During my adventure last weekend to the heart of dixie (alabama) i had a few discussions with this friend of mine, while very heated i see his points and i respect them, but i disagree with them strongly. you see my friend loves technology, loves the advancement of said technology, and sees it as the shining beacon of light for the human race. and i take the opposite view. and this is my reason why:
This is the Merriam-Webster definition of technology:
a : the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area : engineering 2 <medical technology>b : a capability given by the practical application of knowledge <a car's fuel-saving technology>
2
: a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technicalprocesses, methods, or knowledge <new technologies for information storage>
3
: the specialized aspects of a particular field of endeavor<educational technology>
So with those in mind lets talk about the great technological advancement our world has seen in the past 50 years. You go to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and 50 years ago you saw traders with pen and paper in hand trading stocks, now in a few short years it will all be computerized. same can be said for the automotive industry (walk into a GM, Toyota, Ford plant and you will find 500-700 people MAX), it will soon be the film industry as well, and every other facet of life as we know it. but if a computer, or a robot does all these jobs for us, then what are we to do? sit by and earn no income and see the world economy tank.....again? only a few companies are leading this charge, apple, microsoft, cisco, and others are all moving towards this idea, while they depend on the human MIND to figure it out, and once it's done there is no need for that mind any more. it's leading to a wild amount of tax payer dollars being spent on math and science education while once again english, history, and the arts are shit on and slashed from school curriculum. so is it fair to invest all that money into one field, that will ultimately take away more than it gives? i dont think it does. but thats just me.
and what about our natural resources?
This dear readers is a motherboard of a computer. you see all that shiny shit on that thing? you know what that is? thats gold, silver, titanium, lithium, platinum, copper, and many other precious metals that are natural resources. so think the average computer has about a half a pound of all that shit in it. so times that by however many dvd players, blueray players, xbox, playstations, computers, ipads, iphones, cell phones, ipods, and all that other junk that is made every year, and then think about how many of our natural resources are used on those things. pretty big number right? so here we are again, the humans taking more than they need from the earth, no big surprise to me its what we have always done. and now its leading to a disaster of epic proportions. mining for these metals is becoming increasingly more difficult and dangerous. thousands die each year in mining disasters abroad for these metals, thousands hell even millions become sick from the toxic shit that leaks out of this technology into our earth causing cancers, mutations, and all other funky things to happen to our bodies and the bodies of millions. the environmental impact of technological advancement is becoming a HUGE problem very very quickly ladies and jointlemen. and not even technology can stop mother nature and mother earth from doing what they want to do.
which brings me to my next point:
This is the EARTH at night. check out europe, china, india, and of course the largest consumer of power in the world the united states. this is a beautiful image and really puts in perspective how minuscule our little green and blue planet actually is. but think if all those lights went out. what would happen? and how does it happen? well lucky for you you read my blog and im one smart mother fucker.
well now a days we cant even imagine a world without electricity. but somehow, the people who roamed this earth wayyyy before we did lived without it. somehow they made it all those hundreds of thousands of years without that image above being the remotest of possibilities. and for that, we are now all here. incredible right? but did you know that a tornado, or hurricane, or earthquake, or any other natural disaster has teh power to absolutely disembowel all of those lights without even the remotest help of technology? i do. so what happens in a few years when the NYSE opens for trading on wall street one day with no traders with actual hard copy documents of financial records and such, and lets say a hurricane 9which is highly possible in that area of the world) shuts the power down at that place, and rolling blackouts hit the east coast like they did in the late 2000's? what happens then? well guess what that shit dies and trading stops and markets tank, causing a huge depression. or what about this hypothetical that is much more likely to happen:
So america's infrastructure (our roads, bridges, dams, internet access etc.) is crumbling, and has been since about the 1960's. even though it is the basis of all other grids in the world, its now become dangerously inefficient. and our power grid has become a complete failure, that same power grid is the grid that supplies power to ever last one of us, and to every last one of our stupid electronic, technologically advanced systems that we have become so dependent on. imagine, cell phone towers inactive, tv's not turning on (and god forbid we have to actually READ our news!!!), computers defunct, NYSE useless as stocks in over seas markets tumble to unprecedented lows causing a world wide chain reaction leading to the greatest economic depression in history that rocks the foundation of society to the ground. now to many people that seems ridiculous and a totally abnormal thought pattern. but because our energy grid has become such a joke, and our demand for power has risen so steadily that the grid can't keep up, its not a forgone reality. it will happen folks. so let me put it this way, im for the advancement of our technology to help us humans live SUSTAINABLE ( my favorite word) lives, and create a sustainable world, where fantasy becomes reality, where clutter become organized information, and where we live harmoniously with it. but the facts remain that our infrastructure can NOT handle the kind of pressure we are putting on it. the more technology we invent and the more technology we advance the heavier the load our grid has to place on its back. and folks it can't handle it, just can't. we don't even have the money to fund our schools any more no less to totally rework our infrastructure to fit and live harmoniously with our advancements in technology and innovation. technology can benefit us all in ways we could never imagine, and for that i am grateful but i am not grateful for the horrid environmental impact, economic impact, and social impact it will have on the human race. technology will run it's course but in the end two things will bring it to it's knees, mother nature and human consumption and when that day comes, technological advancement will cease to exist, just like every other thing in this world, mother nature ahs the last word folks, not humans, not chickens, not the grateful dead, and sure as hell not technology.
MAKE SURE TO GET ON TOMORROW FOR MY SPECIAL 420 EDITION OF JACK TALKS JACKS. IT'S SURE TO BE A HAPPY HOLI-DAZE.
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