Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Technology

  • Robots Threaten Third World Jobs

    According to a UN report, about 2/3 of third world jobs are threatened by robots.

    This is still early days in the way things will change in the world. We keep commenting on how the world has sped up, and it keeps speeding up ever more rapidly.

    To those who wish to go back to some sort of better day that you imagine existed in the past I’d say that not only was the past not nearly as wonderful as it seems, but by trying to get there you will only make the future more painful to yourself and others.

  • An Election for the 90s

    An Election for the 90s

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    Image Credit: Openclipart.org.

    Our crop of candidates, all parties and all levels are admirably intellectually equipped to guide our nation through the 1990s.

    As an example, one need only look at the incidents of hacking and the response to them. This is only going to get worse. It may not be the next war, but at some point we will see a war fought entirely from computer terminals. With our dependence on technology, and lack of understanding of how it functions, we could see devastation without the use of physical weapons.

    In this situation one careless or malicious individual can wreak massive havoc.

    Too bad those we elect will be leading us into 2020 and not 2000.

  • Thinking Things Will Make You Stupid Will Make You Stupid

    Power PointRecently I’ve encountered a seeming avalanche of comments, articles, and posts that claim that some new technological tool will make you stupid. Or possibly lazy. Or immoral. Or something.

    Doubtless the first stone knife was similarly received — as the end of manly dependence upon unformed sticks and stones, and the birth of a generation too lazy to rip the skins off their prey with their bare hands.

    Amongst the things I’ve been told will make people stupid are cell phones, tablets, laptop computers, PowerPoint presentations, television, and YouTube. These things will make you lazy, destroy your memory, rip out your analytical capabilities, and probably precipitate immoral behavior. Or something.

    Thus contrary to the upright nature of previous generations, the current generation is going to hell in a handbasket. And doubtless using cliches and incomplete sentences too.

    Besides the myth of the golden age, which seems to infect people around my age, this is simply nonsense. Tools are tools. We will use them according to our character. Any tool can be misused. Television can convey information and be educational. It can also convey abominable trash. A PowerPoint presentation can be boring beyond belief (I’ve made one or two), or it can contain helpful illustrations that aid understanding and memory.

    I believe it is intellectual laziness that causes us to blame the tools for the result. The sort of moaning that some folks in my generation indulge in regarding modern technology is enabled by our own intellectual laziness, lack of critical thinking, and unwillingness to examine the facts.

    So quit moaning about progress. Learn new things. Make effective use of new tools. Get involved in educating the next generation. Or go ahead and vegetate.

    Oh, and about that seeming avalanche I mentioned in the first paragraph. That’s laziness too. There’s no recent avalanche. People have always complained about these things and always will. The only thing that happened today is that I got annoyed enough to write a blog post.

  • Candidates on Technology Issues

    Here is a good article that barely touches on the technological issues which could impact and be impacted by federal government policy over the next 4-8 years. It’s something that we need to think about, no matter what side of each issue we’re on.

    And just to remind us of the great need for education, there’s this comment (2nd on the list):

    . . . That is an example of the same idiotic thinking that gave rise to the stupid solar car race. Ever notice that they pace that race with a bicycle? Why not just ride bicycles? . . .

    . . . which goes to show us that some people have no idea how technology is developed. Early bicycles required some development too, not to mention cars.

  • Using God as a Label for our Fears

    Way back in the prehistory of this blog I posted an entry about fear and human-animal hybrids. Yesterday I got the latest edition of this type of fear in my Breaking Christian News e-mail. In it was a story headlined Prayer Alert: Ethical Outrage as Scientists Create “Human-Sheep”. Now I’m always mildly skeptical when I see an article that doesn’t so much report the event as it reports the outrage of the reporter to the event.

    For example, consider this quote, part of a preface to the story from reporter Teresa Neumann:

    I will never forget my feelings of disbelief and revulsion when I read Toffler’s assertion that in our lifetime we would not only witness the advent of human cloning, but fully human-animal hybrids as well. Those feelings returned with a vengeance yesterday when I read that researchers in America have just “created” a sheep with half-human organs. Who does man think he is? Where will this lead? What must God think? What should our response be? Do we run to the caves and cower in shame, calling for the wrath of God to come quickly upon the earth, or—like Abraham or Jonah—do we plead forgiveness and ask God to change the hearts of man, thus changing the society we live in? Let us pray…

    So much, I guess, for objective reporting. Personally, I think I will pray for those Christians whose fear and revulsion somehow allows them to think that man is getting too close to God. I’ll let you all in on a secret–getting to the point of assuming God’s power is quite a distance away from us humans.

    The link from the BCN story is to CBN which takes essentially the same approach. Again, the primary story is about the debate:

    A bio-ethical debate is raging at a Nevada university, where scientists have created the world’s first sheep with half-human organs.

    For a more news-oriented report, see this story in The Mail.

    We often use God as a convenient label for what we don’t know, and as long as that’s not all he is, I don’t have a major problem with that use. But when God becomes the label for our fears, then I believe we have a problem in our faith walk. Somehow God has made it through the crusades, the inquisition, and the mutually assured destruction policy with nuclear weapons. I doubt he’s particularly threatened by a few human organs grown in sheep. It does make me think about a nice horror movie based on the idea of killer sheep with superhuman intelligence, chasing sheep dogs and farmers from their land and taking over the world. Baaaaaaah! Sheep Rule!

    There’s a continuing residue of thinking from the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) that often makes Christians believe that we might get too close to God and bring on his wrath and destruction. Perhaps we should apply a little logic. Any tower in the ancient near east would be considerably less lofty than the Empire State Building, or the Sears Tower, or the Twin Towers. The Twin Towers fell, but it was evil human beings using natural weapons that accomplished their fall.

    Interestingly enough, the builders of the Tower of Babel were also not so much trying to usurp God’s power as they were trying to get protection from God’s wrath. Their fear was driving them.

    There is the very valid question of safety, but safety concerns do not come from the possibility of offending God by mismanaging his universe. There is a concern with the possibility of viruses. I have no knowledge in the relevant areas, but I found this blog entry that discusses a few of those issues. My plan here is not to lay all fears to rest, but rather to suggest rational discussion leading, I hope, to appropriate safety measures. Fear will produce retreat; wisdom will produce caution. Progress means risk–it’s worth taking just a little.

  • Memories of Robots Future

    I’m not adding much to this one (on the immediate future of robots), but it brought back memories. I’ve been a science fiction fan since I first laid eyes on my first Heinlein book in my brother-in-law’s house. In our home we didn’t do fiction, though I’d read some in high school literature. It was a strange new world. In any case, I became something between a fan and an addict, probably leaning toward the addict side. I also enjoyed imagining what the future would be like. I will still criticize the future vision of any story that purports to have one, not that I’m likely to get it any better than the author did. It’s just fun.

    In any case, fast forward to graduate school, 1980 at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI, and a computer show. I don’t recall who sponsored it, or most of the technology that was there. I was just getting interested in PCs. A friend of mine and I stopped by a company representative who had a few machines there. We started talking with the representative about the future, and suggested that somewhere down the road, perhaps a couple of decades, computers would be driving cars. We were just talking about specialized devices with specially marked roads, recognition of major obstacles–simple stuff. He told us flat out that we were nuts. Computers were not capable of doing such a thing.

    Well, it’s 2007, and of course, and the next crop of robots are doing and planning to do things that we did not really envision in that conversation. As so often happens, reality is getting ahead of science fiction. You have to keep your imagination well-honed to stay ahead of reality.

    I think we’re looking at an exciting couple of decades ahead.