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Developers celebrate technology, but has technology stopped war, poverty, hunger, injustice, climate change, and the destruction of planet earth by the human beings living on this very planet?

Comments
  • 8
    well - it has given us the ability to do all of this.

    it's not technologys fault that mankind is too stupid.
  • 1
    No. Technology science in common is tightly connected to the military and the economy. They are three sides of the same coin so to say. Very well explained in hararis Book sapiens for example.
  • 6
    Technology is an amplifier of good and bad.
  • 2
    War and intrigue is in human nature, I don't think that even evolution could ever fix that.
  • 6
    yes it did. Technology has objectively improved everything.

    War -> we have more resources cheaper thanks to Tech, so less incentive to wage war still

    Poverty -> yes, it has been dropping rapidly, tens of thousands of people are lifted out of poverty daily, it's a slow process but it's significantly sped up by technology and education

    Hunger -> yes, we can harvest millions of tons of food and genetically modify more resistant plants. It sure isn't thanks to religion

    Injustice -> yes, as soon as video evidence, finger print databases, large scale com networks between departments and so on were put in place it was much harder to trick due and fair trial.

    Climate Change -> Arguably still yes, If we wanted to have 7 billion people and still run everything on coal, we would be much worse off. Thank the environmentalist idiots lobbying against nuclear power for our current situation...

    Part 2 ahead...
  • 5
    Part 2

    Destruction of planet earth -> we're much better at preserving species of all sorts and production facilities are getting smaller and more efficient. Fields of food the size of those in ancient times can feed several fold more people now. PowerPlant efficiency went up by roughly 20% since 1990 thanks to modern technology, meaning less of them can support more people and more production.

    You don't get it if you blame technology. Improving in technology is our way of improving all human factors (war, poverty, hunger, justice) while trying to balance all environmental factors (climate, land, air...) at the same time.

    We are really trying and it's working for the most part, but there's other forces in play, mostly human greed and stupidity that exploit every advancement we make and slow down the progress for idiotic selfish reasons. For every tech solution there's 2 new problems humans create because they feel insecure about themselves...
  • 1
    If we really want to balance our use of the planet we can't sheepishly stand in our current situation afraid to take the leap. We need to move forward faster with both are law and technology. The painfully slow progress is what's killing us, not the existence of it.

    But alas, some people will willfully deny that the comfortable blanket of the past they are so eager to claw their way back under is full of maggots and roaches.
  • 2
    No, but it has stopped lots and lots of illnesses, democratized the media, enabled ever lower classes of society to educate themselves and to travel the world. We live in an age where hunger and injustice are a major issue and not the natural state of being. Technology is the reason we even know climate change exists.
  • 2
    YES to most of them. Absolute poverty is reduced for example. So is hunger.
  • 2
    It can help and helped a lot to solve this problems.

    And technology is not the reason for climate change, the opposite, it helps us to reduce climate change. The problem is when people buy / use more stuff because it is cheaper. Take farming for an example, pasture raised cattle produce way more greenhouse gas and use way more land per kg meat "produced", factory farming is more efficient and less polluting (per kg meat), even more efficient is plant based food. If we would need to feed 8 Billion people with food that is produced like we produced food 200 years ago, we would create more GHG-emission (agriculture is already more polluting than all transport combined).
  • 1
    @Hazarth > "Poverty -> yes, it has been dropping rapidly, tens of thousands of people are lifted out of poverty daily, it's a slow process but it's significantly sped up by technology and education"

    Its like you were in the room when an in-law decided to go full SJW on the 'evil' tech, it was <insert all the big names> fault she couldn't get off of food stamps/welfare, etc etc etc.

    I listened, waited, then when she was done.

    Me: "Interesting. You have 5 great kids, your boyfriend drives a brand new Dodge Ram pickup, you're texting on the newest IPhone, I'd guess you have at least 70-inch TV in your living room, and you blame technology for your problems? I'd say technology has help bring you and the majority of the world out of poverty. If you're still on welfare, that's a choice, not the fault of Google"

    Her: "FU, asshole."
  • 2
    Thanks for your replies! I don't want to blame technology. I use technology every day and I love it. But tech as such only helps for the good if used wisely. And I'm still pissed off that people get killed every day and species get extinguished forever and despite our technology, we're mostly still small individuals without a lot of influence on society and that's really frustrating. I wish we had more power to prevent the cruelties of mankind.
  • 1
    Technology can't save everyone like everything else, but Technology saved many people.
  • 1
    @fraktalisman > "I'm still pissed off that people get killed every day and species get extinguished forever and despite our technology"

    Or are billions more saved because of technology?

    I get it, we don't know.

    +1 for believing we can do better (and we should)
  • 2
    well, that's our utopian dream, but technology is called the science of productive work by some scholars. the truth is society focus too much on work and economics and people forget what that's supposed to serve. work is supposed to elevate society, for us to coexist in the best way possible, and technology is an extension of that, but mostly you see a lot of tech for tech sake and that's not really helping other humans
  • 0
    @darksideofyay Work is also for humans. Humans need work, without work humans suffer and do stupid things.
  • 1
    @happygimp0 > "Humans need work, without work ..."

    I'd replace 'work' with purpose. My dad worked as a truck driver for most of my life and when he 'retired', for many years he would hang out at the depot, get up at the same time every morning and drink coffee with the other drivers.

    I sort'a already knew, but it was never about the work, his purpose was taking care of his family, taking care of the folks on his route, his fellow drivers, and keeping in touch with all the friends he made. He made *a lot* of friends.

    He's in his 80s now, and I can say with 100% certainty if one of his routes called him today and said "Hey Bill, that new guy the company assigned to us isn't working out. Do you think you can take over for a couple of weeks?" , my dad would would do it yesterday.

    Me? When I retire, I'm disappearing. My employer will need a detective to find me. I'll find my new purpose cutting grass before I take another Teams meeting.
  • 0
    @happygimp0 even _with_ work, humans suffer and do stupid things.

    the former is "the human condition"; the latter is "the human nature"
  • 0
    @tosensei Agree. But humans have less time to do stupid things and be depressed when they work.
  • 0
    @happygimp0 unless their work consists of doing stupid things (for example: marketing or middle management) or being depressed (working with aforementioned examples)
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