Think back to how human beings lived 100 years ago compared with today. Horse and carriages to orbiting the Earth, The Pony Express to instant emails, the list could go on and on and on… but when does it go too far?
I for one HATE most of the new technologies that supposedly make our lives “easier.” I hate the internet (yet I play on it daily), cellphones (which I dont have and will NEVER have), all these gadgets that people cannot seem to live without are slowly turning us into robots.
Will the day come that once we are born, electronic gadgets of some sort will be intertwined with our bodies to make us stronger, or completely immune to disease or pain, or even pleasure? Will we all be plugged into some sort of central computer information system? Will free will exist?
In my opinion we are going waaaaaaaaaaaaay too far, and it HAS to end sometime. December 21, 2012 seems like a good a time as any…
I’ve heard this argument before (though it may have been from Karl Pilkington), and that’s the problem, isn’t it? Where would have been a nice place to ‘end’ progress? With indoor plumbing? The steam engine? The internet? As many annoying gadgets as there likely are in our future, are there also technologies tied to them that will save some lives and improve the quality of others?
Of course, you can always wish for a complete environmental meltdown or zombie apocalypse. Then it’s back to the basics for everyone!
Not sure going back to the basics would be such a bad thing.
Sure, there will be several gadgets or what have you that will come about that will supposedly “improve” quality of life or whatever you wanna call it, but is that a road we want to take? I’m not talking about cures for disease or magic legs a la forrest gump, but actual scientific or technological discoveries that will render us immortal. Is that a possibility? Can science eventually figure out a way to make us live forever, and who in the hell would want such a thing to come about?
Will we become so advanced that speech or emotions or feeling will be a thing of the past?
So maybe you should move out to Lincoln, Montana. I hear Ted Kaczynski left a nice little non-technological cabin that might be right up your alley. He might even have left some reading material for you, to help your hatred along.
Of course, Ted lived by sponging off his family, who still lived in the evil technological world, so Ted’s “primitive” life was tainted. You might prefer trying to live all on your own, without any of the evil technology to help you. And then you can write a nice little pamphlet like Ted’s telling all about how much “easier” it is to survive with only your bare hands, and no nasty ol’ technology. For best results, go off into those woods stark naked (clothes are made by technology) and without so much as a pocket knife. If we haven’t heard from you in a few years, we’ll assume you’ve found Nirvana.
As for my opinion; I expect in the long term either we will replace and upgrade ourselves to the point that nothing organic is left, assuming we don’t become extinct or smash ourselves back to primitivism. And I regard the primitive lifestyle to be anything but admirable; it’s “nasty, brutish and short” to use Hobbes’s phrase.
Yes, someday there will be a Mt. Everest pile of obsolete cellphones, obsolete because teeny cellphone devices will be able to be implanted directly into the bones in one’s head!:eek: We may all be unemployed, living in caves, and getting food from some giant central food pantry, but by golly, we’ll be able to talk or tweet or whatever the hell it is with everyone else on the planet.
A) An Idiocracy where morbidly obese citizens do nothing but watch crap on their SuperHD 3D HoloScreens all day while having all their needs taken care of by self-sustaining robots and automation they no longer have the ability to understand, modify or repair?
B) Some sort of Blade Runner / Ghost in the Shell urban cybertech dystopia of economic disaster, overpopulation, dehumanization and technology overload?
C) An idealic utopian existance where technology enhances our greatly extended lives, keeps us in ecological balance and improves our understanding and interactions with each other?
Well, I see human beings’ inability to distinguish their own personal preferences from profound philosophical truths continues to thrive as ever.
Look, if you don’t want a cellphone, don’t carry a cellphone. Nobody really gives a fuck. But spare us the sub specie aeternitatis excogitations you came up while you were on the shitter congratulating yourself for your technological righteousness.
I think every generation finds it hard to imagine where we’ll progress to, and yet we continue to do so. There may be parts of our life that will plateau into a good level that doesn’t need any huge amount of development, but there will be new discoveries and concepts that will continue our evolution.
If we don’t destroy ourselves, we’ll just keep edging closer to a potential utopia.
Provided, of course, that in the process of gaining this technology it is simultaneously true that we’re losing our inherent ability to think. That we’re still producing new technology which is more advanced than what came before would counsel against this. I mean, sheesh, I can imagine you 2,000 years ago being happy with just a bow and arrow. Then fast forward you into the future and you’d be decrying the use of gunpowder as the end of it all. It’s a tool, like a cell phone or anything else. So long as we remain smarter than our tools, we won’t be their robots - that’s why we have governments.
I doubt anyone would make a device that would catch on such that we were deprived of pleasure. That, I think, would be the start of a world war should someone try to force is upon us. This point I’ve just made kind of comminutes your last question.
Fuck whether you care or not. If you wanna sit around on your big floppy ass and talk or “text” on a gawdam cellphone about every stupid little thing that happens in your life thats your business. You must be one of those that panics everytime you feel in your pocket and the damn thing aint there, or driving your Kia while texting your bff about the dog you just ran over.
I wont spare anything. If I have an opinion on something then I’m gonna give it. If you dont like it dont read it. Surely with all the gadgets that your life revolves around you are smart enough to figure that out.
I can’t wait for that day to get here. I am not my body- my body is strictly a vehicle I use to carry my “me” around in. As soon as a better vehicle is available, I’m outta this meatbag.
Oh, and why would we engineer pleasure out? I can understand getting rid of pain and disease… but why the heck would we go without pleasure?
Who says it exists now? Any decision you make now is the direct result of your experiences and your biology- all we have is the *illusion *of free will. Luckily, there’s no functional difference between the illusion and the real thing.
