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MSBKyle
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20 Sep 2017, 4:46 pm

Technology makes everything convenient, but it also seems to be destroying us and the way we used to do things. Many companies are replacing human workers with robots. Many retailers are going out of business because of online shopping. Toys R US is filing for bankruptcy because kids aren't playing with toys anymore and you can get the same toys online for less. With technology, people don't want to socialize anymore. People are so ingrained in their smart phones that they don't interact with the people they are with. Technology is keeping kids inside instead of them going outside to play. There was a survey not too long ago that said that high school students would rather play on their phones than socialize with their peers. Technology does have many conveniences, but I also think it is making us more lazy and more unaware of our surroundings. They say that technology is going to be the end of us. I have a smart phone and a computer so I am just as guilty as everyone else. What do you think? Is technology a good thing? Will it cause us harm in the long run?



Last edited by MSBKyle on 20 Sep 2017, 4:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

LegoMaster2149
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20 Sep 2017, 4:49 pm

I think it is doing harm to us, because it is taking away our time to actually spend time with other people in real life.



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22 Sep 2017, 10:51 am

MSBKyle wrote:
Technology makes everything convenient, but it also seems to be destroying us and the way we used to do things. Many companies are replacing human workers with robots. Many retailers are going out of business because of online shopping. Toys R US is filing for bankruptcy because kids aren't playing with toys anymore and you can get the same toys online for less. With technology, people don't want to socialize anymore. People are so ingrained in their smart phones that they don't interact with the people they are with. Technology is keeping kids inside instead of them going outside to play. There was a survey not too long ago that said that high school students would rather play on their phones than socialize with their peers. Technology does have many conveniences, but I also think it is making us more lazy and more unaware of our surroundings. They say that technology is going to be the end of us. I have a smart phone and a computer so I am just as guilty as everyone else. What do you think? Is technology a good thing? Will it cause us harm in the long run?


Overall technology is a benefit. Do you want to go back before there were telephones and electric power? However all technology has Dark Spots. For all the good technology does (and there is plenty of that) there are also abuses of technology and sometimes technology cuts us off from Plain Old Nature, blues skies and sunshine.


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22 Sep 2017, 4:53 pm

^ The OP is not asking if copper tools hurt us more than stone tools did. By "technology" he obviously means current "high tech", and the world wide web technology of now.

After I am through playing solitaire on my computer, and looking at porn on Xvideos, and do a few more rounds of Farmville, and with debating with forty folks on facebook, and here on WP, I will get back to this thread, and think about it.



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02 Oct 2017, 7:04 pm

OP, I think technology makes our world very convenient, but deep down, I share the same sentiment that you expressed. It's sad because too many people, especially under 40, don't feel the same way. I miss a lot of the ways people used to do things. I am even willing to go back when my parents were younger and they had only a few TV channels. I know a lot of people think it's nostalgia, but do they want to be judgmental for it?

I feel like there might not even be a point in living as a human being anymore once this stuff is in full swing. I'm not suicidal, but I don't know if I want to live for much longer than 20 years considering the acceleration of pace increasing power of technology. What's the point of "progress"? Why is progress in technology supposed to be always inherently good? Does better technology truly lead to a better standard or quality?

I started taking notice of these trends with movie theaters ditching film formats 4 years ago.

I wonder if someday we maybe can figure out a way to stop it, but probably we're unfortunately destined to the future forever and we can't ever go back again, I assure that 100% right now.

I don't think having to upgrade to different ways of doing stuff or being free to be lazy is necessarily making our civilization better. :(



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04 Oct 2017, 4:48 pm

From the way I see things, I think Technology is hurting us because it's separating us from in-person interactions.


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steve76
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05 Oct 2017, 3:11 am

Technology is doing more good then harm. If technology was not made then we would have no xrays no MRI and we would not know if someone's leg is just a sprain or if its even worse life a bone fracture so i say that technology could be helpful for some stuff but not every thing can be good about it.


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CubeComet
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08 Oct 2017, 2:39 am

Vsauce’s video, “Juvenoia”, (Which you can see on Youtube along with the sources in the description) shows some research that the past had similar problems. For example, there was a teenage craze made on passing short notes on paper before. The adults back then complained that the young people no longer sit down face to face to have a real conversation. It reminds me of a picture of everyone looking down on their iphones in a restaurant compared with an early 19th century looking picture of everyone staring at their newspapers without any interaction.

