It's not just stuff…

By | September 2, 2007
1 Comment

Some have asked, “Why care about technology if it doesn’t bring happiness?” Kaj Sotala explains why that premise is wrong for some technologies. He makes the case that developing technology can enable happiness, equality, and choice.

-Linkathon.

  • Phil Bowermaster

    I think the key word there is “enables.” Overall, technology exists to enable human development — to give us more of what we’re trying to get, to help us more nearly be what we’re trying to be. Technology can also enable violence, destruction, harm to the natural world. I think one of the reasons that the world is so (literally) gunshy about technology is that we still live in the shadow of World War II, where it became appallingly obvious how effective technology could be in killing off large numbers of us. Groups like thew Lifeboat Foundation are trying to grapple with what happens when that kind of destructive capability — or in fact a highly magnified version of that capability — were to take on a mind or at least will of its own. But the vast majority of technological developments are intended to do good, not harm. So what happens if that creative and life-enhancing capability takes on a life of its own? The future lies somewhere in the tension between that question and the one the Lifeboat Foundation is asking.