# I love and hate technology **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 15, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123 "2011-07-15T14:27:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/21 "2011-07-17T10:28:05Z")
P.S. talking about cellphones…I once wanted to make a tee-shirt that said, “If I wanted to hear somebody else’s conversation, I’d listen to my husband.” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/22 "2011-07-17T12:22:04Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > I’m the Chief Security Officer for my work. One of the major efforts last year was making the various business units pony up for Blackberries for the people that really needed to be reached. It had the benefit of keeping people’s personal and business data seperate, but it also made the business evaluate who REALLY needed to be reached off hours. > > It also had the neat side effect of letting me leave the office behind once in awhile. > > This summer’s week long vacation was the first one in a decade where I really disconnected from the office. > > Like anything else, I think we will learn that 7x25x365 access is a two edges sword that needs management, or we’ll burn out on it. The flip side of that is that I arbitrarily just don’t show up to work because I can work just as easily from home. I remember one time I my boss called me and was like “you aren’t in the office?!” I’m like “you’re in England. What do you care where I am?” ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/23 "2011-07-17T14:52:11Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > “Wazzatmatta, Toucanna, you some kinda Luddite? Or Amish, maybe?” 😉 Did you know there are Amish websites? No joke - they’re maintained by Mennonites. As for the OP - no and no. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/24 "2011-07-18T02:00:18Z")
Kevin Kelly (one of the founders of _Wired_ who spent some time as a semi-Luddite) wrote a book pretty much devoted to this topic called _What Technology Wants_. It’s not perfect (what is?), but is the best long-form address on this topic I’ve seen. If you’re concerned about technology from an evolutionary perspective, I’d highly recommend it. It might not have the answer, but it’s got plenty of food for thought. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/25 "2011-07-18T04:09:34Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > …and fluffy pink mastadons roamed the earth, pooping great piles of rainbow sherbert. Oh. I see. You’re one of the _those_. I don’t get how people can constantly ignore the archeological records that _clearly_ indicate that the sherbet-pooping mastodons were extinct millions of years before humans sprouted up. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/26 "2011-07-18T10:51:59Z")
Oh sure, there’s ice cream pooping elephants these days, but it’s just not the same. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/27 "2011-07-18T12:42:38Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Technology advances so much faster than biological selection (at least in humans with their ~25 year generations) that we won’t have a clear idea of where we’re going for some time yet. Remember the “giant brain” cliche of science ficiton? It’s more or less directly descended from the Wells novel _First Men in the Moon_, where the Selenites were supposed to be an example of the end product of civilization: a master brain controling a race of drones. Or _The Time Machine_’s postulating the 19th century’s class divisions enduring for 800,000 years, yielding the Eloi and the Morlocks. > > More recently, people have worried that medical science would produce people unable to breed naturally, or being totally dependent on advanced medicine for their survival. Now it looks like we’ll have genetic engineering before that happens. > > I’ve been speculating about the long-term selective effect of advanced weapons on humanity. Up to around 1850 or so, the kind of crazy, magnificent, raw physical courage that enabled our ancestors to kill lions and bears with sharp sticks made evolutionary sense. Then we got the Colt revolver, the Maxim machine gun, and nukes; weapons against which crazy-brave courage is counter to survival. wow! I wanna sit next to YOU. interesting conversation… ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123/28 "2011-07-19T03:23:56Z")
Technology is great—especially when it works. I happen to be staying now in a student residence at UBC (Vancouver) and the outside doors have magnetic locks. But the lock on the main door closest to my room is not working despite, they tell me, repeated attempts to repair it over the few months. So I have to go out of my way to find a side door to enter. Old fashioned locks could never go out of order in the way. But I generally feel that life is better with more technology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-and-hate-technology/589123.md?page=1)