Everyone is scared
The human race has deep underlying fears about technology and the lives their children will lead
“There’s this increasing fear of technology, information technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, 3-D printers, the internet and all these different forms”
Well, I don’t know about “the human race”… that covers an awful not of territory, but I’m a bit concerned. Fear of the unknown.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Let’s face it - we love to be scared. From horror movies to extreme sports, we are all adrenaline junkies to some degree, and we apparently need to know when an asteroid is going to miss Earth by 750,000,000 miles so we can all be relieved that we didn’t get annihilated this time.
My generation has managed to make the adjustment from landlines to mobile phones, three television networks to thousands of channels, black and white film to digital cameras, cassette tapes to live streaming… not to mention emergency drills at school where we hid under our desks from Russian nukes (as if) - I think our kids will be fine.
It’s true that emotions are linked to appetites. It’s both good and bad depending on… lots of things I suppose. We need fear not only to survive but to pause, reflect, and make smarter choices (possibly thrive rather than just survive). The grace in it is that we designed to feel a certain amount of fear and so we do sort of enjoy it. But being fallen, we tend to enjoy a good bit more than (or a distorted form of) we were meant to or than is right.
So we have whole industries thriving on public anxiety.
Still, we are acquiring abilities we’ve never had before. Had a conversation with my daughter recently about the technologies we have (and have had for a while) that can mechanically keep a human being ‘alive’ far longer than they are able to actually live. The concept that is novel to her generation is that just because we can do something with technology doesn’t mean we should.
So her generation, if Christ does not return and wrap things up, is going to be wrestling with questions of human cloning, genetic manipulation—quite possibly interspecies w/human—and lots of other formerly sci-fi nightmares. And issues of privacy unlike any we’ve struggled with before. If it can’t already, the government will soon be able to spy on you, literally, using an insect… full audio and video. Possibly even scarier, people may well be able to return the favor and spy on their government with tiny machines or semi-organic devices.
It’s not something I normally spend time worrying about. The gov. has no reason to spy on 99% of us. But my point is this: even as our technologies are growing exponentially, our moral wisdom as a culture is not growing exponentially (to understate the situation). It doesn’t bode well for the future.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The concept that is novel to her generation is that just because we can do something with technology doesn’t mean we should.
to look out for us!
Seriously though - I agree that our children are going to face some weird sci-fi stuff, but I can’t help but think that there is nothing new under the sun. I think about novels by authors like Arthur C. Clarke in which his imaginations became our reality. Humanity has always faced the issues that new technology raises, whether it’s a new ability, a new danger, or both.
I also can’t help thinking that we’ve all read the last chapter, so we know how it is going to end. We’ve just got to give our kids the tools to face whatever comes their way instead of trying to imagine what they’ll face.
Personal experience w medical technology:
- In December 1949, when I was 4 months old, my Grandfather (Basil Hayward) broke his neck in an accident. There was nothing to be done for him but to allow him to die and indeed he did about a week later
- In September 1987, at the age of 38, I broke my neck in an accident. I nearly died at the scene. I survived and am alive 28 years later.
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