Reflective Rough Draft
When writing a paper, I always try to make the subject relate to something that I am interested or passionate about. When my teacher announced to the class that we would be talking about Technology this semester in English 102, I really didn’t know what to expect. I just recently graduated early from high school in January, and I quickly realized that I would have a lot of freedoms in this English class. It definitely was not what I was use to. I was nervous about English because I had always had a hard problem relating to my topics in high school. In high school, if I was told to write about Romeo and Juliet, I would simply talk about the book and never really engage the text like English 102 has taught me. I quickly discovered that engaging the text and analyzing the authors opinions with those of other authors, I was easily interested and happy to be writing my paper. I was also really excited when I found out that my teacher WANTED me to use words like I and they. In my previous classes teachers had always said that in a research paper, personal opinions should not be included. I really suffered with this concept because to me, the personal opinion of an author is what attracts me into reading any paper.
So, there I was in English 102 completely flabbergasted by this new idea of writing. I finally had an English teacher that wanted to hear what I had to say about a topic. The topic which we spent our time discussing was Technology. I found myself really becoming entranced with all these different questions which Nye, Vonnegut, and Vincente were asking their readers to think about. The authors never gave answers to these questions, which allowed my mind to continuously analyze their ideas over and over. I found myself becoming very passionate about the conclusions and beliefs I would come to about technology and its pros and cons. I actually became so passionate about it, that I often found myself leaving class upset over some remarks and views of a former classmate who definitely had a more arrogant outlook on things. Luckily for me, that student only came to class for two weeks before dropping out.
When we first began exploring the texts and writing papers about them, the piece of writing that stood out to me the most was the “Human Factor”. It really amazed me to see how many of mans everyday disasters were caused by technology being placed in the hands of people who were not educated well enough to use it. When we began reading Cats Cradle I began thinking about how technology sort of allows us to play God and alter with the natural way which nature works. And then there was Nye, who just absolutely sent my mind in all directions with his questions like whether technology shapes us or we it, is it creating social uniformity or diversity, destroying jobs or creating jobs, making us more secure or insecure, expanding our minds or making us too dependant on machines, improving our lives or limiting our very existence?
I found the topic of my final research paper when I was asked to write a paper analyzing Nye and two other resources which he used in his book. I became very interested in a “technique” which Ellul talked about in her book. To me, “technique” refers to the way which we go about our daily tasks. Growing up I was always really fascinated when I would go to the museum or watch old TV shows and see the way which our ancestors survived. I found their way of life so much more interesting and rewarding. As a child I would always imagine myself living like the kids on Little House on the Prairie, or back in the Gilded Age. I have always been into art, and I just found the “technique” which we once produced goods to be so much more unique. I have always felt that technology is taking away from these arts, and taking the beauty out of many things. I don’t understand why we feel the need to change these past times. I often find myself wondering what it would be like if we just stopped everything and went back to these modern ways.
When I started thinking about our constant need to evolve, I began trying to search for examples of technologies we have created to help, which ended up causing more problems. After sitting on my couch for about 5 minutes pondering, pesticides finally jumped into my brain. To me, pesticides was the perfect topic for me to talk about. I knew that I needed a topic which I was interested in, and also a topic which let me explore all my previous ideas. Pesticides allowed me to think about the modern ways which we use to farm and irrigate our land, while also focusing in the human factor which technology has.
My biggest problem I encountered in this paper was keeping the discussion of pesticides in terms which I could understand. I began researching pesticides thinking “okay I have narrowed down my topic pretty well, there cant be that much information for me to cover.” I was really wrong. I began getting caught up in the history of pesticides, different agricultural techniques, the different types of land, etc. I was not an expert in farming or pesticides, and I would often sit there re reading passages trying to understand what the author was trying to say. I began writing a paper with little passion, and just plain old facts. Luckily, it didn’t take long for me to throw out that paper and realize that I didn’t need to talk about the history and different terms used in describing agriculture. I began focusing on the impacts it has had on animals and humans. For me, the idea that we willingly put these harmful chemicals into our food is just absurd. There is no excuse or logical reason behind it. In my eyes, the only stake holders here are us humans and our health, animals, and our land. There is no pros and cons pesticides as far as I am concerned. I was going to focus on businesses and large companies that benefit from this new way of farming or taking care of weeds, but at the end of the day these people are humans and are affected by their actions just like everyone else. Throughout my time researching I did not find one good pro to using these pesticides besides greed and money. Money is never more important than our health and existence on this world. If it seems like my paper is a little one sided, its because that’s how pesticides are, they are one sided. There is no good or bad to them as farm as I am concerned. I often felt like the people who were for the use of pesticides were like those cigarette executives they poke fun at in all those commercials against smoking. Their reasoning was just a joke, no good was coming from the use of pesticides. What good is it to have millions of dollars, but your dying from a cancer or disease that cannot be cured?
When writing my paper I chose passages which to me were just appalling. I wanted to grab the readers attention. I also chose to add some information that helped explain why pesticides were ever used and why it took so long for people to begin speaking against it. It was hard for people to say, “hey should we really be putting chemicals into the earth?” when it was currently saving soldiers in the war. I really wanted to get the point across that our actions are having a huge affect on the world, and that we are killing ourselves. I chose to use a quote from Albert Schweitzer because he sums up my whole paper and way which I view technology in one single sentence. I don’t think that technology is bad. I think that the way which we use technology is bad though. We are the only species that feels the need to constantly change and evolve through the use of technology. I see this as a major down fall. I am a firm believer in the saying “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Our need to constantly fix the unbroken has caused us to harm ourselves and take high risks. We don’t look to the future at the impacts which pesticides are going to have on us in 100 years if we don’t stop now, we don’t worry about he animals which will no longer be in existence if we continue to use pesticides, and we don’t seem very concerned about the polluted water supply which we will be encountering. We take good food, and water for granted. It amazes me that we can so carelessly pollute the two things which we cannot survive without.