Besides, even if technology makes face to face contact harder, it still has other benefits for communication. Such as minority groups being able to find each other online or people with unpopular interests being able to talk like this. People who have long distance relationships are able to talk more. Since we’re able to talk with other people of different countries and backgrounds more, people can grow more accepting of other views. That, or they’ll use the internet to meet even more people who agree with their close minded views and grow more powerful together. It has different pros and cons. And rather than blaming technology and stopping its development, people are better of being taught how to be responsible with technology. Moral and wisdom developments has to be balanced with technological developments.

When you mean technology, most people tend to think of computers these days. But it’s a much more mixed picture of course when you bring in other types of technology. People arguing for this side I’ve seen like to emphasize medical advancements. I remember reading from the book Superfreakonimics that they didn’t even used to know that you were supposed to wash your hands before surgery. The idea of health requiring cleanliness is an idea modern people take for granted.

And of course, I don’t know anyone that would want to be a huntergatherer scourging for food in the wilderness or a poor peasant worrying about famine centuries ago after all. More of us get to have homes. Advancements in agriculture means there tends to be more food for everyone. More of us have sanitation. (See Hans Asperger’s site Gapminder for statistics.) It’s definitely not perfect, but it was better than before. The book Sapiens : A Brief History of Humanity comments on the idea that while many of us worry about how much suffering is in the world today, it took the advancements of technology for people to even consider that the idea that many major world problems could have a chance to be solved at all.

Basic needs make us happier but beyond that it doesn’t do much. (See studies on happiness in poverty) Of course, much of our technology doesn’t contribute much to our happiness. If we get to live two hundred years, that doesn’t mean we lived a happy life. If the same pattern goes on, people then would worry about not living up to three hundred years. Developments in entertainment, in art, in music and the rest keep us interested but then we get bored and move on the next thing. The things that would make us really satisfied in the long term - things like gratitude, meditation, CBT, flow, self esteem, better relationships and more aren’t actually taught as courses in most schools.



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08 Oct 2017, 7:17 am

No, I don't think so at least. Technology brings people closer and helps us to connect.

I recently moved far away from my old friends. Now I keep in contact mostly trough Steam chat or Virtual Reality. This again helps me to not forget them and gradually loose the connection. Before this tech existed it used to be a big problem for me whenever I moved to a new place. Now I can just pop on my VR glasses and play some table tennis and socialize to keep the friendship from eroding.



bigbadbeast2018
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06 Nov 2017, 1:26 am

I think it is making us lazy



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06 Nov 2017, 2:00 am

I think it can be a great benefit and perhaps we're still in an awkward growth phase.

As for jobs, who wants to work retail anyway?

Or rather, why can't we shift the workload, especially the really sh***y jobs, onto the robot workforce? I think we need an economic plan to go along with allowing the next phase of a high tech society. If handled correctly, people would then be freed up from long hours of mundane labor tasks for recreation and social life. Services like meetup.com would make social gathering more efficient and easier to find like minded people.

I think many people, myself included, maybe pull out the smartphone because of a lack of interest in the current conversation. It's the modern alternative to just sitting there nodding and pretending to pay attention.

I will concede there will be a laziness factor with many people choosing to sit on their ass a binge watch Netflix, but many other people will seize the opportunity with freetime for learning new skills.



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06 Nov 2017, 4:47 pm

VIDEODROME wrote:
I think it can be a great benefit and perhaps we're still in an awkward growth phase.

As for jobs, who wants to work retail anyway?

Or rather, why can't we shift the workload, especially the really sh***y jobs, onto the robot workforce? I think we need an economic plan to go along with allowing the next phase of a high tech society. If handled correctly, people would then be freed up from long hours of mundane labor tasks for recreation and social life. Services like meetup.com would make social gathering more efficient and easier to find like minded people.

I think many people, myself included, maybe pull out the smartphone because of a lack of interest in the current conversation. It's the modern alternative to just sitting there nodding and pretending to pay attention.

I will concede there will be a laziness factor with many people choosing to sit on their ass a binge watch Netflix, but many other people will seize the opportunity with freetime for learning new skills.


