Society’s Role In Undermining Technology For Tomorrow’s Benefit

When we look at today’s aim for more electronic toys, better and faster electronic benefits, and even the desire to remove human capacity from the workforce one has to wonder where it all will end up. We are a society that supports technology while we are also a society that complains of the lack of human touch when it matters more to us.

We want to ensure that our incomes are fully automated and we want our bank account to be smart enough to pay our bills without ever bouncing an electronic check. Yet as the pace of our world speeds up we are also loudly crying about how we only get about 5 minutes with our physician when in fact we want the personal touch. We ask that our cars be smart enough to tell us whether we’re driving at the maximum fuel efficiency but we don’t want to be bothered by cell phone calls in public.

We want a 50 inch plasma TV but we haven’t found a way to make them more energy efficient so they’ve been banned in the state of California. We use our Bluetooth GPS to help us get around but we still don’t give directions to those who dare ask without purchasing something first. Of course, we want the automated internet business income but we don’t want to actually have to work to make it profitable.

We’ve been using technology to displace people since the 80s when many plants went with automated robots to replace the human worker. In today’s times, we are closer to finding more people looking for work and begging for change as we automate more of our world. Progress may drive us straight into poverty.

When jobs are replaced by robots there will be great dissention, poverty, and hunger in our streets all in the name of progress. Is it possible that we can move forward with our technology and still maintain the human element that we need so desperately?

The longer we allow technology to come in between us and our family and friends the more we sell out to its power. Yet if we can all remember what is actually important in our world we would be able to decrease technology’s importance in the world and perhaps we could come back to the human touch.

While technology has the opportunity to improve our lives greatly we also have to remember that we still have a role in what happens to our society. The small decisions we make as well as the large decisions we make carry an impact all around us. It doesn’t matter if we don’t recognize it. It happens. And because of this we will have to strike our vote as a society when it comes to how far we will allow technology to rule our lives.