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A few months ago I was at the bank asking about interest rates on CDs so I could compare to my current rate. The teller told me x.xx% interest. I thought for about 10 seconds and said "Oh, over six months that's only $8.75 more than I'm getting now. She looked at me like I was an alien. "How'd you do that?" I just told her when I graduated from high school calculators weren't invented yet, so we did math with paper and pencil, or in our head.
It's not that you *need* to do it in your head, but it's just good exercise to keep the brain sharp. Like a muscle, you use it or lose it. You can argue that we can use the brain for other things to keep it sharp, and maybe that's a valid argument. But you can also argue that our brain has many functions, and you need to exercise all of them.
I agree that there are negatives with technology. There are also positives. The modern advances in medicine are amazing. When I was young, de-scrambling DNA was considered impossible.
I see a few dangers with modern technology.
One, is what I call loss of innocence. There is a certain amount of innocence in a simple lifestyle. The simplicity and health benefits of working outdoors on a farm has been lost. I think a part of what it means to be human has also been lost. We are beings of the world, yet we hide from it more and more with each decade.
Another danger, potentially the biggest danger, is the rapid rate that technology has changed our world. We've jumped in without testing the water. The changes in technology over the last 20 years has been so fast that we've never given ourselves a chance as humans to evaluate, and look at what impact it might have on humanity. We wouldn't take our children and throw them out into the whole of society in real life. So why do we do it online? We have children out there in the world of adults, being exposed to all the bad that goes with it.
What we have seen over the last 20 years is a major change in the way we run our lives. But nobody has really thought it through. There just hasn't been enough time to.
I think we have lost something. I think we are losing our humanity. I'm not some old fart who knows nothing of technology. I've used personal computers since they first came out. I've worked in engineering off and on since 1979 and helped design a lot of this stuff.
I took about a week setting up some fancy equipment in a food processing plant. Each one of those machines had 18 microprocessors, plus CCD cameras, environmental controls and all kinds of bells and whistles. I finished setting them up on Friday. The employee parking lot had about 30 cars in it. The next Monday when the machines came on line, the parking lot only had about 5 cars. I was fascinated by the technology, but I didn't like myself very well that day. I knew why the parking lot was almost empty.
Technology is amazing, but it can be a double edged sword. And it's changing so fast we don't even know how that sharp edge will affect us in the long run
Totally. I can't go to the movies without seeing a bunch of bright screens lit up throughout the theatre. It's very distracting. Why the hell did people pay to see the movie, if they're just going to text through the whole damned thing?
I was invited to a birthday party where nobody talked to each other, they just sat around a restaurant and texted people on their phones most the night.
Maybe by today's standards. But society and social norms evolve as does technology.
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Obviously he was meaning society in general, but I could see the light in this. However, I think it's still too soon to gauge if technology will dumb us down, or if we still haven't properly harnessed making it work for us while developing ourselves in the grey areas that exist between technology and it's uses.
You have to remember, technology and innovation is exponential. It doesn't happen at a constant rate, instead it picks up speed as it goes. So during the 40's when computers first started really having a purpose, to the 60's-70's when a real intense focus was put on developing technology, to the 80's and 90's when it was on a big upswing, to the 2000's now when it is really taking off and new things are being discovered much more quickly. This is why I don't think we've really caught up to our own technology, so we can't sit here right now and say "Well now we're a bunch of morons because our calculators do everything for us".
Outside of that though, I think human ability is very similar to economics. What I mean by that is the statement "the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer". Translate that to ability and intelligence, "The more adept keeping getting more adept...". The general population has always been at the mercy of the world, society, etc. all throughout history. When you read stories about famous leaders, successful businessmen/women, and other notable figures, there are thousands upon millions upon billions of nameless faces. So with this natural advantage of greater ability/intelligence and being predisposed to a good situation in the world, those people will not suffer like the general majority would.
SO, idiots may be the majority but they aren't everyone. However I would be almost certain that Einstein would have meant this, but wasn't attempting to account for every possibility in one little quote.
I voted I agree, but there is a qualification
There are still brilliant people doing brilliant things every day that are members of the "technology" generation. I do believe it is up to parents and mostly the individuals to understand that technology can be a great asset as well as a terrible crutch. We can use it to improve life or we can use it to avoid life.
Unfortunately, more often than not it seems like people use it as a coping mechanism to avoid dealing with the real world... and of course we should see the irony of this question being asking in this medium right?
I agree with it, but not in the context you imply. In the future maybe people will become more dependent on technology and become weak in some ways, but at the same time I think technology will be the savior, once again, if humanity survives at all. I think ultimately humanity and technology can't help but mix together- mix more, that is.
Should read a book called "Feed." It's a good sci-fi book about that essentially.
agreed and its happening now. Retards are common. I truly think I'm an idiot, and I see here all the time when people can't even talk correctly. Then I think "well I must not be THAT bad if that exists"
A few weeks ago a doctor said we as humans are becoming dumber. Meaning we are becoming so reliant on technology for survival, that we are losing our ability to take care of ourselves and survive without technology.
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