Okay, I am done ranting and raving now. Every time I begin talking about pesticides and the way which we are destroying the earth, I go into a mad rant. I guess that’s a good thing though, because I accomplished my mission of writing something that I am passionate about instead of just the old boring research papers which I was encountered in high school. I wish I had known back then how to relate my topics to issues which concerned me. I would really like to have discovered where my mind would of taken me in some of my previous discussions and learn more about my view points of topics which I fail to analyze on a daily basis. I guess I am only human, and fail to look to my future and take a closer look at things. After writing this paper, I have become so much more aware of the harmful chemicals I am putting into my body. I wonder what other aspects of my life I have been over looking and blinded to. Like most humans I don’t easily see the impact of technology on my life for better or worse. I hope that this paper helps people become more concerned about what they are feeding their kids, and themselves. We just seem to assume that everything we buy from the store is going to be healthy. We need to be aware of how we are handling our food supplies and how we are using technology to change the natural cycles of nature.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Blog Assignment 10
The very first choice I made in revising my rough draft was to add more personal voice. I got lost in all the facts about pesticides and the history so much that I began to forget why this subject ever interested me in the first place.I began reading the book Silent Spring which I had read many articles about. I found that Rachel Carson focused more on the issues that I find concerning and it really helped me to start righting with passion and feeling instead of quoting some scholarly resources which I found hard to comprehend and relate to. Once I found quotes which inspired me, I began focusing on expanding more on quotes. The group conference helped me realize that I really needed to expan more on my quote about technique and why I chose to include that in my paper. It also helped me realize of ways I could tie in previous writings to help enhance my paper. After the group conferences I felt more free to to expand on other ideas and I realized that although the paper is suppose to be very engaged on one part of technology, It is still okay to include other examples. Basically, I just felt more free in my writing which makes it alot easier for me to write. I dont like restrictions and I think that was my main problem I encountered when I first began writing. The conferences made me realize that we really have many options for how we approach our topic and that we should really engage the other texts and find ways that Nye, Vonnegut, and the other authors which we read had a voice in our topics. I personally just always get more out of a conversation when it's face to face. Therefore I really liked the face to face conversations and found it easier to communicate ideas. I think many of us found that when we were explaning our goal of our paper, we ended up saying it better than we did in our paper.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Blog assignment #8 Pesticides
( This is definately a rough rough draft. I have a few points which I want to make and the introduction, but the conclusion is not in here yet and there are more things which i want to expland on after more research)
Technological Impact on Nature Through Pesticides
One of Nye’s main focuses in his book Technology Matters is the impact that technology is having on society and the environment. Technology seems to be a driving force that is compelling society to change. Nye writes that “ The public has an appetite for proclamations that new technologies have beneficent “natural” effects with little government intervention or public planning. Externalist arguments attribute to a technology as a dominant place with society, without focusing much on invention or technical details” (27). Nye uses the source of Jacques Ellul to show a more severe and pessimistic view of technology. “ Jacques Ellul paid little attention to the origins of individual inventions, but argued instead that an abstract “Technique” had permeated all aspects of society and had become the new “milieu” that Western societies substituted for Nature. Readers of Ellul’s book The Technological Society were told that “Technique was an autonomous and unrelenting substitution of means for ends. Modern society’s vast ensemble of techniques had become self-endangering and had accelerated out of humanity’s control.” (28). When reading Ellul’s book you can take a close look at what she meant when she said “Technique”. “Standardization creates impersonality, in the sense that organization relies more on methods and instructions than on individuals. We thus have all the marks of a technique. What are the consequences? The first is that the problems created by mechanical technique will be heightened to a degree yet incalculable, as a result of the application of technique to administration and to all spheres of life. Toynbee believes that this organization which is succeeding technique is in some way a counterbalance to it, and a remedy (and that is a comforting view of history). But it seems to me that the exact opposite is true, that this development adds to the technical problems by offering a partial solution to old problems, itself based on the very methods that created the problems in the first place. This is the age-old procedure of digging a new hole to fill up the old one.”(12). I think that Ellul is absolutely correct in this statement. The affects of new technology on our society and environment is incalculable. There is no way of knowing the affects that these new inventions will have on us over time. We create new technologies to fix problems, which in turn cause more problems. There are many scenarios which we do not take into consideration. One such example of an invention which we created out of the desire to be bigger and better was pesticides. We created pesticides to make agriculture more productive, but we were in no way prepared for the countless health effects they were to have on both humans and animals.
Pesticides were introduced to the World during World War II. It was meant to fight some of man’s worst diseases such as malaria, and they were intentionally made to be toxic. One of the first and most successful pesticides was DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane ). “Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was first used as an insecticide in 1939. Just a few grains of the white powder would miraculously wipe out colonies of mosquito larvae. During World War II, B-25 bombers sprayed DDT prior to invasions in the Pacific. After the war, DDT would all but wipe out malaria in the developed world and drastically reduce it elsewhere. (The National Academy of Sciences reported in 1970 that DDT had saved more than 500 million lives from malaria.) Paul Müller, the chemist who first turned it on unsuspecting flies, won a Nobel Prize in 1948 for his work.” (Smithsonian/ Silent Spring) It is easy to see why no one seemed to be concerned about the possible health effects of this toxin since the first effects of it being released into the environment showed such marvelous benefits. How could anyone show concerns about an invention that had saved so many of our troops over seas?
Unfortunately, more people should have been concerned. It did not take long before DDT was being used regularly throughout America. “By the late 1950s, DDT production had nearly quintupled from World War II levels as municipal authorities took to spraying the chemical on American suburbs to eradicate tent caterpillars, gypsy moths and the beetles that carried Dutch elm disease.” (Smithsonian/ Silent Spring). It would appear as though DDT was one of man’s best inventions. However, DDT was a strong toxin that stayed in the environment for a long period of time. It also began infecting animals because it accumulates easily in their fat tissues. It did not take very long before humans were consuming these toxins through meat, water supply, and their fruits and vegetables. In the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, she urges people to become more aware of the health effects that pesticides such as DDT are having on humans. *go into further detail about this book and author*
Today, pesticides are still being used despite the banning of DDT in 1972. "Rachel
Carson's book was a brilliant piece of writing and a seminal work, but it's clear now that
she was more fearful of pesticides than was warranted," says Dennis Avery, former senior
agriculture expert with the State Department and author of Saving the Planet With
Pesticides and Plastic. While admitting that some dangers exist to the farmers who handle
concentrated amounts of pesticides, Avery maintains that the "Green Revolution" of
fertilizers, pesticides and genetically improved seeds has tripled crop yields since 1950 and
saved 12 million square miles of natural habitat that otherwise would have been cleared for
farmland in order to maintain the nation's food supply. But veteran environmentalist Barry
Commoner insists that pesticides remain a significant danger to the environment and
human health. "Enough is known now that we could greatly reduce and eventually
eliminate the harm caused by our use of pesticides and herbicides through organic farming
and integrated pest management," he says. "We are still exposed to pesticides in our diet,
and not much is known about their medical consequences. Since Silent Spring, the only
real improvement has been for the birds. Thanks to the elimination of DDT, the osprey are
better off, but I don't think we are." (Smithsonian/ Silent Spring). Barry Commoner is
absolutely correct. There are still many issues facing the way which we use pesticides and
cultivate our land.
In the last half century agricultural management has ignored the lessons of nature
and changed the way which we cultivate the land. Robert Traer focuses on this issue of
environmental ethics in his book Doing Environmental Ethics. “The use of artificial
fertilizer has produced higher crop yields, but degraded the soil. In fields watered by rain
only about 40 percent of the nitrogen in artificial fertilizer is taken up by the crops, and in
rice paddies as little as 20 percent of the nitrogen in fertilizer is utilized. Agricultural
runoff compounds into streams has led to at least fifty dead zones in the oceans, one the
size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico.(201) Through the use of fertilizers and new
machinery we are changing the way which mother nature once provided us with fertile
land. “The use of artificial fertilizer raises levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium
in the soil increase plants growth, but disrupts the natural cycles of these elements.
Furthermore, using pesticides with artificial fertilizers, which is standard practice in
industrial agriculture, degrades the humus that maintains soil fertility.” (202) “Mother
earth never attempts to farm without livestock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains
are taken to preserve the soil and to preserve the soil and to prevent erosion; the mixed
vegetable and animals wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the process of
growth and the process of decay balance one another; the greatest care is taken to store
the rainfall; both plants and animals are left to protect themselves against disease.
