Technological Advances Essay Research Paper 2

Technological Advances Essay, Research Paper “If there is technological advance without social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery, in impoverishment” said Michael Harrington in “The Other America”(1962). There is no doubt that technology has grown significantly in the last few decades since the development of the personal computers and the Internet. Some theorists have praised the future of technology as having the potential to free mankind from all constraints while others including novelist Aldous Huxley and director Stanley Kubrick, warn us of the dangers of technology particularly its possibility for mind control and conditioning as means for a utopia. There is increasing reliance upon computer technology in all facets of modern

life within industrialized nations of the world and within a home. The majority of intellectuals, industry analysts, policy makers, and other interested citizens expect that little can be done to alter the progress of computer technology and so they ” just go with the flow” and there by perpetuate dependency. Have they realized of the dangers that hide behind this technological phenomenon? Do they recognize that computers have forced humans to develop a technological dependency while diminishing their individuality? Supporters of computer technology love to support the notion that computers will be the single most crucial tool in future efforts toward economic development by increasing efficiency and the possible elimination of poverty. Computer technology is perceived by

many to be able to eliminate traditional inequities of power and lead to equal distribution of citizenship. By this I mean that everyone regardless of position would be happy and stable in his or her society because technology permits the existence of stability. From Huxley’s Brave New World we can see how this reasoning could become a foundation for a future reform. “Stability. The primal and the ultimate need. Stability. Hence this” (pg. 31) says the controller as he refers to the technological advancements and all that was done to condition their citizens. He continues, ” and you can’t make tragedies without social instability.”(169) His statement is rather Machiavellian in that he sees stability as the ultimate end important enough to give reason to citizens’

conditioning and their loss of individuality and self-dependency. It can also be seen in Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, when a person is taught through technology to perform appropriately according to that society’s beliefs. In such case he becomes a technologically dependent human relying on the science of his conditioning to tell him of his wrongs and his happiness. This may seem like an extreme example of our loss of dependency to our technological systems but we have become so that our logic and reasoning have been skewed to work with computers. An example can be seen in the fact that this nation alone spent billions preparing for disaster that might arise from something as simple as how computers store dates. How is that for dependency? Technological dependency may be a

great aspect for the future had it not come along with disadvantages? What is the longest step mankind is willing to take to achieve stability and worldwide happiness? As technological transformations continue within an environment of increasing complexity and rapid advancement as can be seen today, there are concerns regarding disadvantages of our “wonderful” technological age: Reduction of the right to privacy, increases in techno-crimes, systems incompatibility, unnecessary complexity, planned old age of hardware, and increased interrelatedness between the user and the technology (and hence reliance). Privacy is a thing we treasure highly but as computers continue to grow our privacy is threatened and soon enough it could become rare. System incompatibility, complexion and