It’s Not About the Coffee
Sasabune: Trust Me 
Recently I had the opportunity to engage in a public debate on the Economist.com with the brilliant Richard Szafranski on the topic “If the promise of technology is to simplify our lives, it is failing.” In my defense of innovation and technology I found a renewed optimism that I haven’t felt in quite a while. Mr. Szafranski pointed to some of the key issues of technology that we quite conveniently forget, and I was heartened to engage in his ideas. I do sincerely believe that the next phases of technology development will be for the better because we have no other choice really. Failure cannot be the accepted state for the future.
5 Responses to “Is it Failing?”
subscribe
I think the premise is flawed:
“If the promise of technology is to simplify our lives, is it failing?”
Who said the promise of technology is to simplify our lives? If I wanted a simple life, I’d live on a farm. The purpose to technology is to create efficiencies, better communication, better access to information and media. Evolution doesn’t move us towards the simplistic.
Yes, simple technologies, or should I say easy to use technologies, are more likely to take hold over more advanced technologies, but this is because they are easier to integrate into our lives.
Hi Tony,
Yes the series of comments on the Economist carried a similar tenor of question: What is the promise of technology really? Lewis Mumford said it well in the early 1900s about how often the promise of technology was never realized — he referred to the prospect of electrification at athee time, but everything he said could be eerily applied to the dotcom era.
Also, when you say “easy to use” as a definition, I would add “meaningful to use” as another dimension to the definition. Best wishes, John
technology has done both: achieved enormous benefit, and bogged down society with it’s own maintenance.
most importantly, as with all such progress, it is incumbent on the user to strivefor intelligent bounding so that technology doesn’t take over, leaving one’s life “wired” for better or worse. it will almost certainly be for worst when we respond to the ever present wired world, and neglect our personal lives and relationships.
Technology is not good or bad, it’s how it’s used that defines it’s contribution.
technology has done both: achieved enormous benefit, and bogged down society with it’s own maintenance.
most importantly, as with all such progress, it is incumbent on the user to strive for intelligent bounding so that technology doesn’t take over, leaving one’s life “wired” for better or worse. ( it will almost certainly be for worst when we respond to the ever present wired world, and neglect our personal lives and relationships in doing so)
Technology is not good or bad, it’s how it’s used that defines it’s contribution.
I have no quarrel with the root proposition. In fact, absorption, hence virtual invisibility of technology renders us bionic. Still, I am aware that energy’s propulsion, something we have taken for granted hitherto, may disappear from time to time. What then?