WILL TECHNOLOGY CHANGE US?

Humans may finally be bridging the technical lag between the internet revolution and mid twenty-first century culture; this might account for the huge disparities such as unemployment and it might start a trend toward a decrease in human population or manifest in other ways as yet unforeseen.  One thing is certain, technology has revolutionized civilization in the past and will continue to change the way human beings live in the present and near future. 

Whilst watching the manic speed of traffic early one morning before daylight I realized how very different we were from our ancestors who lived before the invention of the automobile.  Considering the average rate of transportation outside of a train was probably 5-25 mph, since most people were on foot most of the time unless they had a horse or lived in a major urban area like Manhattan, Boston, Paris or London things necessarily moved quite slowly.  Then as now most people lived outside of the city but what has dramatically changed man is the automobile, it has allowed what was once rural, subtopic or suburban regions to thrive like a city while maintaining a higher residential to commercial density than a city.  Fewer people can get to more places quicker reducing the need to employ more people at specialized localized tasks.

The internet has done globally what the automobile has done locally, allowing commerce to instantaneously shrink the market and therefore the workforce required to maintain it.  Computer databases with smart features enable vast quantities of clerical personnel to be eliminated from payrolls.  We are getting closer to the development of computer management systems that manage themselves… I know an amazing colleague who prides herself in memorizing every file she encounters.  Doubtless these unique skills were nearly flawless 20 years ago but as the years accumulate, unlike computer software; her memory begins to fail… We seem to be pressing the issue in this science fiction morality play with its epic man versus machine theme as if it were inevitability…

Eager to rid my mind of this Keynesian Supply/Demand theory that hovers relentlessly above my better reasoning I nonetheless find a startling attraction to the way in which it appears to parallel human cultural evolution.  I cannot help but wonder if, as we move to more automated, computer driven processes the need for human reproduction will drive a distinct drop in human population on a global scale but starting in the most developed, technologically advanced regions of the globe.  Up to the present human population has continued to expand as if we are all preparing to populate rural farms that would require a vastness of hands…  As the cost of commodities such as food and housing continue to skyrocket around the globe humans will find it prohibitive to add more mouths to an already inadequate budget for survival, or will they?

Over the past 20 years as American corporations have outsourced services to Asian countries technology has been developed that could soon replace the outsourced jobs.  For example, interactive customer service programs we have glimpsed in the form of voice command features on our smart phones, smart cars, smart households, etc., would eliminate the need for foreign outsourced customer service agents since the computer program would work virtually free.  While I personally feel that it unethical to replace humans with machines in most instances my weariness will undoubtedly be overlooked by huge profit driven corporations looking to make a firm foundation in the first quarter of the twenty-first century world economy. 

More efficient fuel sources, Faster vehicles, and a host of now theoretical physics possibilities might one day hurtle the 21^st century forward by many millennia literally overnight.  I like to think that human beings will set a precedent and begin to closely analyze the effects of our rapidly morphing technology on human culture, heretofore we have let the rocket speed urgency of modernity distract us from paying homage to this all important variable.  We cannot any longer ignore it!  Progress does represent a price to humanity and at the outset the goal of modernity was to free mankind from the machine not to transform him into it!

FIN

Written by David Vollin

Administrator: FOR THE BROTHAS VIRTUAL, CULTURAL INTELLECTUAL SALON

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