I am currently typing up this article on my laptop with my iPhone playing music next to me. Last week I used my GPS to find my way home and I found out that Snapchat has freakishly accurate location mapping now.
Why is this important? Because these all have something in common: technology; simple technology at that. What used to be just a dream less than 50 years ago--the Internet--is now a major component of the technological industry.
But it's not just the Internet and its abilities to track people's locations, fix any spelling error, answer almost any question, and figure out the name of any song in less than 5 seconds. It's technology as a whole.
Technology is advancing faster than we know how to keep up with. Just look at robotics performing surgeries or space exploration. The advancements in those two things alone are astounding to see. The once unimaginable is becoming reality as our reach expands further and further. Hell, we're even on the verge of artificial intelligence.
The world is so focused on the advancement and improvement of life through technology. However, I can't help but feel like we're fighting to our inevitable death rather than to a better life.
While we continue to make new and better machines and mechanisms to "advance" the human race, we don't seem able to ethically keep up. We're not giving ourselves enough to time to think and discuss what has been made or what is being created right now. If you look back at varying scientific studies and breakthroughs, you'll see a pattern, or rather a glitch, in the system. There are always checks and balances that are skipped.
We aren't stopping to think morally or ethically about what we are running so hard towards. While the technological boom has increased job production and world economics significantly, it's only temporary. The actual consequences of increased automation are far direr.
Technology as a whole has done astronomical good for society and science. Unfortunately, as it continues to advance, human beings become less and less a necessity. Think about this: my generation is the most overeducated yet underqualified generation in history to date. As computers become more and more technologically advanced, we become more disposable. People are rapidly having their jobs replaced with technology. We are just too flawed, too slow, too dumb in comparison.
So if we want to make it in this world, the goal isn't to work hard and get a college degree anymore. It's to cram every bit of knowledge about everything we can into our heads, hoping that it is enough to get us through the door.
It's like we've been preparing our whole lives for the wrong thing. The fact that suicide rates are highest in the most technologically advanced societies should say enough. We are no longer good enough and people are beginning to realize that. It doesn't matter anymore how much we try because the bottom line is that we can't beat the technology and intelligence we've created.The ball is already rolling too fast.
