Modern Technology

If industrial and postindustrial technology is more likely to destroy humanity and life on earth as we know it than save us and it, and that seems to be the case, than why’re we in such a rush to further develop it?
Why do we think more technology will solve the problems technology created?
If people can’t regulate themselves, than perhaps governments should either ban all new technologies, or selectively ban some of them.
Inventors should have to prove their technologies are both essential to the health and well being of humanity, and not detrimental to the environment.
Convenience is not essential, and other than population growth, which we didn’t need, convenience is about all modern tech has been good for.
It’s not even clear that modern tech as a whole has actually improved our health or lifespan, there’s growing evidence in the alternative community suggesting it has not.
I’m not suggesting we go back to a pre-industrial society, but we should approach new technologies, especially revolutionary ones with far more cynicism, skepticism and apprehension, as individuals and a society, and we should begin working on eliminating technologies which have been demonstrated to be detrimental, even at the price of inconvenience, especially when our health and the health of the planet is at stake.

You’re preaching to the choir, but the choir is ever so small on ILP. In general, people are in a rush for no good reason, so in their vein of stupidity, it makes perfect sense to hurry their tech drive along and doom modern mankind at an increasingly frantic pace. All the threads you have started lately have been based on common sense approaches to living but common sense is dead Gloominary. Just saying…

I wholeheartedly concur Wendy.

My two cents

Sound judgement and your adversary . . .
The main problem with common sense is that it is not so common anymore. Those who are left with good sense and sound judgement in practical matters should push on. We should never give up just because others have. I worked out a long time ago that to beat your adversary you have to know your adversary and be able to think like your adversary when or if the need arises.

Simply put . . . I agree.

However . . .

I do not think that we should give up on what we believe in just because others disagree.

Yes, I agree Gloominary. The health and well being of the greater good should come first and at the same time should not harm the environment because a healthy environment is more beneficial to the greater good than an unhealthy environment and most technologies.

Convenience is not essential - it is more like a drug - with great power comes great responsibility as they say - that is why I believe responsibility is more essential than convenience - the responsibility lays in ridding the human race of their addiction to convenience.

I don’t know - it seems pretty clear to me that tech has ruined us already socially. Thank goodness for sites like ILP is all I can say. Social impact is emotional impact as far as I am concerned and emotional impact leads to a shorter lifespan on some accounts - I think we will see a counter balance effect.

Lifespan will remain the same - maybe shorten a little until we learn life’s harsh lessons - then improve once we acknowledge the social impact of tech . . .

But what would I know? Just giving my two cents worth . . . OK maybe twenty cents . . . sorry about that.

#-o

Gloom,
Here’s a link to a topic I started about an intelligent artist’s or inventor’s responsibility to our shared reality. It’s in the vein you are speaking of. http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190489

WendyDarling

Can I look at it too?

[-o<

Why of course silly. :evilfun: :laughing:

More thoughts . . .

My question is: Do people even know what self regulation really is?

In my eyes their rationality is clouded by their emotional state . . . pride, arrogance and self serving interests . . . this includes politics!

:-k

No, common sense is dead and buried. More is more. Greater is , well, greater, the costs be damned!

Gloominary

My thoughts are; is that we are going to have to take the approach you suggest soon - on a mass scale too.

How do you suggest getting these points across to the rest of the world? How do we eliminate the addiction to convenience?

And eliminate the mentality of Keeping Up With The Jones’?

Aaron wrote

I could hug you just for asking this question. :romance-grouphug:

Why not submit Gloominary’s piece and the ILP website’s link to hundreds of other high traffic reader sites?

Something really bad would have to happen. We got rid of Zeppelins, and those things were super cool. (Watch some historical footage). I’m guessing it would take a massive cyber attack or something like a good EMP burst that would disabe all satellites. As technology becomes more global it also makes everyone more vulnerable.

Sounds good to me - I am interested in what Gloominary thinks about it . . .

That sounds pretty extreme Pandora . . . Zeppelins were pretty cool and yes we are getting more vulnerable as tech becomes more global.

8-[

Because the Faustians will never rest as long as they will remain what they are.

Because Faustians believe in it. Thinking in this way belongs to their real religion.

Do you think that a government is ethically better than the people that are governed?

That leads to more corruption and thus to more destruction.

Those suggestions are not new. Since the late 18th century, the German Romanticists have been suggesting what you are suggesting now.

The problem is that the legislating people are almost everywhere in the world part of the corruption. What are the "human rights“ for example? Are they meant for all humans? No. They are meant for about 1% of all humans.

I tried to read up on that movement and it confused me. While they thought the middle ages of society was more unified in simplicity, I didn’t get the notion that they were against excessive creation for creation’s sake (accolades and wealth). In fact, they seemed to propel creativity forward under the guise of it being in tune with nature.