Is technology doing us harm?

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When all the workers have been replaced with robots, they will rise up and demand what they need to live. Karl Marx predicted this.



So?



Nonsense. I have a smartphone and I still socialise all the time. In the olden days, people often read books instead of socialising.



I will admit that this is a problem, but we can solve this problem by using technology in a new way.

For example, we could teach children how to identify different types of wild animals, plants and fungi using information from their smartphones. In the olden days, bird watchers had to bring a book, which is heavier than a phone.



That's because they are teenagers. They are going through hormonal changes and so they think that other humans are scum. They'll grow out of it.



Technology makes us lazy? Well ... it allows us to do work with less effort. Laziness isn't always a bad thing. It helps us discover more energy-efficient ways of preforming essential tasks.

Another Thing: Technology can make us more aware of our surroundings. It's called "the information age" for a reason. My sig contains a link to represent.us for a reason.



Technology will only end us if we start a nuclear war or fail to stop global warming.



I will admit that technology comes with a few hazards, but you didn't even mention the real hazards associated with technology. Authoritarianism is only possible because of agriculture. Humans were free prior to the Neolithic Revolution. Technology gives oppressors the tools that they need to oppress us, such as security cameras, tanks, pepper spray ect. Additionally, technology has made human extinction a possibility thanks to the threats of nuclear war and global warming. Additionally, factory farms are breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

That being said, the hazards associated with technology can be solved through political action. The threat of ozone depletion has been mostly contained because most governments now restrict the use of Chlorofluorocarbons. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane could have potentially wiped out humanity, but it was restricted before it could do so. The hazards associated with technology can be solved through political action.

We already have regulations in place to prevent the creation of genetically engineered monstrosities. Additionally, most people who work with robotics are aware of the possibility of a catastrophic cybernetic revolt. They have planned accordingly.

Everything will be okay.

This guy voiced some very pragmatic concerns:

Yes. Technology is becoming addictive. I really don't know what to do because I don't want to miss out on the benefits of the technology. Maybe I'm already addicted.

I agree that people need employment but deliberately making people use antiquated technology to keep employment numbers up seems like the wrong approach. It's little better than paying people to walk around in a circle for 8 hours per day.

For people to have meaningful employment they need to be doing something useful and they need to be doing it in the most efficient way possible (not avoiding the use of robots or other forms of automation just so everyone can work 8 hours per day).

If the unions get robots banned, then we'll never be able to get under a 40 hour week.


I hope not. I don't think we could withstand a robot revolution.

Robots will not acquire that much independence and free will in our lifetime.

Nor, especially, the ability to influence another robot to do human-like actions, like killing.

Another argument I can make is that even though I admit I get addiction or fun out of today's tech sometimes, I will still say that the way it is with tech today in both the workplace and wide society is making me feel inferior as a human.

Too many TECH. gimmicks e.g., in many cases, the "old fashioned ways" are reasonably convenient!

^

I think this makes a whole lot of sense.

I can understand that. There is a popular myth that automation will cause mass unemployment. This myth is not true. In even the most automatic society of the foreseeable future, the machines will need technicians and engineers, people to design, program and maintain them.

This means automation won't cause mass unemployment for everyone. It means automation will cause mass unemployment only for the unskilled.

Automation will bring on the death of the working class and more work for the middle class. In the future, everyone will need a university degree because without manual labour, every job will be a highly technical job.

The consequence of living in a high tech world is that education will become far more demanding and competitive. When every job is a skilled job then we'll all need to try harder at becoming skilled. This will raise the barrier of entry for getting a job.

This makes me feel inferior as well because I don't have a university degree. The best I could do was get into testing. I'm not smart enough to design the machines but I can test them in detail against a hundred page spec.

This was worth watching.

Surely the higher paid the job, the more money you save by getting a robot to do it. The safest jobs are those that are low paid but involve dealing with the unexpected.

I hope not. I don't think we could withstand a robot revolution.[/quote]

That isn't what I meant. I'm sorry for my ambiguous syntax.

I mean that the human workers will rise up and demand their rights if robots take their jobs.

A robot revolution will never happen. There is no reason for humans to mass-produce robots that have free will.

Only way i think think of it doin harm is if it went as far as that episode in Black Mirror where social inclusion was the main currency and way of life and if you were not a part of it you would be an outcast and even though its not far from whats happening now we still need tech for our medical needs, utilities, and insight into what things are happening over the world. I can say without technology, I would be nothing.

Another thing I want to talk about is how I am sad about all the local TV/radio consolidation going because a more people want to go streaming these days. I still long for when my parents were young that I missed out on, radio and TV had local personality, ownership, and a larger variety. The day will come when it would be mandatory to only use streaming instead of local radio air waves.

Excellent New York Times story, "The Tyranny of Convenience"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/opin ... ience.html

I wish people were more open-minded about the dark side of convenience instead of writing it off as some form of religious fanaticism.

I'm listening to this guy right now.

He seems to be dividing the technologies into two rough camps - enabling technologies and replacing technologies. In that sense he's designating enabling technologies generally help workers make more money while replacing technologies tend to replace the worker. Not perfectly nuanced by any stretch but still perhaps not a bad starting point for trying to peel the onion: