One of the reasons we have failed to create a sustainable community is that we often cannot distinguish symptoms from causes. For example, some people are beginning to see technology as the cause for what they have identified as unhealthy human behaviors. Let’s be perfectly clear, technology can never be blamed for our self-destructive behavior.
We scapegoat technology because we are loath to admit that we are the source of our problems which would mean that we have to shoulder the responsibility for solving them. Of course, that would mean in turn that we would have to change some of our favorite behaviors. And so we continue to chase our own tails, wondering where those painful teeth marks on our ass came from.
We choose to use technology in self destructive ways. What are these chosen behaviors that we would prefer to deny? “Technology is causing a set of seemingly disconnected things—shortening of attention spans, polarization, outrage-ification of culture, mass narcissism, election engineering, addiction to technology. These seem like separate problems, and we’re actually saying that these are all predictable consequences of a race between technology companies to figure out how to scoop attention out of your brain.” (1)
Describing our unconscious and self-destructive behaviors is identifying what is happening but doesn’t help us understand why it is happening. You can follow this discussion into deeper waters by clicking on the link below.
Insight # 132: We will have to evolve a better world order than the one we have now, which I like to call our Star Wars Civilization. I mean we have stone-age emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. E. O. Wilson
Link:
- “Technology: Salvation or Slavery, Utopia or Dystopia” in this blog and also in the print version, Why Am I Here? (2014) by Roy Charles Henry, page 355.
Reference:
- Lerman, Rachel. “Q&A: Ex-Googler Harris on how tech ‘downgrades’ humans.” August 10, 2019 https://apnews.com/dea7f32d16364c6093f19b938370d600
