Advantages and Disadvantages of Technological Achievements

Abstract

The triumphs of technology have provided material wealth beyond the fondest dreams of kings and nobles of the last century. Having achieved this pinnacle of technological success, a large and growing proportion of our people insist that these amazing accomplishments are not what they wanted after all. The younger generation, for whom these riches were intended to be priceless heritage, increasingly disclaim the goals of the past 100 years and insist that the cost has been too great. Intelligent, educated, and well-endowed youth have been turning to communes, drugs, and violence to escape a world threatened by man’s inability to control the products of his own creation. The complications of technological achievements have high priority among the targets of current protests. Widespread antagonism toward technology seems misdirected, because the fault lies more in human utilization of technology than in fruits of industrial innovation. The human animal has failed to attain the full potential of his technology or to forecast and control its complications. Individual intelligence, incentive, and innovation have created modern marvels; our greatest deficiency is a lack of group intelligence or judgment in identifying and assessing human needs, developing mechanisms for attaining or supporting essential requirements, and applying effective constraints to avoid excesses. Super-success and overabundance are the prime characteristics of our current crises. Unless industrialized nations are prepared to cast aside current creature comforts and regress to the simple life of the past, new techniques and technologies must be the prime hope for improving the total environment for future generations. Compounded complications of these new approaches can be avoided by improved understanding of human desires and requirements.