I was thinking earlier that technology increases freedom. It allows us to travel further, communicate better, have things we would never have had before. It increases our lifespan.
Here's the thing, though, does technology also reduce our freedom? One could make a case for the desire to have things reducing freedom (more hours spent working, etc).
Any thoughts on the matter?
On balance, I think that modern telecommunications increases freedom by granting people the ability to travel and exchange ideas more easily. However, it also carries dangers of a loss of privacy, corporate or government censorship, and a chronically distracted or misinformed public.
ReplyDeleteClaims that the "Arab spring" was enabled by cell phones are simplistic while China and other nations are still cracking down on Internet access (with collusion from Western providers). We're still too close to fully comprehend current technology's implications.
I think that while we perceive progress to be accelerating, society's ability to adapt is more constant. We may have less leisure time than our agrarian medieval ancestors, but we have more than our industrial-era ones. It has taken our species a millennium to recover healthwise from urbanization; who knows what we'll need to learn in the next generations?