Does anyone fear technological change/advancement?

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Jet102fm
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03 Jul 2011, 4:16 pm

I WISH THE WORLD WILL STOP SAYING BIG IS BETTER! BIG AND NEW ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER, SO SHUT UP YOU GREEDY WORLD! Sorry, but I am just fearing advanced tech development. I wish I could live like in the 50s-80s where it wasn't too advanced and we still did everything the traditional way. God always betrayed me big time. I need to do the same to him or her. Do you fear rapid advancement too? Would you organize a movement if you could?



AngelKnight
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03 Jul 2011, 4:59 pm

Hiyas,

I can't say I'd find it useful to fight against advancement. The only ways I know to absolutely halt advancement require absolute bans on knowledge. With humans as curious as we are, the only way I know to ban or destroy knowledge would involve, umm, destroying humans. Besides, I happen to like knowledge and know-how even if I'm disappointed or upset about how humans use it sometimes.

For me, technology a lot in common with weaponry in two regards: I may like it, but sometimes (technology) or always (weapons), I hate what it represents. That said, the Bad Guys [1] have access to them, so I want my hands on the biggest, baddest ones I can find.

[1] Worse, the set of people that makes up "the Bad Guys" keeps changing.



Surfman
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03 Jul 2011, 5:03 pm

Sorry the only way for me is forward



SammichEater
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03 Jul 2011, 5:12 pm

Fine. You organize that movement, and in a thousand years, see where it gets you. The human race needs technology if we are to survive in the universe.


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Simonono
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03 Jul 2011, 5:12 pm

I don't fear it, I just really miss some of the old things, like big fat TVs, VHS tapes and the dial-up noise.



AspieWolf
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03 Jul 2011, 5:27 pm

In all seriousness, have you ever considered joining the Amish, or Mennonite communities? I don't know if that would be an option, but I do know that they choose to keep a lifestyle that is generally at about the 1800's at best.


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Fatal-Noogie
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03 Jul 2011, 5:37 pm

Looking at the big picture, yes and no.
The industrial revolution set the stage for exponentially increasing environmental and ecological devastation. (I'm no tree-huger — I'm just keepin it real.)
But technological advancements in energy efficiency, clean energy, etc., may yet mitigate and reverse the impact in the approaching decades/centuries.
That's extremely hard to predict.

On a personal level, it doesn't bother me too much because it doesn't stop me from enjoying traditional things.
It doesn't stop me from listening to acoustic guitar.
It doesn't stop me from painting in traditional medium.
It doesn't stop me from using 35mm b&w camera film.
Those things became "obsolete" but they certainly didn't disappear.


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03 Jul 2011, 5:48 pm

I am a technophile and neophile. I am certainly for technological progress and I look forward to the improvements the future may bring in multiple areas.

Technology saves lives (medicine), it raises our standard of living (refrigerators, stoves, housing, air conditioners, computers, etc), provides us with entertainment (video games, movies, television, music) that can be widely disseminated (DVDs, blu-ray, VHS, CDs, mp3s, etc).

There are downsides and we need to deal with them. I don't know if we will be able to, but at that point it's a matter of misusing an extremely versatile tool, but the tool itself is not wrong.



Moog
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03 Jul 2011, 5:48 pm

Jet102fm wrote:
I wish I could live like in the 50s-80s where it wasn't too advanced and we still did everything the traditional way.


The 1350s-80s?


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MagicMeerkat
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03 Jul 2011, 5:59 pm

I used too but that was before I got good with computers.


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The_Walrus
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03 Jul 2011, 6:05 pm

I fear the rapid lengthening of human lifespans that will probably result from advances in technology. We'll inevitably exhaust our resources and kill ourselves and most animals on the only planet in the universe that is definitely habitable.

Advances in technology will be fine, as long as we advance in a sustainable manner (e.g. impose a global one-child policy for about 50 years, then a 2-child policy forever; rely solely on renewable forms of energy).



Verdandi
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03 Jul 2011, 6:11 pm

Increases in standard of living actually cause the birthrate to decrease. This has been statistically demonstrated all over the world.

We are already at the point where we need to find alternatives to exhausting existing resources. That's not a factor of human lifespan, but a factor of technological growth and a lack of innovation in certain fields (such as energy).



MotherKnowsBest
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03 Jul 2011, 6:17 pm

Fear technology? Me? Never! I laugh in the face of technology. Ha! Ha! Ha! I have to, I don't know how to use any of it. :wink: Took me 5 years to pluck up the courage to get the bread machine out of the box it came in and I still don't have a mobile.



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03 Jul 2011, 7:16 pm

I don't fear it, I abhor it. On one hand it can be helpful but then it becomes addictive and people become dependent on technology so that they become the tool. Already I've seen people have problems with memory, patience, basic skills that technology usually gives them a shortcut to, fatigue, etc.
People have become addicted to using Facebook on their phones or they are playing games all day. I hardly know anyone that will sit down with a good book for a few hours a day.

Basically, what I'm saying is modern technology is making people stupid. Their vocabulary has even changed.

I don't really care who I offend. You can try and attack me by saying that I'm using technology now but the truth of the matter is that I barely spend a whole hour on the internet anymore and I spend under 10 minutes on social networking sites. The internet is nothing more than a research tool and a place to check my e-mails.

Perhaps I am just annoyed that I try so damn hard to to be organised and try my best to keep up to date with knowledge and around me I see a world that doesn't care. They eat bad, drink, take drugs and live in their own filth when I know that full well if they just put that extra bit of effort in that they could have some structure to their lives and maybe if they picked up a book once in awhile they would actually learn something new.


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04 Jul 2011, 3:57 am

Verdandi wrote:
Increases in standard of living actually cause the birthrate to decrease. This has been statistically demonstrated all over the world.

Yes, it does. However, the global population is still increasing, and the world's population is projected to reach 8.4-10.6 billion by 2050 (I'm not sure exactly what the lower bound is, fairly sure the upper bound is 10.6 billion though). Simply put, as human lifespan increases (leading to the population increasing faster than it ever did when birth rate and infant mortality were high and lifespan was short), our demands for electrical and chemical energy, food, water, space, grooming products, and so forth, will skyrocket, as they have been skyrocketing since the industrial revolution. We in the west already need to import much of our food from less economically developed nations. How is the UK going to feed 15 million more people? Import more food from countries which already suffer food shortages, and will have much bigger populations themselves? Hope for genetic engineering to create a solution in a world affected by climate change? Where are those 15 million people going to live? Will we cut down our last remaining forests to make homes, or turn some of our current homes into towers of tiny flats?

Heck, that link to the Independent shows that China's population will increase by the small matter of 140 million people, despite the one child rule and the abortion of many female fetuses in urban environments resulting in a gender imbalance.

I'm sure there are efficiency measures and advances in technology to come that will go some way towards solving these problems, but given the lax attitudes of many governments towards them, I don't think the advances in technology will be as straightforward as people claim. There's only so much sun shining on the Earth, and photosynthesis is only so efficient...



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04 Jul 2011, 4:25 am

Sort of... I don't exactly fear of it, but I am weary of it (try reading some cyberpunk novels, you'll know where I'm coming from)

I think that we should try to find a healthy balance between technology and nature.