855 words
Modern Technology:
Promising a Future of Doom or Life?
Modern technology will affect human life in the coming future, for better or for worse. Ray Kurzweil is a futurist, a scientist who specializes in predictions about the future. In his essay “Promise and Peril”, he proposes possible advantages and disadvantages of technological improvement in the world, and mentions greatness of technology that not only benefits human life, but also the dangers of its existence. Considering the pros and cons, Kurzweil takes a stance for the idea that future technology will benefit humanity. On the other hand, the environmental journalist Erica Etelson disagrees with Kurzweil’s idea. In her article “Is Modern Technology Killing US?”, she argues
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Thus, the question concerning the status quo: whether the current technology benefits human life or causes harm to it. Kurzweil is a technology optimist and he believes that technology always benefits human life. At first, it seems that Etelson agrees with Kurzweil. In her first paragraph, Etelson states that she would not be the same person without technology. If readers stop reading at this point, they might be tricked into believing that Etelson is a pro-modern-technology. However, throughout the rest of her essay, she argues that technology often diminishes, rather than enriches quality of life. Many times, humans devalue life-affirming activities and ways of being. As technology improves, humans learn less and less of abilities and social skills. Although Etelson’s reasoning towards the end of her essay seems acceptable, the overall picture of her essay is confusing for the reader. The way that she argues for both sides makes her stance looks hypocritical. She wants technology to help the workload, while she argues that it creates harm to whom that uses …show more content…
However, mankind should be concerned of the risks that lie beneath it. The big debate determining the future of modern technology are whether safety and utility will be able to catch up with the improvement of technology. In the early part of his essay, Kurzweil states that the development of technology grows exponentially instead of linearly. Exponential growth makes it seem as if the technology is improving too fast for human to handle it. Kurzweil refuses to believe so; he argues that as technology grows exponentially, precaution and safety regarding technology proportionally follows its trail. The way Kurzweil argues is by having a historical
Technology has improved communication by giving people real time updates, being able to communicate and interact with others worldwide faster. Although communication can be beneficial, there are negative effects as well. As Clarisse addresses the reality of society to Montag she explains that “No one has time any more for anyone else” (Part1 Page 11) anymore. Technology has caused isolation, obesity, lack of social skills, depression, increase in bullying, and pollution. With the internet being available at home, many tends to go on their devices than interacting with
Today’s society has adjusted to technology in ways that make it hard to think of the circumstances without the privilege of technology. The effect of this creates a strict order that can be used as the “right way of living.” Before putting in the variable of technology the same thing happens, only there is just one “way of living.” That’s where they needed a minor change because although their system of running the society was functional, it wasn’t fair. Technology could’ve helped sooner by taking
Technology is becoming a more significant influence in today's society as each day passes. People become more reliant on technology which can end up being bad. As technology advances, people make more advancements to make everyday tasks easier for people, which can lead to everyone being dependent on technology. In the texts “The Veldt” and “Cooking Time” the two authors Ray Bradbury and Anita Roy talk about technology advancements and the society it creates. Bradbury and Roy use the conventions of science fiction to critique society on how scientific advancements can be bad.
Technology can represent true obstacles in life, but they bring more benefits than they do harm. Thoreau considered that the ownership of many material possessions was not a basic necessity of life. Of course, this is true, one cannot possibly need technology or material possessions to live, right? Think deeper into this issue, technology is not used solely for entertainment. What about medical respirators and heart-lung machines, these are all examples of technology, but can result in the difference between life and death.
Today, people advocate technology to change their life. If there is really no technology, ordinary life will be more
This reveals that technology can improve the minds and behaviors of humans. Because technology can greatly edify people, the world can ultimately be filled with intelligent and virtuous
Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts Technology is considered an escape, an escape to another dimension, a second chance, a hope, a possibility to show society the perfect and almost divine personality that you so whole heartily strive to possess, a chance to put on a mask and change everything for the better in this everlasting endeavor for likability, or at least that’s what we tell ourselves. At the end of the day, we always end up letting go of the most important aspect of our life, the human aspect that is the essence of our human nature, we resolve to liking instead of loving, texting instead of talking, and despite all of us being completely aware of this, we always end up putting the mask back on, hiding behind a mask projecting
All around the world, humans are using technology in every minute of every day. People may not even realize how often technology is used, perhaps this is because it is used every day around us for work, safety, entertainment and even food. Technology is one that we all take for granted, when we should realize how beneficial technology is in the world, how it helps everyone each day. Technology "has been created to help better our future. We need technology to help with our ever changing society" (http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-technology-moving-too-fast).
This can harm family’s which is not good for the future. These are all reasons that technology can harm you in negative ways. The second reason electronic devices and online access don’t improve people’s lives is, we can rely on technology way to much when the technology can fail. People might go against this claim saying in “The Internet of Things” it says Technology can work on your time frame and
While this might be a very compelling argument to some, others have found technology to be quite contradictory to the perceived norms of Mother Nature and have stated that the introduction of this ever growing phenomenon has brought about a disturbance in natures ability to shape and reproduce the order of life. In trying to understand both these arguments one must start by understanding the true essence of what technology is and what qualities define and characterize it. According to Dusek(2001: 32/3), technology can be seen as an applied system that works together with a set of hardware tools to be set into a context for the people who use, repair and maintain it. He further suggests that as a tool, technology can be seen as a neutral instrument to be used or refused, yet when we look at technological systems it can then be viewed as being more autonomous (Dusek 2001 : 36). This tells us that technology consists of a vast range of features that characterize it and because of this a lot of people have formulated different opinions of its effect in our world through its growth.
In conclusion, technology can have negative impacts on today’s people in many ways. It is harmful to people’s well-being, makes people lose physical connections with those around them, and it makes students disregard their work. Technology is everywhere in today’s society. These devices can be so harmful to people without them even knowing it. People should be more aware of what technology can do, and try their best not to depend on
The technology consumes humanity and causes us to lose sight of who were before technology. People might be deprived the rights and opportunities to get in touch with the new things. Other common themes include government surveillance, poor living standards, totalitarian regimes, brainwashing, concealing of information, police brutality and status crimes. Although the idea of a utopian society can be brief imagined, this society could not sustain itself due to the unpredictable nature of life.
It shows how brilliant, yet so transparent humans can be. The progression in scientific knowledge is taking civilization by absolute storm, and everyone is highly amused by all of the new ideas. Still I believe that the population is not necessarily to blame for this big cultural change due to the fact that technology is placed under our finger tips twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week. My entire goal is to show both sides of Epstein’s statement: and that our ever growing knowledge and expertise in the technological realm has its beneficial sides, but some adverse features to it as well. Some people could not live a day without technology, and that is okay because America happily enables that type of behavior: but on the other hand there are people who exist and live with the bare minimum in resources and never have to give away their personal data.
They imply that life would be hard to live with the lack of new technologies, however, it becomes ironic because life is already at risk due to technology. Making technological advances and preserving the environment and human health will not be possible because of the pollution resulting of the waste output, the depletion of natural resources and the global warming resulting of the emission of carbon dioxide. To begin with, the waste output of the new technologies pollutes the lands, the water and the air of the earth. An average computer screen contains up to 8 pounds of lead and 2 to 5 percent of the trash in American landfills belong to electronics waste.