Industrial agriculture ignores these lessons. It replaces farm animals with machines,
diverse crops and crop rotation with a single crop, natural fertilizer with artificial fertilizer,
and grazing with barns and stockyards where livestock are fed grain laced with hormones
and antibiotics to fatten the animals and resist bacteria that thrive in such artificial
environments. (203) Once again it is hard for us to see the costly effects our new way of
life based on technology will have on future generations. At this point in time many do not
see the need to be concerned with machines replacing farm animals and hormones and
antibiotics to fatten animals, but we need to be concerned. Humans cannot exist without
food, and the idea that we are tampering with our food and water supplies is a very scary
idea.
We are already begun to see some of the affects that previous actions are having
on new agricultural inventions. “ The development of higher yield hybrid seeds led to what
is called the Green Revolution. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution
transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250
percent. By 1994, however, it took four hundred gallons of oil to feed each US citizen.
Since 1994 the energy input in Agriculture has continued to grow, but this increased input
has not meant a higher yield, because the soil has been degraded and pesticides have
become less effective.” Many farms are now growing a single crop because it makes using
machinery easier to cultivate and fertilize, but it also attracts pests. This causes about 1.2
billion pounds of pesticides to be used in the US annually. “But pests have evolved
resistance to these chemicals. Despite a tenfold increase in pesticide use since the 1950’s,
crop losses to pests have doubled.” This is by far the scariest factor in this new technology
of agriculture. As we continue to become stronger through our inventions of pesticides,
the pests are also becoming stronger in their resistance. Eventually one species will
outsmart the other, and the consequence could be fatal to human existence.
Technological Impact on Nature Through Pesticides
One of Nye’s main focuses in his book Technology Matters is the impact that technology is having on society and the environment. Technology seems to be a driving force that is compelling society to change. Nye writes that “ The public has an appetite for proclamations that new technologies have beneficent “natural” effects with little government intervention or public planning. Externalist arguments attribute to a technology as a dominant place with society, without focusing much on invention or technical details” (27). Nye uses the source of Jacques Ellul to show a more severe and pessimistic view of technology. “ Jacques Ellul paid little attention to the origins of individual inventions, but argued instead that an abstract “Technique” had permeated all aspects of society and had become the new “milieu” that Western societies substituted for Nature. Readers of Ellul’s book The Technological Society were told that “Technique was an autonomous and unrelenting substitution of means for ends. Modern society’s vast ensemble of techniques had become self-endangering and had accelerated out of humanity’s control.” (28). When reading Ellul’s book you can take a close look at what she meant when she said “Technique”. “Standardization creates impersonality, in the sense that organization relies more on methods and instructions than on individuals. We thus have all the marks of a technique. What are the consequences? The first is that the problems created by mechanical technique will be heightened to a degree yet incalculable, as a result of the application of technique to administration and to all spheres of life. Toynbee believes that this organization which is succeeding technique is in some way a counterbalance to it, and a remedy (and that is a comforting view of history). But it seems to me that the exact opposite is true, that this development adds to the technical problems by offering a partial solution to old problems, itself based on the very methods that created the problems in the first place. This is the age-old procedure of digging a new hole to fill up the old one.”(12). I think that Ellul is absolutely correct in this statement. The affects of new technology on our society and environment is incalculable. There is no way of knowing the affects that these new inventions will have on us over time. We create new technologies to fix problems, which in turn cause more problems. There are many scenarios which we do not take into consideration. One such example of an invention which we created out of the desire to be bigger and better was pesticides. We created pesticides to make agriculture more productive, but we were in no way prepared for the countless health effects they were to have on both humans and animals.
Pesticides were introduced to the World during World War II. It was meant to fight some of man’s worst diseases such as malaria, and they were intentionally made to be toxic. One of the first and most successful pesticides was DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane ). “Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was first used as an insecticide in 1939. Just a few grains of the white powder would miraculously wipe out colonies of mosquito larvae. During World War II, B-25 bombers sprayed DDT prior to invasions in the Pacific. After the war, DDT would all but wipe out malaria in the developed world and drastically reduce it elsewhere. (The National Academy of Sciences reported in 1970 that DDT had saved more than 500 million lives from malaria.) Paul Müller, the chemist who first turned it on unsuspecting flies, won a Nobel Prize in 1948 for his work.” (Smithsonian/ Silent Spring) It is easy to see why no one seemed to be concerned about the possible health effects of this toxin since the first effects of it being released into the environment showed such marvelous benefits. How could anyone show concerns about an invention that had saved so many of our troops over seas?
Unfortunately, more people should have been concerned. It did not take long before DDT was being used regularly throughout America. “By the late 1950s, DDT production had nearly quintupled from World War II levels as municipal authorities took to spraying the chemical on American suburbs to eradicate tent caterpillars, gypsy moths and the beetles that carried Dutch elm disease.” (Smithsonian/ Silent Spring). It would appear as though DDT was one of man’s best inventions. However, DDT was a strong toxin that stayed in the environment for a long period of time. It also began infecting animals because it accumulates easily in their fat tissues. It did not take very long before humans were consuming these toxins through meat, water supply, and their fruits and vegetables. In the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, she urges people to become more aware of the health effects that pesticides such as DDT are having on humans. *go into further detail about this book and author*
Today, pesticides are still being used despite the banning of DDT in 1972. "Rachel
Carson's book was a brilliant piece of writing and a seminal work, but it's clear now that
she was more fearful of pesticides than was warranted," says Dennis Avery, former senior
agriculture expert with the State Department and author of Saving the Planet With
Pesticides and Plastic. While admitting that some dangers exist to the farmers who handle
concentrated amounts of pesticides, Avery maintains that the "Green Revolution" of
fertilizers, pesticides and genetically improved seeds has tripled crop yields since 1950 and
saved 12 million square miles of natural habitat that otherwise would have been cleared for
farmland in order to maintain the nation's food supply. But veteran environmentalist Barry
Commoner insists that pesticides remain a significant danger to the environment and
human health. "Enough is known now that we could greatly reduce and eventually
eliminate the harm caused by our use of pesticides and herbicides through organic farming
and integrated pest management," he says. "We are still exposed to pesticides in our diet,
and not much is known about their medical consequences. Since Silent Spring, the only
real improvement has been for the birds. Thanks to the elimination of DDT, the osprey are
better off, but I don't think we are." (Smithsonian/ Silent Spring). Barry Commoner is
absolutely correct. There are still many issues facing the way which we use pesticides and
cultivate our land.
In the last half century agricultural management has ignored the lessons of nature
and changed the way which we cultivate the land. Robert Traer focuses on this issue of
environmental ethics in his book Doing Environmental Ethics. “The use of artificial
fertilizer has produced higher crop yields, but degraded the soil. In fields watered by rain
only about 40 percent of the nitrogen in artificial fertilizer is taken up by the crops, and in
rice paddies as little as 20 percent of the nitrogen in fertilizer is utilized. Agricultural
runoff compounds into streams has led to at least fifty dead zones in the oceans, one the
size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico.(201) Through the use of fertilizers and new
machinery we are changing the way which mother nature once provided us with fertile
land. “The use of artificial fertilizer raises levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium
in the soil increase plants growth, but disrupts the natural cycles of these elements.
