bloggedy blog

:: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 ::

Ah, technology!
Coinciding with the release of the NASA report on the Columbia shuttle disaster, U.S. News Online offers what it promises to be a rollicking debate on technology's impact on our lives. The debate is actually an email exchange between, in this corner, representing the neo-luddites, Eric Cohen, editor of The New Atlantis, and, in that corner, representeing the enthusiastic technophiles, Simon Smith, editor of the techie ezine Better Humans. And so far, the debate seems more cordial and gentlemanly than rollickiing. But maybe U.S. News has a different view of rollickingness than I.

This feature will continue over a series of days. Today's just the introduction. It's an interesting introduction to the dilemma, casting the argument around what Cohen describes as the three big problems humans face in our Faustian bargain with technology: "the Brave New World problem, the moral corruption problem and the existential risk problem."

Has technology made the world a better place? Of course it has, Cohen acknowledges. But it's also brought its share of disadvantages to the human condition. "In the end," Cohen writes, "all we can do is admire the great achievements of modern life, realize that modern life is here to stay, and realize that many good things -- not just comforts, but the possibility of living virtuously -- depend on it. But we must also confront and recognize the ways we have lessened, or might lessen, ourselves through our own technological achievements and pursuits."

Ah, yes, Smith responds, but "too many people have a narrow view of history in its arc from past to present to future. Humanity as we know it exists as a blip in time. If we can survive by properly directing science and technology, where we're going will be far more interesting than where we've been."

If we can survive...

I'm looking forward to following this debate, and seeing which side I lean toward.

:: Andrew 09:28 + ::
...

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