How important is our technology?

[Levusti]

So in the last few weeks, various parts of Texas was hit with an incredible amount of storms and a lot of tornadoes and flooding hit the area. Luckily, my family's house only suffered power outages.

It was then when I realized how attached to the internet and technology I really was. I coped much better than my sister since I'm good at entertaining myself with books and things that do not require a plug, battery, or Wi-Fi. But there's also the issue of refrigeration and freezing of perishable foods, lighting, heating, air conditioning, and, if you only have an electric-powered stove to cook with, cooking.

Is it really important or necessary, do you think that we are so dependent on the presence of electricity in our modern culture? Only a little over a century ago, the most electricity anyone had in their home was limited to indoor lighting. If you had to go without electricity whatsoever, would you be able to function well?

 

[Brovo]

Is it really important or necessary, do you think that we are so dependent on the presence of electricity in our modern culture?

Yes it is absolutely and completely and entirely important. It's part of the infrastructure of a modern first world nation. Look around at the world. Places without easily and readily accessible electricity are generally backwater civil rights nightmare zones the likes of which would make General Zod blush. Thanks to electricity & technology, hospitals can perform nigh miracles with science. We've eliminated entire diseases from the entirety of the United States & Canada via vaccines we couldn't have mass produced without technology, leave alone informed the entire populace about without technology. Don't even get me started on the sheer immeasurable military supremacy first world nations exert on everyone else by sheer measure of technology.

Technology has improved every single aspect of human civilization. Want to get somewhere fast? Take a plane. Want to know the answer to a physics question? Google it. As for those who decry that technology makes us antisocial, hahahaha. People wishing for the "good old days" that never existed. Social media is a gargantuan monstrosity in multiple forms. It hardly makes us antisocial, it just enables voluntary balkanization we could already do to ourselves given sufficient effort.

If anything, I show disgust towards the troglodytes that attempt to hold back society with pseudo-science or blind nostalgia. Bring on the technological revolution: Praise the almighty beast of science and electricity. Every single technological innovation we've brought has had the capacity to massively improve humanity. Technology is what's ultimately enabled us to understand one another better than we ever could before. Want to learn about Japan? You don't have to ask your racist cousin: You can just look at it for yourself, learn about the people, their culture, their gods, their values, their struggles--you couldn't do this even just a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago, you largely had to rely on word of mouth.

So, yeah. Technology is absolutely and completely vital to the progress of humanity. Electricity is absolutely and completely vital towards the functionality of technology. Every single country on Earth supports the notion that more technology and superior technology grants unprecedented edges and improvements in nearly every aspect of society. Just always beware those who would take such a benevolent notion as technological progress, and wield it to hostile, violent, or dehumanizing edges. People who engage in identity politics and fear-mongering are your enemy: Not technology. If we should learn anything from the dark ages, it's that suppression of technological and social progress only causes unnecessary pain.

If you had to go without electricity whatsoever, would you be able to function well?

I would do everything in my power to restore electricity. It lets me preserve food for long periods of time, and gives me heating, if nothing else. Without it? I couldn't survive in my apartment. I can't afford a house. I would be dead the next time a winter hit because I live in Canada: Explain how I'm suppose to keep my house heated through six months of winter. With trees? The trees that everyone else in this city of 850,000 is going to be using? The not-infinitely-replenishable resource that we already devastated multiple times in our youthful naivety as a species? I think not. I would be dead without electricity. At the very least, my quality of life would take an extremely sharp, southward bend, where I would probably become sick with dysentery or salmonella and die.

 

[Windsong]

If there was no electricity over a summer in many of the southern/western states the elderly death toll would be enormous.

Compounded with the fact many kids (and adults of the last generation) have never had to live without it my answer is yes. We'd be boned.

 

[Peter Feels]

Collectively? Very much so.

Personally? Only slightly.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

Consider this.

The global stock market is not run by people anymore. Hasn't been for a while. In their place is a vast network of massively complex trading programs, firing back and forth information across the globe at a rate no human could hope to match. Sure, there's still the human input here and there, but for the most part? Technology makes the global economy go round.

Now consider some sort of global event that inflicts significant damage to our ability to generate power, causing those trading-bots to go offline for an extended period of time. Kiss goodbye to the stock market, and the economies of most first world nations with it.

Simply put? Yeah, technology is pretty much bound at the hip to humanity now.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

It looks like my earlier response on the other thread also works here.

It's a tool, we use to expand and enhance the means we can connect with people.

We can talk to anyone from anywhere.
We can find specialized groups of people better than ever.
May you want a group of people who share a joy for roleplaying, cats, the same religion, pokemon, etc.
It gets you exposed to ideas you'd never see RL, both due to the global aspect of the Internet, and the fact people are more open and honest online.

And for those who value it, it gives them the ability to be anonymous.
To truly be them without people knowing, and without it going back to their personal life.

Overall I see it as a huge boon to society.

