There is no shortage of evidence that many of the major problems of the world can be blamed on modern technology. Mass production of goods and mass transportation together with the factories and vehicles that enable all this devour the planet’s resources and pollute on an epic scale.
A central issue is that we have been burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil to provide the energy that powers our modern technologies. The fact is that more has now been burned than remains in the ground, and if that isn’t depressing enough, all the fuel that has been burned to date has been relentlessly pumping surplus CO2 into the atmosphere.
So we’re filling up at the Last Chance Gas Station and will soon be running on fumes, waiting for the inevitable breakdown and long walk back. It would be ironic if the final blow was delivered by our own modern transport network in the form of some especially virulent worldwide pandemic.
But is this really how our world ends? And is technology really the evil root of it all? Well probably not. This won’t be the first time that humanity has had to face up to the painful consequences of some pretty dumb (in hindsight) behaviour. Yet we’re still here.
The fact is that you cannot separate people from technology. It’s what defines us. Go back however far you like into prehistory and wherever a few old bones are identified as being human in origin you will find evidence of technology.
Since the dawn of human history it seems we have made weapons and tools, worn decorations and clothing, preserved and prepared food, painted and played music. Unique among all other animals we really for our survival not on thick fur or powerful claws, but on our capability to develop and deploy technology.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Mozart’s Magic Flute has its origins in the hollowed out animal bones that our ancestors fashioned into crude early flutes, or that the weapons of modern warfare can trace their lineage back to stone arrow heads. Consider as you read this, brought to you as a stream of ones and zeroes, that digital communication evolved from printed media, which was a step up from handwriting which itself developed from painting which seems to have started when we still lived in caves.
Human technology constantly evolves, improving on and adapting earlier technologies – quite commonly in order to address the shortcomings of that existing technology. There are always side-effects; the inventors of steam technology may have foreseen an Industrial Revolution as a possible outcome, but they would never have guessed that vast sewage systems would also be a consequence (needed to contain disease caused by urban crowding).
So we can be assured then that even if technology is indeed to blame for the current sorry state of affairs, it is still the only means we have to fix things again. Reverting back to some “Golden Age” before modern technology is a naive and dangerous idea; the solution lies in developing better eco-technologies (e.g. extend use of the internet and embrace high efficiency solar energy and low power consumption light emitting diodes).
These new eco-technologies are far less resource hungry and polluting and can help reduce the huge amount of travelling that goes on these days, while simultaneously actually improving the quality of life and offering increased choice. Doubtless we will some day discover that they too are flawed in some as yet unimagined way, but that’s alright, we know what to do about that.
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