How Technology has Changed our Lives -The Two Faces

Technology has always had a problematic relationship with man, who is its creator. On the one hand, man uses it and uses it massively, depends on it almost entirely and bases its survival and that of its advanced societies on its existence and continued evolution. On the other, technology demonstrates its danger, again and again, causes severe damage, including death and disability, and produces significant negative externalities to its environment.

What we call progress, especially in the sense of economic development and growth, would never have taken place in the world without technology and its evolution. Very little of what we see around us, what we do, and what constitutes our daily life, would be there without technology. And the more than six billion inhabitants that our planet barely supports today, many of them in subhuman conditions, unfortunately, could not be so many without it. Despite all this, many men have rejected and rejected technology, which they consider the critical cause of the dehumanization of the world and to which they assign autonomy, rebellion, and destructive power.

The worst, on the other hand, is that, for all those who are finding themselves in disgust. As artificial and technological as today. Is that the creation of technology seems to be an innate characteristic of the man. A feature that differentiates it from other animals and that has made it evolve dramatically. Man has always believed to separate himself from animals by his ability. To build tools and utensils by his ability to communicate intellectually through sounds and signs. By his power of consciousness and imagination.

From Animal to Human

The ascent of the animal man to the category of humans is a reality. Although we do not know with certainty what this jump consists of and although we doubt every day of some pretended human characteristics extended to the whole species.

There are, for example, many men who would never build artifacts no matter how much they were in need. There are also many individuals without access to the world of complex and elaborate ideas. Culture and communication, and of course, they are too numerous. So we see in the troubled world today, those who have no capacity for creativity, reflection, and even for affectivity and feelings.

If we admit in any case that close relationship between technology and the human. It is obligatory to deduce the antiquity in our world of the processes of creation of technology. The very use of the tools and artifacts arising from them, these processes have never been linear, much less as fast and intense as they are today. The social impact of technology, no doubt present in the world, also from the beginning, was not under those guidelines something severe and worrisome. Things and men changed, but little by little and without the tensions and harms, we have observed more recently. Modernization, often linked to technology, was a slow, manageable and acceptable phenomenon for centuries, which had mostly positive results for society as a whole.

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Small technologies

That has given rise to a radically different world from that existing before that date. And with a problematic dynamic of control, direct and even predict.

With this revolution, significant changes arose in the manufacture of artifacts. First in the field of agricultural exploitation, tillage of mines and various productions. Starting with that of the textile industry, but later with significant transformations such as rail and others. They affected transport and its speed, and generally since the end of the 19th century, on many different dimensions of man’s life.

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Magic Performed in Technology

The twentieth century, which has been intensely industrial and technological, provides an impressive perspective on what has been achieved in terms of technological evolution. The magic dreamed at other times has come true in the eyes of the inhabitants of the century. Whether in terms of flying like birds, communicating at a distance, producing and controlling energy, mastering matter through their chemical interrelations and producing thus new products and materials.

Create unlimited food with enough independence from the sun and rain, cure diseases, and extend people’s lives, dominate the inclement weather, and approach infinity in all directions.

We have created an artificial world that we inevitably depend on to live. A world that has come with the contest of three skills or specific qualities of man, without which it would not be such.

The ability above, to create artifacts multipliers of their physical skills; the ability to set goals external to himself and achieve them; and the ability to multiply, expand and colonize all possible spaces, including the farthest and most adverse. That is, we have created an artificial but profoundly human world. Since it has emerged from the man himself, giving freedom to his most profound nature and his most natural characteristics.

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The only problem is that technology, once out of the mind of man, i.e.,. Once made a physical reality, and once placed at the service of the interests of some and others.

Acquires autonomy, rebels, and causes, or It can cause havoc without limit in the life of man. Among others, and to begin with, it can affect what we have called “human,” a term and concept, always in the first places of the activity of reflection of men, which attracts again strongly today, the Everyone’s interest: thinkers, intellectuals and politicians.

It may be that, in addition to the naturalness of technology. That is to say that its spontaneous generation from within man.