Furthermore, using pesticides with artificial fertilizers, which is standard practice in
industrial agriculture, degrades the humus that maintains soil fertility.” (202) “Mother
earth never attempts to farm without livestock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains
are taken to preserve the soil and to preserve the soil and to prevent erosion; the mixed
vegetable and animals wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the process of
growth and the process of decay balance one another; the greatest care is taken to store
the rainfall; both plants and animals are left to protect themselves against disease.
Industrial agriculture ignores these lessons. It replaces farm animals with machines,
diverse crops and crop rotation with a single crop, natural fertilizer with artificial fertilizer,
and grazing with barns and stockyards where livestock are fed grain laced with hormones
and antibiotics to fatten the animals and resist bacteria that thrive in such artificial
environments. (203) Once again it is hard for us to see the costly effects our new way of
life based on technology will have on future generations. At this point in time many do not
see the need to be concerned with machines replacing farm animals and hormones and
antibiotics to fatten animals, but we need to be concerned. Humans cannot exist without
food, and the idea that we are tampering with our food and water supplies is a very scary
idea.
We are already begun to see some of the affects that previous actions are having
on new agricultural inventions. “ The development of higher yield hybrid seeds led to what
is called the Green Revolution. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution
transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250
percent. By 1994, however, it took four hundred gallons of oil to feed each US citizen.
Since 1994 the energy input in Agriculture has continued to grow, but this increased input
has not meant a higher yield, because the soil has been degraded and pesticides have
become less effective.” Many farms are now growing a single crop because it makes using
machinery easier to cultivate and fertilize, but it also attracts pests. This causes about 1.2
billion pounds of pesticides to be used in the US annually. “But pests have evolved
resistance to these chemicals. Despite a tenfold increase in pesticide use since the 1950’s,
crop losses to pests have doubled.” This is by far the scariest factor in this new technology
of agriculture. As we continue to become stronger through our inventions of pesticides,
the pests are also becoming stronger in their resistance. Eventually one species will
outsmart the other, and the consequence could be fatal to human existence.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Blog assignment #8
I first became interested in investigating inventions that were made to help us, that ended up harming us worse when I was writing my paper comparing two sources that I found in Nye. The statement that caught my eye was by Jacquelle. She was talking about our endless need to fix something that really does not need fixing, and how sometimes we end up making it even worse. This lead me to thinking about specific examples of time where we invented something to help, and did not understand the total effects of the new product. I thought of a few examples and the one that stuck out in my mind as the biggest problem was pesticides. I do not know alot about pesticides. Therefore, to further engage my paper, I want to research the initial reason for inventing pesticides, who invented them, what they thought the outcome would be, and how the perception of pesticides changed. I also want to find out what they did to help fix this problem and the effects it is still having today. I really am interested in this topic because I think one of human beings greatest flaws is our need to always want bigger and better things. We are so consumed by the idea of being the best, that we often dont look at all the pros and cons of our inventions.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Blog Assignment 7
I began preparing for my essay by finding quotes that connected the two sources to Nye. I picked out the quotes that caught my attention and found where they were discussed in Nye's book. I tried to find a connection or common theme between all three books and find the key points that all three authors shared an opinion on. Some critical questions I used when reading were questions from Nye's beginning chapters where he asks if technology is making us safer, or hurting us. Is it affecting our culure? How is it impacting our lives for better or for worse. I tried to engage these questions by thinking of real life examples of how technology was created to help us, but ended up creating more problems. I also though of examples of how technology has changed the average every day Americans life.
Once again I really enjoyed peer editing this time around. Its very helpful to see the different approaches and ways which other students chose to approach this essay. It was also great to get feed back so quickly.
I found that it is very important to quote all your sources in a research paper. By accurately quoting your sources, the reader can resort to these sources if they want a better understanding of what you were trying to say. In a research essay it is very important that you dont misquote anything, because it discredits your paper if you quote something wrong and your reader then goes to your source and finds that you are not a very reliable source and writer. I think the hardest part in a research paper is being able to incorporate other authors views, while still having your own voice. It is easy to get caught up in what they say, and lose track of what your initial thought was. You want to make sure your research paper is different and takes a different view of the topic rather than just rewording someone elses book. My main difficulty in composing my paper was refraining the quotes and putting it into my own words. It is hard to reword something when it is already so well written and clearly stated. I also found it hard tying all three sources together because they took several different approaches to different topics.
Once again I really enjoyed peer editing this time around. Its very helpful to see the different approaches and ways which other students chose to approach this essay. It was also great to get feed back so quickly.
I found that it is very important to quote all your sources in a research paper. By accurately quoting your sources, the reader can resort to these sources if they want a better understanding of what you were trying to say. In a research essay it is very important that you dont misquote anything, because it discredits your paper if you quote something wrong and your reader then goes to your source and finds that you are not a very reliable source and writer. I think the hardest part in a research paper is being able to incorporate other authors views, while still having your own voice. It is easy to get caught up in what they say, and lose track of what your initial thought was. You want to make sure your research paper is different and takes a different view of the topic rather than just rewording someone elses book. My main difficulty in composing my paper was refraining the quotes and putting it into my own words. It is hard to reword something when it is already so well written and clearly stated. I also found it hard tying all three sources together because they took several different approaches to different topics.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Assignment 5
Technology Matters by David Nye engages in questions regarding our society and technology. He debates the true definition of technology and whether technology shapes us, or we it. Is technology creating social uniformity or diversity, destroying jobs or creating jobs? Are advanced technologies making us more insecure, or secure? Is technology expanding our minds, or creating us to be dependant on a machine? Is it improving our lives, or limiting our very existence? Throughout the book Nye never directly gives an answer to these questions, but he uses many sources to help support his questions. He gives adequate facts and references to support why he has developed these questions and he helps the reader begin analyzing these questions as well as possible answers and solutions to this ongoing technological debate.