Doesn't really do any good for mankind as a collective whole, does it? That about the laziness factor, I just personally believe that any more than half the population (or maybe even as the population grows larger in numbers) only will prefer to "sit on their ass" and binge like you said above me.

Maybe I just don't expect anything to change that may very well change, but as far as the way I feel right now, the more people reproduce, the more cruel, stupid, and wrong-natured our world becomes.



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13 Jan 2018, 7:41 pm

With the current progress of artificial intelligence / machine learning technologies, the ups and downs of technology deserves continuing discussions!

The consensus is to "find that balance." In other words, every story has two sides!

On one hand, it's just as well that advancing technologies carry out those tasks best accomplished by replacing fallible, careless, and even dishonest human-beings. On the other hand, advancing technologies can replace drudgery/boredom, and even boost the value of human beings.



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15 Jan 2018, 4:24 pm

JustFoundHere wrote:
With the current progress of artificial intelligence / machine learning technologies, the ups and downs of technology deserves continuing discussions!

The consensus is to "find that balance." In other words, every story has two sides!

On one hand, it's just as well that advancing technologies carry out those tasks best accomplished by replacing fallible, careless, and even dishonest human-beings. On the other hand, advancing technologies can replace drudgery/boredom, and even boost the value of human beings.


I don't know if it really boosts the value of humans if we are looking at current trends.

Optimism and hope is a good thing, but I don't think it's really perfect for speculating this kind of stuff.



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19 Jan 2018, 6:29 pm

I think we're discovering just how radically subtle changes in incentive structure can change human behavior and that a minor tweak in one direction can change the path of least resistance enough that if it's a very pervasive activity being altered it can have a lot of secondary and tertiary consequences that we'd never be able to foresee.

So far it seems to at least be safe from the perspective that none of the immediate side effects are killing us. That said we really can't be sure of how some of these changes might be warping childhood development (there's plenty of concern about that) and also we don't know how much longer we can radically transform the human condition without making a fatal error of some type.

I think of AI for example and a lot of thought experiments like the paperclip Armageddon brought on by a paperclip maximizing agency. I think the answer to AI dystopias would be to build our first strengthened or nearly 'strong' AI's to have human concerns for race longevity and planetary sustainability as their ultimate goals and these would in turn perhaps be the agencies which would build the artilects (ie. super-AI) which would act a bit like planetary guardians and seed so many copies of themselves that it would be a permanent state where humans could no longer control the situation. That's one of the things I worry about with AI - ie. whoever will be launching that chain could either completely safeguard our future or completely destroy it, all depending on what programming they put in that AI and just how exact and far-sighted they'd be in considering consequences. I'm not sure if that farsightedness would be best achieved by a robust list of boundaries or by a minimum set of boundaries (like - look after the well-being of the most sentient life first and optimize everything downward accordingly, all while keeping the collective biome of the planet in it's most healthy order with x amount of diversity) where the AI would figure the rest out itself.

Either way that'll be a scary moment because we'll likely either be almost eternal as a culture after that (although we'll have to get used to benevolent AI dictatorship) or we could be extinct within weeks, all depending on what mathematical extreme - stability or destruction - that the cycle goes toward, and all based on who gets it done first.


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19 Jan 2018, 6:44 pm

MSBKyle wrote:
Toys R US is filing for bankruptcy because kids aren't playing with toys anymore and you can get the same toys online for less.
Technology is keeping kids inside instead of them going outside to play.

Ok... I don't disagree with your conclusion... but several of your supporting arguments feel inaccurate to me.

My kids have more toys than I did, by a MASSIVE margin.
I DO get them from digital retailers, and not Toys R Us, but that is because they are cheaper and more convenient.
Technology is what my kids do inside... they are inside because I won't tell them to "go outside and play" like my parents did, for safety [horrible helicopter parenting nonsense] reasons.

That said... everyone in my family is a tech addict... and for the ASD members, that is a weird challenge... I lived MOST of my life without a smartphone... and I was horribly antisocial and never wanted to talk to anyone face to face and mostly miserable...

...now I'm antisocial and never want to talk to anyone face to face and I have Hearthstone!

HOWEVER...

I draw less. That is the biggest difference... I used to fill those gaps when the NTs were talking with doodling on a sketchpad... now I shoot zombies and race hovercars... which is decidedly less good for my soul.