Survival Skills for 21st Century Technological Adavncement
Reflection
The literature on the future never stops emphasizing the importance of reflection about technology as it develops. There comes, according to Ray Kurzweil, a “future period during which the pace of technological change will be so fast and far-reaching that human existence on this planet will be irreversibly altered.” And Paul Virilio, cultural theorist and urbanist, argued that the future and destruction of the human race would be in speed, that our reflective capacity would be reduced to reflex as the world accelerated. The problem, according to Bill Joy, a well-known American computer scientist, has historically been that those who know about science don’t tend to think about its dangers: “Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science’s quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own.” Yet, if we can consistently ask questions such as Patrick Tuckers, assistant Editor of “The Futurist” did when he asked, “What role will responsibility, temperance, and discipline play in a world where any urge can be gratified at almost the same moment it is felt?” then it is possible that we can foresee, and thus go part of the way toward avoiding, the pitfalls of technology. And fortunately, many smart people have laid the groundwork for this project through creating organizations such as The Foresight Institute and The Strategic Defense Initiative.