Technology is awesome! Let’s get that straight before we start. I enjoy electricity, automobiles, and high-speed data transfers.
And Netflix! Big fan of Netflix, right here.
Buuuuuuuuut, there’s are a dark side to technology, and I don’t necessarily mean child pornography, cyber-terrorism, or even Darth Vader.
“He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil.”
That last part—”twisted and evil”—does get at what I want to talk about: technology changes us. Of course, change isn’t inherently bad, though it could make someone “twisted and evil,” and technology-fueled change, with its rapid pace, can twist us faster than we realize.
And this is what I’m worried about, subtle but profound negative changes that we initially ignore in light of more obvious positive changes. But how could we possible ignore negative changes, you might wonder? Because we’re possibly stuck in a positive feedback loop.
Not sure what that is? Well, that makes two of us, but here’s an oblivious example, masquerading as a Super Bowl ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlRm6Y5iVfw
[Video via YouTube]
So, if I were to summarize this commercial, making the purchase of a home easier will lead people to buy new things for their new homes, which will bring greater economic success to people who make things for new homes, which will enable them to buy new homes.
Now, the problem with this as an example of a positive feedback loop is that its an oversimplification of the economy and because it doesn’t factor in the effects of a reduced housing market after the first and second waves of people use their glorious app to easily (and recklessly? Anyone remember 2008?) purchase a new home.
So, to fix an oversimplification is turn to another one! Here, celebrate author John Green examines the positive feedback loop of coal, steel, and railroads at the nascent of the Industrial Revolution.*
[Video via YouTube]
Still a little confused about what a positive feedback loop is? Here’s a diagram that might help.
To spell it out, if a student applies herself in class, she’s going to get good grades. This will likely boost her confidence, which will encourage her to apply herself even more, which will, in turn, result in even better grades. Then? More confidence. More effort. And so and so on.
That’s a positive feedback loop, and they aren’t always bad, obviously. My concern, though, is that the large, obvious positives will cause us to miss, actively or passively ignore, the negatives. How’s that possible? If a man works out at the gym, he’ll get healthier, which will enable him to work out more, from which he’ll see even more progress. This is all positive, but what if the extra time being spent at the gym is taking away from his time with his wife, which is most certainly a negative? If he’s not careful, he could get carried away with the positives and miss the negatives.
This is the concept of the positive feedback loop. I hope I’ve made it clear, and I think I’ve teased a bit of why I’m concerned.
But now, the time for teaching is over.
The Dark Side of Technology’s Positive Feedback Loop
John Dyer, in his book From the Garden to the City, makes it abundantly that technology cannot be used by humanity to change their world without it also changing them. So, in John Green’s Industrial Revolution example, steam engines were created to help in the process of mining coal, which was used to fuel steam engines, which powered railroads built out of steel, which were needed to transport steel. It’s circular, but it was also life-changing for so many. Without the Industrial Revolution, our world, as we know it today, wouldn’t exist. So many necessities in our post-modern society are only available to us because of the Industrial Revolution, and yet do we ever question whether the Industrial Revolution was worth it?
Simplified economic structures, more communal society, no weapons of mass destruction, reduced probability of artificially-induced existential threats—those are some serious pro’s to pre-industrial society. But again, don’t get it twisted. I really enjoy technology, and I really enjoy medicine and indoor plumbing. And yet, I do have to ask myself if these conveniences have truly produced an increase in our quality of life. Surely, we’ve improved the quantity of live: we do live longer, but do we live better?
The Industrial Revolution brought about a brand new society, but only by destroying the old one. This new world of the Industrial Revolution has a lot of positives, but surely the exponential power given to humanity with regard to violence, pollution, and general debauchery and debasement ought to give us pause as we see a new revolution take place? What new world will social media build out of the ashes of the one it’s destroying?
It might be a much better world, but there will definitely be some negative components or, at the least, some lost positives. The principle of opportunity costs—the concept that some choices are mutually exclusive—ensures that by choosing a new society, we will have to sacrifice some elements of our current one, and those elements we sacrifice might be good—even great—elements. This is the problem with always pushing forward, and never looking back to see if we made the right choice.
Why do we do this? Because we believe in the myth of progress.
The Myth of Progress
We’re getting a bit far afield here, but it will all come together at the end. Trust me, friend. We have no much longer to go.
Now, the myth of progress is, in one sense, the product of humanistic over-confidence: “We can—we will—improve ourselves, our society, our lives over time! It’s practically inevitable that, as we move forward through history, we will be moving in a positive direction.”
This may be true in many obvious regards: technologically, medically, etc. But the problem is that positive change (i.e. progress) in these areas doesn’t prevent negative change (i.e. regress) in others. In fact, my argument in the section above is that many times they go hand-in-hand.
I’ve actually given a talk about this myth, but I think I’d like to give some room to NT Wright, who addresses the myth of progress, particularly in moral terms, in his wonderful book Suprised by Hope:
“The myth of progress fails because it doesn’t in fact work; because it would never solve evil retrospectively; and because it underestimates the nature and power of evil itself and thus fails to see the vital importance of the cross, God’s no to evil, which then opens the door to his yes to creation. Only in the Christian story itself—certainly not in the secular stories of modernity—do we find any sense that the problems of the world are solved not by a straightforward upward movement into the light but by the creator God going down into the dark to rescue humankind and the world from its plight.”
Bishop Wright is clearly speaking about progress in light of a discussing of morality, but it applies here because so much of our blanket acceptance of technological progress is effecting us negatively in regards to our societal and personal morality. In one sense, we use technology to skirt around morality. We view pornography because it’s there, free and easy. There’s no need to sneak in and out of a clearly, embarrassingly marked “Adult Entertainment” store. It’s not that we replace morality with technology, but it is being used to remove some of the old low-tech safeguards of morality.
In another sense, we do try to use technology to skirt around our need for God, for salvation. What do you think the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 was really about? Building a tower to heaven? This was a plan to return to God’s presence, to return to paradise on our own terms. For a modern current example, look at this fringe push (and becoming more mainstream) to merge man with machine. There is a concerted effort to transcend biology in favor of technology, securing, in effect, “eternal life” in the process. It’s the same spirit of rebellion and arrogance displayed at Babel.
So how does this connect with the section above?
As a sign of mercy to you, I’ll give it to you in the conclusion, which is coming…
Now! – The Conclusion
I am worried about the positive feedback loop of increasing technology and the possibly subtle negative implications that might with it. Becasue we have bought into this myth of progress—some more than others—we are very likely to ignore the loss of positive elements of our present society and the emergence of negative elements as they are covered over by the more obvious, even glaring, positives that come with the onslaught of this new technological revolution. Basically, I’m concerned that our “there’s an app for that” mentality will leave us socially, intellectually, morally, and spiritually bankrupt when we wake up to a world totally unlike the one we knew when we laid down.
Am I being overly concerned? Maybe, but I doubt it. I’m not going to stop using technology, and I don’t think that you should. But maybe we should all be careful, be more aware, of what we could be gaining negatively or losing positively by blindly accepting the obvious positives of advancing technology. Perhaps we should ask ourselves “What will this cost me? How will this change me?” before rushing to adopt new technology?
Or not. We could just rush straight into every new bit of technology, accepting every update blindly.
Speaking of such, did you hear about that new Silicon Valley start-up? It’s called Babel 2.0.
That can’t end badly, can it?
*To be clear, watching that whole video and this one would be a great way to better understand my fears concerning the rapid change wrought by increased technology. We can learn about the present, as it enters the future, by looking at the past.
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