The Alleged Dangers of Progress

A good essay on The Alleged Dangers of Progress.

What the luddites fail to realise is that the logical conclusion of their fear of technology is not some pastural paradice, which never existed, but staving to death in a cold damp cave when the elk migration fails to appear this year. The elks would of course have to be killed with bare hands (blades are technology) and then the flesh consumed strait away, smoking afterall requires technology, by being ripped from the bones with your bare hands (blades are as I said technolgy, and knapping flints is a highly skilled persuit). Humans have always used technology, it is the breadth of our technological acheivements that make us unique in nature. Not to use technology would be to deny the essence our being human.

When any new technology is invented there are people that claim it is evil and immoral and will end sociaty. And they have always been wrong. Technology is morally neutral, most moralities requires actions with intent, neither of which technology is capable of without a human mind behind it, so while things can be used for "bad" purposes (as well as good ones) it is up to sociaty to train its members not to use it that way. Technology used for evil is not a slur on technology but on the people using it.