Technology is science's little brother. Big brothers are older, wiser, more imposing, but harmless. Little brothers are all about action, excitement, dynamism, and adventure. And this is precisely why technology can't save us either.
This is not to say that a lot of people don't put a lot of faith in it. Look at all the technological advances we've made, especially in the last century or so: we've gone to the moon, we are exploring outer space, we have amazing prosthetics, we can clone sheep, not to speak of the wide range of miraculous drugs we've invented. But we've also developed nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, we make environmentally unfriendly plastics, we pollute, misuse, destroy, and exploit on a global scale. When we step back and look at the big picture, when we draw up accounts, the ledger is seriously weighted on the negative side. Our standards of living are in general higher, but we suffer from more diseases, have slain untold masses, and are wrecking the environment at a record pace. How is that going to save us?
It's not. Technology is about bigger, better, faster, smarter, newer, snazzier . . . the list goes on. There are pills, machines, gadgets, replacement parts, vehicles, computers and Lord knows what-not to still be invented. The technologist will tell you that technology on the whole brings a lot of good with it, but technologists aren't the ones to point out what they're getting wrong. To them, to be fair, it's imply a matter of finding another innovation, another solution, then the problem's solved. The problem with this way of thinking, though, is that history doesn't bear it out. Ever since we learned to deal with fire, the technological path has been an exceedingly costly one in spite of all the alleged benefits.
No, it's not in the technological mind-set to save us. Granted, they might like to, but they aren't doing it, and in the end, that's all that matters. But what if they were better directed?
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