Dangerous Technology

There are discussions, at times, about the morality of technology. I would suggest that technology is amoral. The "good" or "bad" of technology would depend on how you use it. Use a car to drive a child to a hospital -- the car is good. Use a car to get away from a bank robbery -- the car is bad. More correctly, the way it is used is good or bad.

Today we have more technology than ever before. (Well, of course we do. What a blatantly obvious observation!) The question still remains. Is it good or bad? Take, for instance, email. Fairly new on the scene (compared to all of the previous forms of human communication), it has its value. Originally there was word of mouth which required face-to-face interaction. Then there was letter writing. Then came telephones. Now there is email. How does email differ from the others? Well, it is quick, easy, and instant. And that's good ... or bad. You see, when you communicate face to face, you are forced to deal with ... the other face. When you say something hurtful or mean, the feedback is instantaneous. People tend to choose their words more carefully when they know they will have to deal with consequences. Letters avoid that instant feedback, but they also provide a slower process. You sit down and you write. You think about it. You weigh the time and effort against the cost and time. Even if you send off a mean missive, you have the opportunity of cooling off and then calling the receiver to say, "I'm sorry, but I sent you a letter I shouldn't have. Please disregard it." You know, consequences. Telephones avoid the face-to-face aspect, but still allow for auditory feedback. Consequences. Email, on the other hand, can get away from you. It is so fast, so easy, so instant that it is entirely possible to respond in the heat of a moment and send it (and have it received) before we have time to think. They even have a term for it -- "flame wars." Email is easy, but it takes greater responsibility to avoid misusing it.

Something that we have that none of the earlier generations had is the Internet. What a technological boon! Do you want to know what "orthography" means? Google it. Was the actress you just saw on that TV show the same one you saw in that older movie? Google it. You can find just about anything on the Internet. And knowledge goes through the roof. There is, unfortunately, a down side to this "infinite" capacity for information. The capacity to find pornography, for instance, shifted from "hard to find" in the first half of the 20th century to "hard to avoid" today. Search for something as innocuous as "thermoelectric controller" and it's possible that you'll find a porn site dedicated to catching electronics geeks in odd searches. (I didn't try it. I don't need to know.) And, I believe, there is another side effect. In the past, the twisted -- those who were on the edge of society, like child molesters and the like -- were on the edge of society. They kept largely to themselves. They knew they were strange and unaccepted by society and they hid their activities ... which would necessarily diminish their activities. Today, however, the Internet offers hope. Relax! There are lots of you sick people out there! In fact, some of you who would never have considered going down that road (because society would have frowned heavily on it) can now follow the path of perversion because ... look ... lots of people do it! There are websites dedicated to every form of the bizarre, twisted, sick thing you may not even be able to imagine. But there's no reason to worry because someone has imagined it and all you have to do is run across it. Poof! New depths of sick! All made "acceptable" because ... it's on the Internet.

I have worked my whole life in technology. I have seen lots of people imagining lots of things that might be of value to lots of folks. Imagining things of value is easy. Considering all the consequences is hard. In a previous job, one of my tasks was to test new software in a product. To do this, I had to make sure that it worked like it was supposed to and fixed the problem it was supposed to fix. Then I had to imagine what others might do and see what affect it would have. That, my friends, is a hard task. Trying to imagine every possible use for the technology we are developing is, well, impossible. Unfortunately, that means that we have to rely on human beings to be responsible with the technology we give them. So ... how is that working out for us?