One of Nye’s main focuses is the impact that technology is having on society and cultures. He often asks, does technology control us? He refers to the term “technocracy” to show how technology is beginning to become as powerful as our government. He also worries about the impacts that technology is having on our culture. Technology seems to be a driving force that is compelling society to change. Nye writes that “ The public has an appetite for proclamations that new technologies have beneficent “natural” effects with little government intervention or public planning. Externalist arguments attribute to a technology as a dominant place with society, without focusing much on invention or technical details” (27). Nye uses the source of Jacques Ellul to show a more severe and pessimistic view of technology. “ Jacques Ellul paid little attention to the origins of individual inventions, but argued instead that an abstract “Technique” had permeated all aspects of society and had become the new “milieu” that Western societies substituted for Nature. Readers of Ellul’s book The Technological Society were told that “Technique was an autonomous and unrelenting substitution of means for ends. Modern society’s vast ensemble of techniques had become self-endangering and had accelerated out of humanity’s control.” (28). When reading Ellul’s book you can take a close look at what she meant when she said “Technique”. “Standardization creates impersonality, in the sense that organization relies more on methods and instructions than on individuals. We thus have all the marks of a technique. What are the consequences? The first is that the problems created by mechanical technique will be heightened to a degree yet incalculable, as a result of the application of technique to administration and to all spheres of life. Toynbee believes that this organization which is succeeding technique is in some way a counterbalance to it, and a remedy (and that is a comforting view of history). But it seems to me that the exact opposite is true, that this development adds to the technical problems by offering a partial solution to old problems, itself based on the very methods that created the problems in the first place. This is the age-old procedure of digging a new hole to fill up the old one.”(12). think that Ellul is absolutely correct in this statement. The affects of new technology on our society and environment is incalculable. There is no way of knowing the affects that these new inventions will have on us over time. We create new technologies to fix problems, which in turn cause more problems. There are many scenarios which we do not take into consideration. For example, we create huge boats to transport goods such as oil, but do not think of the affects on the ocean and marine life when that huge boat tips over and spills its oil into the ocean. We learned how to use asbestos building materials to help prevent fires, which in turn ended up causing health problems. We also created pesticides to help with agriculture, however the pesticides got into our water and created many other problems. We did not consider the affect that cars, huge corporate buildings, or even aerosol cans would have on the o-zone layer. We also never considered how new technologies would impact society and our desire to be involved in our communities or politics.
In “Technology Matters” Nye talks about how technology is causing people to become less involved in society. After a long hard day of work, people would rather escape to a fantasy world through TV entertainment. “If most people find processes, images and sounds more diverting, more absorbing, than civic life and self-government, what becomes of the everyday life of parties, interest groups, and movements, the debates, demands and alliances that make democracy happen? The political scientist Robert Putnam made a similar argument in Bowling Alone, concluding that intensive use of the media undermines civic life. It seemed that the more people relied on television as the primary form of entertainment, the more they disengaged from political life.” (153). Putnam gives many statistics to support why he has come to this conclusion in his book.
“At the conclusion of the twentieth century, ordinary Americans shared this sense of civic malaise. We were reasonably content about our economic prospects, hardly a surprise after an expansion of unprecedented length, but we were not equally convinced that we were on the right track morally or culturally. Of baby boomers interviewed in 1987, 53 percent thought their parents' generation was better in terms of "being a concerned citizen, involved in helping others in the community," as compared with only 21 percent who thought their own generation was better. Fully 77 percent said the nation was worse off because of "less involvement in community activities." In 1992 three-quarters of the U.S. workforce said that "the breakdown of community" and "selfishness" were "serious" or "extremely serious" problems in America. In 1996 only 8 percent of all Americans said that "the honesty and integrity of the average American" were improving, as compared with 50 percent of us who thought we were becoming less trustworthy. Those of us who said that people had become less civil over the preceding ten years outnumbered those who thought people had become more civil, 80 percent to 12 percent. In several surveys in 1999 two-thirds of Americans said that America's civic life had weakened in recent years, that social and moral values were higher when they were growing up, and that our society was focused more on the individual than the community. More than 80 percent said there should be more emphasis on community, even if that put more demands on individuals. Americans' concern about weakening community bonds may be misplaced or exaggerated, but a decent respect for the opinion of our fellow citizens suggests that we should explore the issue more thoroughly.” (14). We all watch shows and movies about communities and families back in the day. These families seem perfect. They always eat dinner together at the kitchen table (never in front of the TV) and discuss important topics and events going on at the time. When the father came home from a long day at work, he would sit down in his chair and read the newspaper. Now, after a long hard day of work, we would rather come home and put on the TV or a movie. It is our way of relaxing and forgetting about our stressful or tiring day. We do not want to hear about the negative things on the news or in the paper.
After reading Nye and other resources I have raised some new questions. I wonder how technology has impacted the “everyday family”. Is it because of technology that it seems less common for a family to get together every night for a family dinner? I would also like to take a closer look at how technology is affecting communication. Parents often complain that they never can have a good conversation with their children because they are always on the internet, listening to their I-pod, or playing video games. However, we now have cell phones, text messaging, aim, live internet video chat, and countless other forms of communication that appear to make it easier than ever to communicate with each other. Does it really matter that we now send e-mails instead of writing letters? I think it would be very interesting to look at these new forms of communication and see if they are having a negative impact on society. I think it would be interesting to look at this through the eyes of an older and younger generation. Just because it’s not the traditional way of communication, is it wrong? The stakeholders I would look at is the middleclass American who has access to these technologies but is not a complete expert with these technologies. I would also look at middleclass American who did not grow up with these technologies and compare how it is shaping these generations lives. I think through taking a deeper look at these technologies, I will find new positive or negative examples of technologies we created to fix problems and improve future generations as well as their possible benefits or harms down the road.
One of Nye’s main focuses is the impact that technology is having on society and cultures. He often asks, does technology control us? He refers to the term “technocracy” to show how technology is beginning to become as powerful as our government. He also worries about the impacts that technology is having on our culture. Technology seems to be a driving force that is compelling society to change. Nye writes that “ The public has an appetite for proclamations that new technologies have beneficent “natural” effects with little government intervention or public planning. Externalist arguments attribute to a technology as a dominant place with society, without focusing much on invention or technical details” (27). Nye uses the source of Jacques Ellul to show a more severe and pessimistic view of technology. “ Jacques Ellul paid little attention to the origins of individual inventions, but argued instead that an abstract “Technique” had permeated all aspects of society and had become the new “milieu” that Western societies substituted for Nature. Readers of Ellul’s book The Technological Society were told that “Technique was an autonomous and unrelenting substitution of means for ends. Modern society’s vast ensemble of techniques had become self-endangering and had accelerated out of humanity’s control.” (28). When reading Ellul’s book you can take a close look at what she meant when she said “Technique”. “Standardization creates impersonality, in the sense that organization relies more on methods and instructions than on individuals. We thus have all the marks of a technique. What are the consequences? The first is that the problems created by mechanical technique will be heightened to a degree yet incalculable, as a result of the application of technique to administration and to all spheres of life. Toynbee believes that this organization which is succeeding technique is in some way a counterbalance to it, and a remedy (and that is a comforting view of history). But it seems to me that the exact opposite is true, that this development adds to the technical problems by offering a partial solution to old problems, itself based on the very methods that created the problems in the first place. This is the age-old procedure of digging a new hole to fill up the old one.”(12). think that Ellul is absolutely correct in this statement. The affects of new technology on our society and environment is incalculable. There is no way of knowing the affects that these new inventions will have on us over time. We create new technologies to fix problems, which in turn cause more problems. There are many scenarios which we do not take into consideration. For example, we create huge boats to transport goods such as oil, but do not think of the affects on the ocean and marine life when that huge boat tips over and spills its oil into the ocean. We learned how to use asbestos building materials to help prevent fires, which in turn ended up causing health problems. We also created pesticides to help with agriculture, however the pesticides got into our water and created many other problems. We did not consider the affect that cars, huge corporate buildings, or even aerosol cans would have on the o-zone layer. We also never considered how new technologies would impact society and our desire to be involved in our communities or politics.
