Is Technology Advancing Too Fast?

[Pinkie-Dawn]

When I watched the Human Centipad episode of South Park, it gave us a message about how we should slow down on making new technology and start appreciating our current technology. This brings up an interesting question: Is technology advancing too fast? Part of the reason luddites exist is because they either prefer the oldest form of technology or didn't have enough time to adapt to the current technology before another advance in said technology has progressed. It's like how moviegoers are getting sick of movies with CGI and go back to watching movies with practical effects and stop motion. This of course brings a problem. If we do slow down on our technological progress like for example green energy, then we would continue harming our environment with our own pollution. But these luddites don't care because they're already having a hard time adapting to change in technology in the past. Knowing some of you guys are experts on this subject, do you believe that technology is advancing too fast and is this a good thing or a bad thing? Do you sympathize with the luddites?

 

[Esper]

I'm not an expert in anything technological. Just wanted to get that out before I say anything else.

I think generally technology is a great thing and it makes our lives so much better. As a general rule I think more technology is better. The thing that I think might not be so great is how technology is inserted into every aspect of our lives. I do want to see 3D printing become commonplace, to see more space missions, to see safe and reliable self-driving vehicles, but do I need a refrigerator to have a computer in it? Well, no. Not everything needs the latest technology. And the trouble with adding it to everything is that it becomes more difficult to repair and replace. Like the tractors farmers use are run with computers and when one breaks down the farmer has to pay through the nose to get a specialist from the company who makes it to come fix it. So I'd say there's too much proprietary technology that doesn't add to our lives or make them better, just different.

But like you mentioned in the opening, technology to help with pollution is a great thing to strive for. Alternate fuel for what we use is a good example of advancing technology that merely replaces outdated/unsustainable tech without adversely affecting the majority of the people who use it. Because, honestly, if all the cars in five years ran on electricity instead of petroleum, but you still went to a station to recharge, most people would hardly notice or care except if it meant a change in how much they paid or how often they had to recharge.

 

[Guest123_x1]

Although almost everybody else my age will disagree with me, and my view on this is more suited to senior citizens, I believe technology is advancing way too fast these days. Seems like we get used to something that was introduced just a few years ago, and bam-something new comes along to make that thing obsolete and we all have to go out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on this "latest and greatest" thing, which will probably be made obsolete much faster than the thing(s) it replaced.
Take for example, VHS to DVD to Blu-ray: VHS had been around for nearly two decades before DVD came out as a replacement format. DVD had been in the spotlight for hardly a decade before Blu-ray came out (after it won a format war vs. HD DVD), and now we've got 4K Blu-ray and corresponding 4K UHD televisions!

Also with smartphones, it seems like you can't even have the same phone a year until a newer and "better" (read: more complicated) model comes out.
Same for software too-new versions come out waaaaay too fast. I hate that you have to keep updating software programs for what seems like at least once every couple of weeks! I wish we could go back to the good ol' days when a single software version was good to use for a much longer period of time without frequent major updates-you could use that same version for the lifetime of the computer it was installed on.

 

[☆Rei☆]

To be fair, no matter what you say or do, there will always be those opposed to progressing further as well as those wanting their talents going to waste by just idly sitting around because of others who are too inept to adapt.

I, for one do not think that technology is progressing too fast. There is not enough of a reason for me to believe that we should stop inventing and experimenting. Bringing up "Oh, but some people don't want to or can't adapt" is irrelevant to the subject in my opinion. I mean, this is going to sound harsh, but eventually those who don't want to adapt will die off and those who can and will adapt will take their places. It happens every generation where major changes occur. My parents would always say "Technology is terrible, back in my day we didn't have computers". But, they probably forgot to mention how their grandparents would probably say something like "waiting a few minutes for your food to heat up is no big deal, back in my day we didn't have microwaves!". While their parents probably mentioned that they never had TV as a kid. And so forth the cycle continues until you reach back into the times of cavemen where they probably said "Man, back in my day we didn't have fire to keep the long nights warm."

Now, to backup my opinion other than "those who don't want to adapt will eventually disappear" is that the further we go into research and technology, the more we understand, the more we are capable of. For example, it used to take 2 months to cross the entire United States? Well, you can now do that in like 4 hours. We used to have next to no medical knowledge, leading to deathly diseases like the black plague, which was simply stopped by employing hygiene.

With that said, there are negatives to technology, mostly negatives involving humans destroying the environment. But, with the negative side, comes the counter forces which try to reduce the side effects to a point of where it shouldn't be a problem, or where it completely disappears to begin with. For example: Fossil fuels cause a lot of pollution, we all know that. But, with recent technology, we are working on clean ways to obtain energy, such as solar panels, windmills, and watermills.

 

[Tsutarja]

One thing I love about technology is how backwards-compatible, even if it is advancing far too much for some to keep up.

 

[Arsenic]

I actually find technology to be advancing really slow actually. Think about it, when was the last major revolution? The dawn of the computer was the last time something new was made. This "advancing technology" is more like small upgrades.

And having worked in tech service I find most of these luddites (or as I call them, old people) you speak of are not so much unable to adapt to new technology as they are more unable to adapt to new interfaces (what do you mean windows 10 made everything square! Now I have no clue how to do anything!)

Again just my experience and opinion.

 

[IllusionaryNeon]

I mean, technology really started to develop a lot faster during the Cold War. Technology is still advancing but not as fast as it did back then. It's still crazy when you think about it though. We've gone from having brick phones (old cell phones) to having these small little computers that fit in your pocket. It amazes me how fast we continue to develop but I worry about the future, I really do. I hope we can wise about what we do with this technology.