Tech-based Societies.

[Firice da Vinci]

When my school started back up, almost everyone's schedules were a mess. Classes were missing, wrong, and overcrowded. This was due a program that was meant to make schedules for the students. It crashed and made the schedules all wonky. The staff are working on correcting everything and are working incredibly long hours (7am-10pm) to mend the situation.

This got me thinking as to how much technology should be implemented into society. It advances everyday for better or worse. For example, doctors can use machinery to monitor and heal illnesses that were once difficult to control and construction vehicles like cranes help make building skyscrapers safer. On the other hand, relying on technology too much can lead to credit card fraud, physical inactivity, and mess up high school schedules.

What do you guys think of tech-based societies? Do you think there is too much reliance already, not enough, or should we just be more conscious of the benefits and downsides of relying on machines?

 

[Mercedes]

Mistakes have always been made, either it be by humans or technology. I would think the latter can only get more reliable as we advance further, though of course there's always room for error, and humans will always make mistakes too. So when people use the point that "programs can crash and make mistakes" as an argument not to use them, they must be unaware of the many mistakes people make in their little bubble of perfection.

As for if we rely on them too much, no, I don't think so. Because someone, somewhere, had to have been clever enough to design it all. Unless we hit some kind of dark ages where we lose the ability to re-create technology that we have and use everyday then I would definitely say we don't rely on them too much. If I need to do some Math then I whip my phone out and use a calculator, but if I didn't have my phone I'd be perfectly able to work it out myself. We rely on technology because it is convenient, computers do things much faster than a human can do and usually in massive quantities, but we don't rely on them because we need to. We still have trained professionals and very clever people in the world who continue to advance us in every way. That final point is why I think we are not over-reliant. Some individuals may grow up and be, however. I know a few people who can't do any kind of Math and completely rely on a calculator. But as a society, no, the people who completely rely on technology are very much a minority, so I don't think so.

 

[misskitten]

I absolutely view technology as useful and important part of societal progress, but I absolutely see the dangers of relying far too much on it, as we risk one day no longer knowing how to do the same tasks manually should the technology fail us. Like doctors using specially developed machinery to do surgery - it's absolute progress in terms of making procedures more precise and thereby safer - but relying on that technology can be dangerous since technology can fail and if that doctor doesn't know how to manage the procedure without said equipment, then it could in the worst case scenario become a life or death situation. Technology is a short-cut, and while short-cuts are good and helpful - not knowing the long way around when the short-cut is not available is never good.

 

[Batman]

When my school started back up, almost everyone's schedules were a mess. Classes were missing, wrong, and overcrowded. This was due a program that was meant to make schedules for the students. It crashed and made the schedules all wonky. The staff are working on correcting everything and are working incredibly long hours (7am-10pm) to mend the situation.

To answer your question seriously however: human society has always been a tech-based society. The making of spears, the chewing of tree bark, the use of language, the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, the emergence of writing, the harvesting of crops, the creation of the bow and arrow, the domestication of animals, the founding of empires, the creation and use of paper, the use of gunpowder, the printing press, the steam engine, the electric and quantum revolutions, the integrated circuit, the world wide web, and so on, humanity has always been in the context of exponentially growing and hard-to-control technology. Humanity has always been a tech-based society. The creation and utilization of tools to extend our reach is just what we humans do.

In the same way that computer systems can fail and cause inconveniences and even havoc in 2014 AD, so did the misuse of fire cause inconveniences and havoc in 400,000 BC. And so did the creation and use of paper lead to inconveniences and even entire wars based on the simple encoding and decoding of lines and squiggles in the second century BC.

Technology is an intimate part of what it means to be human. The technology itself is totally amoral, totally neutral. It's how we use it that matters. And in the endeavor to master it, there will always be bumps in the road. I'm sure people complained about faulty light bulbs and telegraph wires at the turn of the 20th Century in the same way we complain about faulty databases or web designs.

 

[(◕‿◕✿)]

I think this is kind of a strange question. Technology is intrinsic to society, so a "tech based society" seems redundant. Since the mid 20[sup]th[/sup] century, there's been a view that only things involving electrical components are "technology". I suppose this is similar in a manner to the way ever more complex mechanical devices were viewed before the advent of electricity. Technology is innate in anything we do, computers are just the latest achievement and have only begun to be developed past their nascent state. They are a technology that opened up an entire new world parallel to what we already knew, and so naturally they've had an enormous impact, and we are still figuring things out.

Also, as computer technology has matured, it's become more and more intertwined in modern physics, e.g., quantum physics. At this point there is a strong symbiosis between research in computer science and research in physics, and the two will only merge more and more in the future.

 

[Ventus]

the fact is that technology is made by man so it will be a little imperfect. sometimes machines stop working, but thats because they need energy to work. not everything can last forever. we have to replace things and do matenence on things. that is the way the world works. so we can have a big technology industry and not effect anyone.