In “Technology Matters” Nye talks about how technology is causing people to become less involved in society. After a long hard day of work, people would rather escape to a fantasy world through TV entertainment. “If most people find processes, images and sounds more diverting, more absorbing, than civic life and self-government, what becomes of the everyday life of parties, interest groups, and movements, the debates, demands and alliances that make democracy happen? The political scientist Robert Putnam made a similar argument in Bowling Alone, concluding that intensive use of the media undermines civic life. It seemed that the more people relied on television as the primary form of entertainment, the more they disengaged from political life.” (153). Putnam gives many statistics to support why he has come to this conclusion in his book.
“At the conclusion of the twentieth century, ordinary Americans shared this sense of civic malaise. We were reasonably content about our economic prospects, hardly a surprise after an expansion of unprecedented length, but we were not equally convinced that we were on the right track morally or culturally. Of baby boomers interviewed in 1987, 53 percent thought their parents' generation was better in terms of "being a concerned citizen, involved in helping others in the community," as compared with only 21 percent who thought their own generation was better. Fully 77 percent said the nation was worse off because of "less involvement in community activities." In 1992 three-quarters of the U.S. workforce said that "the breakdown of community" and "selfishness" were "serious" or "extremely serious" problems in America. In 1996 only 8 percent of all Americans said that "the honesty and integrity of the average American" were improving, as compared with 50 percent of us who thought we were becoming less trustworthy. Those of us who said that people had become less civil over the preceding ten years outnumbered those who thought people had become more civil, 80 percent to 12 percent. In several surveys in 1999 two-thirds of Americans said that America's civic life had weakened in recent years, that social and moral values were higher when they were growing up, and that our society was focused more on the individual than the community. More than 80 percent said there should be more emphasis on community, even if that put more demands on individuals. Americans' concern about weakening community bonds may be misplaced or exaggerated, but a decent respect for the opinion of our fellow citizens suggests that we should explore the issue more thoroughly.” (14). We all watch shows and movies about communities and families back in the day. These families seem perfect. They always eat dinner together at the kitchen table (never in front of the TV) and discuss important topics and events going on at the time. When the father came home from a long day at work, he would sit down in his chair and read the newspaper. Now, after a long hard day of work, we would rather come home and put on the TV or a movie. It is our way of relaxing and forgetting about our stressful or tiring day. We do not want to hear about the negative things on the news or in the paper.
After reading Nye and other resources I have raised some new questions. I wonder how technology has impacted the “everyday family”. Is it because of technology that it seems less common for a family to get together every night for a family dinner? I would also like to take a closer look at how technology is affecting communication. Parents often complain that they never can have a good conversation with their children because they are always on the internet, listening to their I-pod, or playing video games. However, we now have cell phones, text messaging, aim, live internet video chat, and countless other forms of communication that appear to make it easier than ever to communicate with each other. Does it really matter that we now send e-mails instead of writing letters? I think it would be very interesting to look at these new forms of communication and see if they are having a negative impact on society. I think it would be interesting to look at this through the eyes of an older and younger generation. Just because it’s not the traditional way of communication, is it wrong? The stakeholders I would look at is the middleclass American who has access to these technologies but is not a complete expert with these technologies. I would also look at middleclass American who did not grow up with these technologies and compare how it is shaping these generations lives. I think through taking a deeper look at these technologies, I will find new positive or negative examples of technologies we created to fix problems and improve future generations as well as their possible benefits or harms down the road.
Monday, March 2, 2009
In "The Human Factor" by Kim Vicente, she refers to the the problems that occur when technology is introduced into the work force and put in the hands of uneducated workers. It is shocking to find that in "Technology Matters" by David Nye that many employers are actually looking for inexperienced workers to use the machines because of lower pay wages. " As factory and white-collar jobs exit Wester economies, new low-wage jobs seem to increase. In the ever more rationalized meat-packing industry, a manager boasted "We've tried to take the skill out of every step." That made it easier to hire mostly unskilled immigrants. These unorganized workers earn one-third less than meat packers did in the 1960's, and they recieve no health benefits intil after six months and no vacation until after a year." (130). Although many argue that technology has helped create jobs, and reduce prices for consumers, it has also made many skilled and experienced workers lose their jobs so that someone less qualified can come to do it for cheaper. In "The Human Factor" when technology was placed into the hands of an uneducated and poorly trained worker, the outcome was catastrophic with a nuclear explosion that impacted much of the world. Is cheaper labor really worth the human error? Technology and factories are taking away the art of many productions. "Technology consists of both tools and skills. Cooking is an excellent example. Recipes provide outlines sufficient only for the experienced, and, as the popularity of cooking programs on TV attests, it helps to watch someone else" (110). It is important that we remember that as we advance our technology, we need to still be worried about skill and not just about who can produce the most of a product for the cheapest. There was a time where people enjoyed their jobs in production and saw it as an art. They put love and care into every item which they made. Now assembly lines have taken away the art and simply made it repetitive with every product being made identical to one another. "Although the assembly radically reduced the tim needed to make a car, workers found the repetitive labor mind numbing" (117). There was a time when we saw mass production as good, lower income families were able to finally buy a car and go on family vacations. Now, as our economoy is hitting a low point, we notice the affects of these mass production lines. Too many cars were produced, they sit on lots waiting to bought in a time where a new car is not on the top of the priority list for families. If we had put time and care into the assembly of products, would we be better of economically? Perhaps a huge surplus of a good is not always the best. Assembly lines have also hurt the economoy by taking away jobs. "One General Motors plant in New Jersey adopted elements of lean production in the late 1980's, and the changeover eliminated one-third of the production workers and 42 percent of the foreman and supervisors." (117). It is hard to tell if all these advances have had a positive or negative impact on the economy and lives of the average day person. Would we be in a recession if weavers still wove everything by hand, proffesional muscians still had employment in silent movie theatres, and we still had cars being made one at a time. How far will we go letting technology dictate the way which people perform their jobs? As Nye said, "If there is a limit to these continual processes of work distribrution and retraining, it is not yet in sight" (134). To me, that is a very scary thought.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Blog Assignment #3
The hardest decission I had when writing this essay was how I wanted to start off my paper. I knew that wanted to touch on technology and how and how we have to learn when enough is enough and be content with the point we reached. I wanted to show how both writers showed this idea through their texts. It was hard to find the exact quotes I wanted to use from "Cats Cradle" because unlike "Human Factor" I had not previously high lighted the interesting parts I wanted to touch on. The peer editing helped me varify the fact that I did need to go back into the text and find some more supportive quotes.
I really liked the online peer editing. It was nice to see what other students had chosen to write about and see other ways which I could approach this essay. It was also cool when you would see that many of the other students agreed with you, and had many of the same ideas in their essays. The comments were very helpful. Most the comments gave you a boost of confidence to keep sharing your ideas. They also verified some ideas that I already had planned to do with my essay. I also appreciated when one student complimented one way which I had used to transission from one paragraph to another. Getting comments like this helped me decide what parts I should keep and not revise. Overall I think this was great way to peer edit. Technology defiantely helped in this scenario.