Today’s technological society has emerged from the enormous utility that it provides via economic growth — accumulation of wealth and dominance and preeminence of some over others.

Economic Development Factor -Technology

In the 1950s, various American economists, including Robert Solow and Moses Abramovitz, demonstrated the crucial importance of technology in the long-term growth of the country’s economy. A subsequent investigation by the OECD identified the R&D expenditure of nations in general and companies in particular, as the primary element for technological development and growth and expansion.

On these discoveries, the current logic of investing in technology development was built continuously and rapidly to accumulate competitive advantages over each other. Man has a natural tendency to produce artifacts. But the possibility that this will provide him with wealth and power. And it has led to the empowerment of that ability. To incredible extremes, and as a consequence. The emergence in the world of an industrial structure and technology that dominates the planet. A structure that cannot stop or slow its growth rate.

The result of all this is a world perhaps more industrialized, artificial, and technological than humans would need to be moderately happy. A world, unfortunately, full of risks, difficulties, and dangers, in which large clouds of pessimism sometimes accumulate with its future. A world, however, in which more and more large percentages of the population have access to better ways of life and higher levels of well-being, including more personal freedom, more democracy, and better opportunities. Technology allows, in the first place, the exponential growth of the population. This also, today, seems a characteristic of the world population on which it is difficult to act without restricting one of the most natural rights of man as it is a reproduction.

In short

A complicated situation in which we often protest artificiality, complexity, danger, and other hard-to-justify phenomena. Such as consumerism, unnecessary production of excessively sophisticated goods, extreme luxury and sybaritism, but many of which They benefit continuously. We must not forget in this sense the magnificent professional careers that the criticized multinational companies allow individuals from all over the world, which entails, not only in terms of standard of living and economic security but in terms of honorability, achievement personal and social recognition. 

Diversity of Perceptions

The world panorama, therefore, is diverse in terms of the acceptance or rejection of technology. In addition to alternative global movements such as those experienced in recent years around anti-globalization. The Porto Alegre forum and others, actual channels of all critical actions in the world – in which technology is present in one or the other form. There are increasingly minor rejection movements such as voluntary simplicity, responsible consumption, fair price, social marketing, ethical banking, and sustainable development, among others.

Apart from the solutions of frontal rejection of technology and the developed world of the minority. The marginal and alternative court without pretensions to impose themselves. Of which there have been outstanding examples in the world since ancient times. Within those that do not reject the industrial and technological world, There are also opposite positions.

From the grave, responsible, and concerned groups, participants of the technologically advanced world speaking today, Two could be identified with conflicting positions — optimists with technological development and pessimists. The former, while recognizing the undesirable side effects of technology, argue that technological progress is essential to maintain the world’s population and to increase the standard of living of the people. Without technology, they warn, the world would return to barbarism and underdevelopment, and many inhabitants of the planet would simply disappear.

The answer to our problems is more technology because, if technology has brought us here, and we face significant challenges because of it,

It is Emerging technologies and scientific development, which has to get us out of this current compromised situation. For nothing in the world, they think of this group, technological progress can be limited.

A Person Who Tends to see the Worst Aspect of Things

Pessimists, on the other hand, are in favor of acting on today’s world, Simplifying lifestyles, decentralizing productive activities, Returning to natural crops without fertilizers or other chemicals. Sponsoring the use of alternative energy and spreading in the world the idea of sustainable development that protects our environment and the biodiversity of nature. Without stopping, logically, to feed the world population and achieve an acceptable standard of living for all. This group is, of course, the enemy of nuclear energy, oil, and other dangerous and polluting energies, and opposes, as one might expect, transgenic products and the manipulation of genes in general.

Until now, it was possible to discuss these groups and defend their positions from theoretical platforms. While the technological development of the world continued its course in the hands of projects and companies never controlled. Today, however, there is widespread awareness of not being able to go much further without control of technological development and strong attention to environmental protection. New technologies, on the other hand, especially those related to life and genetics, are more threatening than ever, although there is also confrontation and diversity of opinions.