Technological Evolution

For this week, I read two articles by Tim Wu, a writer for the New Yorker.  His first article places a well-educated time traveler from the early 20th century on the other side of a curtain from an average modern person with a smart phone and an internet connection.  From the point of view of the time traveler, the modern person seems like a genius, able to recite passages from the Bible and Shakespeare, solve difficult math problems in seconds, and even describe any area on earth as if they were seeing it from the air.  Of course, this is all rather unremarkable in the age of Google, WolframAlpha, and Google Maps, but to someone from the early 20th century, this would all seem almost superhuman.

The second article gives an example of the Oji-Cree, a people who inhabit a desolate part of Canada cut off with much of the modern world.  Before the 1960's, the Oji-Cree lived the relatively simplistic lives of nomads, not having access to many modern technologies.  During this time, many explorers noted that they lived "rugged, rigorous lives with plenty of excercise",  and that, "only those prepared to face hardship and make sacrifices could survive."  In a matter of a few decades,  the Oji-Cree people have embraced such modern technologies as internal combustion engines, electricity, and television.  Since their rapid modernization, the Oji-Cree have suffered a massive increase in obesity, heart disease, and heart disease, as a result of idleness, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other social problems.  While technology is not the sole cause of these problems, it has been shown that it was a major factor.

And so, we are presented with the two sides of technology's effect on our society.  On one hand, it has given us access to almost superhuman levels of knowledge and computation, and yet, it has made us lazy and shortened our attention spans.  Because technology is evolving so fast, it affects the human race a hundred times more than biological evolution does.  And while biological evolution favors those who are adapted to their environment, technological evolution is driven by "what we want, as opposed to what is adaptive."  And unfortunately, as has been shown time and time again, we humans don't always act in our own best interest.  It seems that technology is heading down a road which will give us immense power and access to knowledge, which is amazing.  However, we have to make sure that our needs, not just our wants, are included in this new type of evolution.

If A Time Traveler Saw A Smartphone
As Technology Gets Better, Will Society Get Worse?
Oji-Cree Diabetes Study