I really liked the online peer editing. It was nice to see what other students had chosen to write about and see other ways which I could approach this essay. It was also cool when you would see that many of the other students agreed with you, and had many of the same ideas in their essays. The comments were very helpful. Most the comments gave you a boost of confidence to keep sharing your ideas. They also verified some ideas that I already had planned to do with my essay. I also appreciated when one student complimented one way which I had used to transission from one paragraph to another. Getting comments like this helped me decide what parts I should keep and not revise. Overall I think this was great way to peer edit. Technology defiantely helped in this scenario.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Rough Draft # 1
( I had a hard time starting this paper, and I am still searching for more quotes from the text to support my ideas. It is pretty choppy right now...but here is what i have so far.)
One of the greatest rights of human beings is the power to think. In both Kim Vicente‘s ‘The Human Factor’ and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” the authors challenge their readers to take a deeper look at the meaning of their text. They debate the good or evil of technology and the affects which it will have on the world. How far is too far? When will our desire to be bigger and better no longer be a gift, but a curse?
In “Cats Cradle” Kurt Vonnegut almost mocks the way which we exist. He talks about religion and the beliefs which humans hold. His main point is that we believe what we are told, and many of us refuse to question. Christians believe there is a God. They do not need to see him or have proof. They have been told that he exists, and that is enough to keep their faith. Perhaps people do not question their religion because they don’t want to know the truth really. Religion is a comfort. We need to believe that there is a point to our existence, and that we have been placed on this earth for a reason. If there was no life after heaven, reincarnation, or any form of life after death, what would drive us to want to live purposeful lives? He refers to a “religion” called Bokonan often throughout this book. He says that Bokonan is based on lies and there is no real truth in this world. When talking about Bokonan’s cosmogony of how the world came to exist he says, “And what opinions did Bokonan hold of his own cosmogony? “Foma! Lies! he wrote, “ a pack of foma!”(191). Perhaps humans think too much about things which do not matter, and choose to completely ignore the things which need to be paid more attention to. Instead of being so consumed by our religion, maybe we should begin paying more attention to the impact that our technology is having on the world. The character of Dr. Hoenniker almost takes the role of god in a sense. He is so powerful and smart that he was able to kill millions of people with the creation of an atom bomb. In the end, he also destroyed the world with his creation of “ice nine”. It was not God that we had to be fearful of, but man himself.
Kim Vicente also touches on this idea in “The Human Factor” where facts indicate that perhaps it is not technology which is “bad” but humans. Our desire to become the best and most advanced may in the end be our ultimate down fall. At what point will we be content with our achievements and be able to live at peace with what we have evolved into? At this time in our history, it is hard to grasp the idea that we may ever reach a point in our lives where we decide to no longer keep pushing our limits of knowledge and create new technology.
The greatest problem with technology is that is used by humans, and created by humans, leaving room for human error. A nuclear power station ( created by humans, and operated by humans) caused a catastrophic event of historic proportions. Extremely advanced technology was placed in the hands of a human who did not have adequate knowledge of the system. This human error of placing technology in the wrong hands lead to a nuclear explosion. For 9 days the fire from the nuclear power plant burned, releasing radioactive particles into the environment. “The six hundred people unlucky enough to be working at the plant that evening received very high doses of radiation and many later suffered lingering or fatal diseases. The 116,000 people who were evacuated from the neighboring farms and town received lower but still significant doses of radiation. The 600,000 military and civilian workers who heroically helped put out the fires, evacuate the public, and clean up the disaster were also exposed to high levels of radiation. The number of cases of thyroid cancer among children in the area has increased. One of the most significant health effects of the Chernobyl accident was the mental anguish and trauma experienced by the local population. Large areas of land can no longer be used for agricultural purposes and food is still monitored for radiation over an even larger area. (12). The impact of this explosion transcends to geographical borders such as the Soviet Union, England, Scandinavia, Southern Europe, Canada, United States, and even Japan.
If one man made invention can affect the world that largely, what will be the affects of an incident like this in years to come when the technology is even bigger and more powerful?
Humans must find their limits. Technology placed in the wrong hands will ultimately lead to our termination. However, it is hard to try and place limits on technology when so many of our advancements our seen as nothing but good. It is hard to tell a doctor that he cannot take his stem cell research any further. But should he take his research further? If we have the ability to clone someone, should we? Just because we can do it, does not make it right. Yes, cloning could save many lives and cure many diseases, but we would than have to place limitations on what or who can be cloned. If people just decided they wanted to clone themselves all over the world our population would double within a year. There would not be enough resources to support a population that large.
At this point in time, it is hard to look to the future and imagine a world that has become destroyed by technology. However, technology is beginning to evolve faster than ever before, and it is a problem that we must always be worried about. Humans are considered animals, yet we are the only animal that seems to have the desire to constantly evolve and change our way of life. If it is not broke, why do we insist on trying to fix it? In “Cats Cradle” Kurt Vonnegut writes,
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;Man got to tell himself he understand." (182)
I think in this passage Vonnegut is referring to this desire of ours to always change. Tigers have been hunting the same way which they have always hunted for thousands of years. Birds have been flying the same way since the age of the dinosaurs. Their whole way of life has been the same throughout their whole inhabitance on earth. Yet, man cannot simply be content with one way of adequate survival. They are plagued with the need to think about everything, and always want more. They don’t want to just simply survive from day to day the same they always have. Humans need more, we need to push our limits, we need to find our breaking points. In the end, this will be the destruction of ourselves.
One of the greatest rights of human beings is the power to think. In both Kim Vicente‘s ‘The Human Factor’ and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” the authors challenge their readers to take a deeper look at the meaning of their text. They debate the good or evil of technology and the affects which it will have on the world. How far is too far? When will our desire to be bigger and better no longer be a gift, but a curse?
In “Cats Cradle” Kurt Vonnegut almost mocks the way which we exist. He talks about religion and the beliefs which humans hold. His main point is that we believe what we are told, and many of us refuse to question. Christians believe there is a God. They do not need to see him or have proof. They have been told that he exists, and that is enough to keep their faith. Perhaps people do not question their religion because they don’t want to know the truth really. Religion is a comfort. We need to believe that there is a point to our existence, and that we have been placed on this earth for a reason. If there was no life after heaven, reincarnation, or any form of life after death, what would drive us to want to live purposeful lives? He refers to a “religion” called Bokonan often throughout this book. He says that Bokonan is based on lies and there is no real truth in this world. When talking about Bokonan’s cosmogony of how the world came to exist he says, “And what opinions did Bokonan hold of his own cosmogony? “Foma! Lies! he wrote, “ a pack of foma!”(191). Perhaps humans think too much about things which do not matter, and choose to completely ignore the things which need to be paid more attention to. Instead of being so consumed by our religion, maybe we should begin paying more attention to the impact that our technology is having on the world. The character of Dr. Hoenniker almost takes the role of god in a sense. He is so powerful and smart that he was able to kill millions of people with the creation of an atom bomb. In the end, he also destroyed the world with his creation of “ice nine”. It was not God that we had to be fearful of, but man himself.
Kim Vicente also touches on this idea in “The Human Factor” where facts indicate that perhaps it is not technology which is “bad” but humans. Our desire to become the best and most advanced may in the end be our ultimate down fall. At what point will we be content with our achievements and be able to live at peace with what we have evolved into? At this time in our history, it is hard to grasp the idea that we may ever reach a point in our lives where we decide to no longer keep pushing our limits of knowledge and create new technology.
