered to be something that we can use to help us go about life. So to be technical, food is technology, because if the technological discovery that "shoving something in your mouth, comping, and digesting sustains us" wasn't made, we wouldn't have such advanced technology as food and we'd all be dead. If you shun technology completely, you'll be dead too.

I wouldn't agree that food is technology. I'd say that we have developed technology to enhance our ability to create/harvest food.

Food is merely a product. Technology would be, for example, the stick we use to knock the banana off the tree or the animal skins we wear to increase our chances of survival in inclement weather.

[820reborn]

Wow... You just necrobumped SO hard. Shame on you.

[The Dark One]

(11-03-2009 07:14 PM)820reborn Wrote:  Wow... You just necrobumped SO hard. Shame on you.

Why do you think I posted a post so completely irrelevent to the point being discussed here? It gave me an excuse to necrobump. It's not exactly a crime in a slowmoving forum like debate.

People shoul continue where they left off.

[820reborn]

Whatever... *Rolls eyes*

So, technology eventually will, like everything else that is overused (Like Earth, for example), come back and lethally bit all of us back in the ass.

[jk233_ultimatemaster]

Good, because everything is made easier, like writing a term paper

Bad, because people will have easier access and will use it to commit online crimes.

[OMGAKITTY]

(11-03-2009 06:46 PM)The Dark One Wrote:  

(09-10-2009 10:59 PM)OMGAKITTY Wrote:  

(09-10-2009 08:47 PM)~ P O L A R I S ~ Wrote:  Clicked this thread expecting something along the lines of "cell phones vastly deplete the bee population with waves or something, forget the details, and due to their importance within ecosystems, human extinction is said with supporting evidence to occur within four years of bees' extinction, so cell phones are directly linked to human extinction" and was sorely disappointed. It's actually true too. Lol.

As for the topic at hand, the use of technology as you use the word is entirely optional. If you don't like it, don't.

However, technology is essentially anything that's been discovered to be something that we can use to help us go about life. So to be technical, food is technology, because if the technological discovery that "shoving something in your mouth, comping, and digesting sustains us" wasn't made, we wouldn't have such advanced technology as food and we'd all be dead. If you shun technology completely, you'll be dead too.

I wouldn't agree that food is technology. I'd say that we have developed technology to enhance our ability to create/harvest food.

Food is merely a product. Technology would be, for example, the stick we use to knock the banana off the tree or the animal skins we wear to increase our chances of survival in inclement weather.

Isn't....that...what I said?

[820reborn]

You did.

[The Dark One]

(11-04-2009 06:31 PM)OMGAKITTY Wrote:  

(11-03-2009 06:46 PM)The Dark One Wrote:  

(09-10-2009 10:59 PM)OMGAKITTY Wrote:  

(09-10-2009 08:47 PM)~ P O L A R I S ~ Wrote:  Clicked this thread expecting something along the lines of "cell phones vastly deplete the bee population with waves or something, forget the details, and due to their importance within ecosystems, human extinction is said with supporting evidence to occur within four years of bees' extinction, so cell phones are directly linked to human extinction" and was sorely disappointed. It's actually true too. Lol.

As for the topic at hand, the use of technology as you use the word is entirely optional. If you don't like it, don't.

However, technology is essentially anything that's been discovered to be something that we can use to help us go about life. So to be technical, food is technology, because if the technological discovery that "shoving something in your mouth, comping, and digesting sustains us" wasn't made, we wouldn't have such advanced technology as food and we'd all be dead. If you shun technology completely, you'll be dead too.

I wouldn't agree that food is technology. I'd say that we have developed technology to enhance our ability to create/harvest food.

Food is merely a product. Technology would be, for example, the stick we use to knock the banana off the tree or the animal skins we wear to increase our chances of survival in inclement weather.

Isn't....that...what I said?

Exactly.

[820reborn]

....
OT- Tech still has it's uses guys. It's not all bad.