However, I will admit the whole 'Uh-huh" stuff from cellphone users is a bit problematic for RL communication.
But let's be honest, all that really show's/proves is that Internet life has managed to be more engaging and entertaining than RL.
If anything that doesn't really highlight an issue with the technology, but rather an issue with RL and how it lacks actual engagement.

For example me and my friends all have cell phones, and all spend a good amount of time online.
But when in person we're still capable of face to face interaction without being distracted by the phone.

In regards to what would happen is electricity left though?
My main forms on entertainment would be gone, that's for sure.
But so would my main forms of comfort, transport, survival, just about everything.

Technology has improved everything about society, it's an amazing thing.
And I feel the idea of "Oh, if you lose too much by losing power then your life is flawed" to be ridiculous.
Technology makes things better, so why not use it? To villify it for being a good thing makes as little sense as someone going.

"So, you're telling me that without Vaccines we would get sick? I guess that means you're too reliant on Vaccines then".

A completely ignorant and ridiculous view for one to be having, so why is suddenly more accepted when the thing being questioned is technology?

 

[Hellis]

Technology has always been important. IT will always be. How is this a question=

 

[Brovo]

Simply put? Yeah, technology is pretty much bound at the hip to humanity now.

Keep in mind that the wheel, the lever, and even a horse-carriage is technology too. We've always had technology bound to our waist: It's part of what makes us who we are as a species. We modify the environment to suit our purposes. We got tired of freezing to death and living in caves, so we made houses. We got tired of those houses being cold, so we made fireplaces. We wanted to grow specific kinds of food, so we started selectively breeding crops. Also dogs, and cats, and even my favourite thing in the universe: Ferrets. All the result of human technological aspirations.

Technology is less a foreign behemoth and more the poetic expression of sheer human will to dominate, improve, build, and manifest dreams... It gets a terrible reputation for some reason.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

It should also be noted that we're not even the only species to make use of technology technically.
We're just far more advanced at it than any other species is.

 

[Levusti]

Hmm, maybe the words I chose are a little too vague/broad.

Specifically I was thinking of electronic technology, not so much the other technologies.

But now I wonder what I was thinking? I'm not sure why but lately I just want to detach myself from electronics the more I can because I want to be as self-sufficient as I can.

Why is it though that we place such a high importance on NON-ESSENTIAL electronic technology?

 

[Brovo]

Why is it though that we place such a high importance on NON-ESSENTIAL electronic technology?

Because infinite distractions. Also because it's still helpful nonetheless. It depends on what you'd define as non-essential. Cell phones are certainly non-essential to my survival as an individual, but they promote my ability to communicate on the move with other people instantly, which is a huge advantage. Phones are basically required for you to get jobs now, most jobs will call you to respond to a resumé. On my phone I have access to wireless Internet I can use to google things if need-be. Like directions in case I get lost.

Still improves life far more than it harms it. I'd argue that for most non-essential electronic technology.

It's not the existence of the tool that causes damage: It's the irresponsibility (or worse, malevolence) of the user that does.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Hmm, maybe the words I chose are a little too vague/broad.

Specifically I was thinking of electronic technology, not so much the other technologies.

But now I wonder what I was thinking? I'm not sure why but lately I just want to detach myself from electronics the more I can because I want to be as self-sufficient as I can.

I think we all knew what you meant.

But the point being made was that it's not that simple.
Electronics is just the current stage of technology, eventually we might discover something completely difference and new and technology will run off that.
It's not this seperate anomaly from everything else, it's part of a evolutionary path of tools, devices etc.

Why is it though that we place such a high importance on NON-ESSENTIAL electronic technology?

Because we can.
We're not fighting for survival, we have the luxury to have days off, spend time not looking for food.
Hell we have the luxury to being able to buy food.

When we don't need to invest in survival we need to do something with our time.
Entertainment engages the mind, entertains it, helps it grow, shape society etc.
I mean technically art, such as paintings, music etc. are not essential either. But everyone knows the importance they have on society and civilization.

 

[Alphakoka]

 

[MurderDeathKill]

I'm pretty certain most of humanity wouldn't be able to function without electricity and technology, since huge swaths of it are dependent on it to actually live. And not in the "Oh, what'll I do without Facebook!" kind of live, either. But in a "How will I be able to keep my food from going bad!" kind of way. ._. Like it or not, technology and electricity is a huge part of why we have a global population of over 7 billion people.

Technology has also made life generally way more interesting and enriching on top of helping us to not die; we can carry entire libraries, music collections, photo albums, and movie collections in one pocket-sized device and take it all with us anywhere. We can make ourselves smarter with e-learning sites like the Khan Academy. We can learn things about cultures that we never would have known without the internet.

Why the fuck would anyone want to take any of that away? Except mobile games. ._. Fuck mobile games. Portable consoles like on the 3DS or Vita are cool, but fuck iOS and Android games.