The greatest problem with technology is that is used by humans, and created by humans, leaving room for human error. A nuclear power station ( created by humans, and operated by humans) caused a catastrophic event of historic proportions. Extremely advanced technology was placed in the hands of a human who did not have adequate knowledge of the system. This human error of placing technology in the wrong hands lead to a nuclear explosion. For 9 days the fire from the nuclear power plant burned, releasing radioactive particles into the environment. “The six hundred people unlucky enough to be working at the plant that evening received very high doses of radiation and many later suffered lingering or fatal diseases. The 116,000 people who were evacuated from the neighboring farms and town received lower but still significant doses of radiation. The 600,000 military and civilian workers who heroically helped put out the fires, evacuate the public, and clean up the disaster were also exposed to high levels of radiation. The number of cases of thyroid cancer among children in the area has increased. One of the most significant health effects of the Chernobyl accident was the mental anguish and trauma experienced by the local population. Large areas of land can no longer be used for agricultural purposes and food is still monitored for radiation over an even larger area. (12). The impact of this explosion transcends to geographical borders such as the Soviet Union, England, Scandinavia, Southern Europe, Canada, United States, and even Japan.
If one man made invention can affect the world that largely, what will be the affects of an incident like this in years to come when the technology is even bigger and more powerful?
Humans must find their limits. Technology placed in the wrong hands will ultimately lead to our termination. However, it is hard to try and place limits on technology when so many of our advancements our seen as nothing but good. It is hard to tell a doctor that he cannot take his stem cell research any further. But should he take his research further? If we have the ability to clone someone, should we? Just because we can do it, does not make it right. Yes, cloning could save many lives and cure many diseases, but we would than have to place limitations on what or who can be cloned. If people just decided they wanted to clone themselves all over the world our population would double within a year. There would not be enough resources to support a population that large.
At this point in time, it is hard to look to the future and imagine a world that has become destroyed by technology. However, technology is beginning to evolve faster than ever before, and it is a problem that we must always be worried about. Humans are considered animals, yet we are the only animal that seems to have the desire to constantly evolve and change our way of life. If it is not broke, why do we insist on trying to fix it? In “Cats Cradle” Kurt Vonnegut writes,
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;Man got to tell himself he understand." (182)
I think in this passage Vonnegut is referring to this desire of ours to always change. Tigers have been hunting the same way which they have always hunted for thousands of years. Birds have been flying the same way since the age of the dinosaurs. Their whole way of life has been the same throughout their whole inhabitance on earth. Yet, man cannot simply be content with one way of adequate survival. They are plagued with the need to think about everything, and always want more. They don’t want to just simply survive from day to day the same they always have. Humans need more, we need to push our limits, we need to find our breaking points. In the end, this will be the destruction of ourselves.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Blog assignment #2
"I record the fact for whatever it may be worth. "Write it all down," Bokonon tells us. He is really telling us of course, how futile it is to write or read histories. "Without accurate records of the past, how can mena nd women be expected to avoid making serious mistakes in the future?" he asks ironically. So again, "Papa" Monzano was the first man in history to die of ice-nine."
This passage really caught my eye because it reminds me of a time when my history teacher was talking to our class about why it is so important to study history. He described history as the documentation of our past and how we have become the people we are today. It also allows us to learn from our past mistakes so that they will not be repeated. When studying history, you also see how we advanced in technology. We once were people who lived in caves, and used tools made of animal bones. We once considered fire to be our greatest invention. With technology so quickly advancing, I question what past events can show us our limits of how far we should take technology. I think its hard to use the past history of technology to helps us decide our future since the technology is uncomparabale. So far, we only see the good in most of our previous inventions.
How long will it be until we see the harmful affects of things such as cell phones, and television. Our advances in medicine have proven to be amazing and saved many lives. Diseases which once meant certain death, are now easily treated. But, because we have seen advances in technology as beneficial, how will we know when enough is enough. Although stem cell research could possibly allow us to save many more lives, do we need to draw some rules when it comes to things such as cloning. Just because cloning could be done, should it be done? Some argue that we are beginning to play God and and tamper with things which should not be altered.
Looking back in history, we can see the affects of some of our advances. Such as, our advances in medecine leading to a higher population, nuclear bombs affecting the whole world, cell phone radiation believeing to cause brain cancer, harmful radiation, the affects of new technology on the 0-zone layer, and much more. With every action there is a reaction. Since history shows that technology is always eveolving, how will we know when to draw the line and be content with the point which we have reached?
This passage really caught my eye because it reminds me of a time when my history teacher was talking to our class about why it is so important to study history. He described history as the documentation of our past and how we have become the people we are today. It also allows us to learn from our past mistakes so that they will not be repeated. When studying history, you also see how we advanced in technology. We once were people who lived in caves, and used tools made of animal bones. We once considered fire to be our greatest invention. With technology so quickly advancing, I question what past events can show us our limits of how far we should take technology. I think its hard to use the past history of technology to helps us decide our future since the technology is uncomparabale. So far, we only see the good in most of our previous inventions.
How long will it be until we see the harmful affects of things such as cell phones, and television. Our advances in medicine have proven to be amazing and saved many lives. Diseases which once meant certain death, are now easily treated. But, because we have seen advances in technology as beneficial, how will we know when enough is enough. Although stem cell research could possibly allow us to save many more lives, do we need to draw some rules when it comes to things such as cloning. Just because cloning could be done, should it be done? Some argue that we are beginning to play God and and tamper with things which should not be altered.
Looking back in history, we can see the affects of some of our advances. Such as, our advances in medecine leading to a higher population, nuclear bombs affecting the whole world, cell phone radiation believeing to cause brain cancer, harmful radiation, the affects of new technology on the 0-zone layer, and much more. With every action there is a reaction. Since history shows that technology is always eveolving, how will we know when to draw the line and be content with the point which we have reached?
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Blog Assignment #1
After reading through both The Human Factor and Cat's Cradle, I was able to see the different approaches that each writer took in discussing their views on technology. In the Human Factor, I think that the writer was much more factual and to the point about his views on technology. He gave very accurate statistics in his efforts to show us how techology has both advanced our society as well as harmed us. In almost all cases of technology which he discussed, a human error was involved, thus the name The Human Factor. I enjoyed both Vicente's and Vonneguts approaches to this subject. I think that Vonneguts personal voice was awesome to hear. I like how he is focusing in on one specific man and his contribution to technology via the atom bomb. Its very interesting to hear about the personality of Dr. Felix Hoenikker. I feel as though it is still hard to understand what Vonneguts opinion of technology is at this point in the reading. He seems to be focusin more on his personal values and beliefs which had changed during his research. It does appear evident however that he does agree that Dr. Hoenniker was a genius and a very interesting man. I am also very interested to continue the book and figure out why he is no longer a christian man. It seems that his views and beliefs are beginning to change has he looks deeper into his new surroundings. It seems to me that both authors are questioning technology but not trying to say that it is bad. They are talking about the role which technology plays in our lives and how it is not flawless. Technology has been created by humans, and is used by humans, therefore leaving room for human error.
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