On Technology
Tom S. emailed me a while back with a link to this article:The article proposes a quite rational series of questions to evaluate the worthiness of new technology. The list is long, but even the first six are hugely useful. Here they are:
1. What sort of person will the use of this technology make of me?
2. What habits will the use of this technology instill?
3. How will the use of this technology affect my experience of time?
4. How will the use of this technology affect my experience of place?
5. How will the use of this technology affect how I relate to other people?
6. How will the use of this technology affect how I relate to the world around me?
Those are thoughtful, important questions, and ones I've always neglected completely.
The problem with any new technology, of course, is that you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. We never seem to turn technology down if it can be monetized. Or weaponized. It's only if neither of those criteria are met that new technology fails.
I never really thought that mattered.
I've become much more aware, though, that an economy based on monetization and weaponization of technology doesn't reward the good actors, generally. Instead, it rewards the bad ones. Maybe this was always true, but it seems so acutely true now. We've allowed individual bad actors to become, essentially, their own nation-states.
I don't know if any of us are fully prepared to accept the consequences.
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