I am the biggest fan of technology. I love gadgets. But, as most consumer products get smaller we often forget about the other end of the spectrum. Ipods, cameras, TV and phones are all becoming one. These things are so amazing compared to what was available just ten years ago. I enjoy their benefits and would never trade them in. However, just look at the picture. We are capable of constructing and designing things so much smaller then us as well as things that are quite shockingly larger. Imagine what will come in another ten years. We know already that the smallest things can harm us but I am talking about big things here. How will we not resist the urge to build a tower to space? What a great religious debate that could become. Is it against faith to try to build a scientific tower of babel to the heavens? The theme that our own technological creations can and will destroy us are seen in numerous movies and books. I believe and it may happen well beyond my lifetime that what we create will ultimately end us before weather or illness.
3 comments:
Few things:
What do you mean by 'against faith"? What faith? Faith in what? The "faith" of the science, if you can put it that way, is in inevitable technological progress.
How is flying to the space or selling lands in the future "moon colonies" different from building a tower?
In every generation there were people who were afraid that humanity "went too far" and that our creations, one day, can become our destruction. Since the invention of the atomic bomb, that fear is quite persistent and is more relevant than ever. "Our" most horrible and desctructive invention is already here for quite some time. I wonder why is this question bothering you now, of all times?
I did say we know already that the smallest things can harm us and I was refering to the bomb. But lets say that stays under control and none are detonated. What else could we come up with and how big will it be?
As far as faith. Stem cells, abortion, marriage etc. Was there an outcry when humans went to space? Did people at the time feel it was tempting God or that humans were trying to find where God resides? That I will have to research.
I think that the answers to your last paragraph would be all positive. Listen to the anti-abortionists today, to the Catholic Church or to Jewish Orthodoxs. Even if you didn't hear these people when the first space experiments were conducted, it was because the Cold War propaganda was too loud back then. Today, as there is no "significant other evil" these voices are louder and they have lobbies in DC.
There would always be someone to object to changes, be it in technology, morals, dress, or cable tv... Even in the Ancient Greece, the old was respected whereas the new, suspected :)
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