Cell phones started out like a block of Lego, except it was larger in size, extremely bulky and ultra-unportable. There was no camera, contacts, games, messaging, and of course, there was no complex applications. The primary purpose of the phone was to call. The appearances as well of the functions of the cell phone evolved as the decade passed. Now, we have slick flip phones with music, downloaded video, and apps. And we have revolved our lifestyles and behavior around this kind of technology. Our society now text (instant messaging) with their phones, download useless apps, and do things people 30 years ago would never think of doing with their phones. Thus, I firmly believe that our lives will be ultra-dependent on technology, if we are not already.
I'm not persuading anyone to trash their phone, but I'm trying to remind you to use it the right way. I hope that someday-when the whole world allows their phone to tie their shoes, you will be able to tie your shoe yourself. Anyway, technology has eliminated mankind's origin. It has eliminated our troubles, but at the same time, it has eliminated Darwin's coined quote, "survival of the fittest;" we'll all be unfit without technology.
The idea sparked into my head when I was reading this article. According to the article, some team from Formula 1 and Spirit of Berlin created an iPhone app that can drive a car. Neat stuff. Even though the dangerousness and impracticality will never let it go free into the market, it may be a sign that even driving will be reduced into one little iPhone app. Nothing will limit the power of society's version of Moore's law.
In an article on broadband. Motorola.com, Motorola devised one of its cell phones to actually control your home by monitoring the security systems, temperature, water systems ... etc. You can check the status of your home by simply analyzing your phone which has a direct link to your computer. Again, pretty neat stuff. So, is it possible that the fundamental homely functions will all be compressed into one to reduce work and time? Great idea, but again; will all this useful technology be an improvement to society or will it be a hazard to improvement.
2 comments:
Consider the human arm. Is it a piece of technology that is very heavily integrated into the rest of us? Or what about clothes? We are not born with clothes, but this insulating, protecting, and decorating technology has become standard to the point of necessity in society. Yet it is immediately possible to envision unclothed cavemen first discovering that wearing fabric helps keeping warm -- clothes were at one point a new invention. And surely one caveman asked in grunts, "will reliance on this technology not make us weak?"
Indeed, this is a question asked throughout history, a question that has defied eons. It has been asked about fire and firearms, about huts and skyscrapers, and about every invention that truly may be called important. And the answer to the question was always "yes". Today, we could not survive alongside those naked cavemen, without guns and fire and huts and clothes. Technology has made us individually weaker as a result of our reliance on technology, but with the technology, we are stronger than we were. So today, when the world needs guns to kill an animal, do you really think you only need your bare hands?
Good point, but have you read "the Terminal Man," by Michael Crichton? It proposes two interesting ideas:
1) We are never be able to understand our own brain, for our brain can not understand of something of equal complexity; we can however, understand a frog's brain in generations to come.
2) The human brain will always adapt and become more complex. If the information is too complicated too fit its maker, then it will spawn ... into the machine.
Interesting ideas. You should definitely read the book if you had not already; you'd definitely like it.
So knowing this, is it good to rely on technology too much so that we would be incomplete without technology?
Post a Comment