Today is the Wormfest blogfest, hosted by Stephen Tremp, L. Diane Wolfe, and Alex J. Cavanaugh. Thanks for hosting this!
And the question is: What one thing has science invented that advances mankind and what one thing has gone too far? (Where technology has unforeseen consequences and will go too far and actually set mankind back.)
This is a tough one for me. I benefit from technology every day, am right now as I type this, but I know these benefits have a cost. Personally, I think we're in a modern day dark ages and don't even know it. There's something to be learned in the process, in the making of a thing. We can access the world with a touch of a button, but can we figure out the square footage of a room without a calculator? We can heat up a pre-cooked hamburger in less than a minute, but do we know how to butcher a cow? We flip the lights on with one finger, but do we know how that light bulb works?
I live about a mile away from a road made famous because of one thing: Cobblestone houses. It has the highest concentration of them in the world. I tried to look online for a picture to show you what a cobblestone house is, but I couldn't find any; there were fieldstone houses and brick houses, but not cobblestone. It's really a beautiful way to build a house, basically it's smooth lake stones set on edge and held with some kind of mortar. There are no new cobblestone houses being built in the world today. People have forgotten how to make them. It is a lost art. And so my very long answer to this simple question is: All of it to both. All of technology has had some benefit, but I am afraid it will have its cost as well.
It already has.
You're right - as we become more dependent on it, we lose skills.
ReplyDeleteYou need to take a photo of those houses and post it.
Yup, the more we use the computer the less we have to remember on our own. Were the internet to crash, cease to exist, I think there would be a goodly portion of the population and businesses unable to function. That's scary.
ReplyDeleteWe are slowly losing our ability to think.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just specific skills. I grew up on a farm and my father seemed to know how to do everything. Carpentry, mechanics, cooking, animal care and everything else. Few people are real handymen anymore. We pay other people. We're not ready for the Zombie thing.
ReplyDeleteLosing our artistry. That is sad. We are evolving into different types of people. New skills are valued over some older ones. I think about how my kids weren't taught how to write cursive because the computer supposedly makes that old school skill obsolete. I also recall an NPR program I just heard about how the antique market is in free fall right now because younger people don't appreciate old furniture. They like Ikea and more modern, functional stuff. Times change. What's valued changes.
ReplyDeleteEverything has its price, and its value varies with each person. Skills have to be taught generation to generation. Some of the First Nations People in BC are trying to teach the old skills like tanning, curing of fish, beading, and carving before those who know how are no longer able to teach. . .
ReplyDeleteLots of old skills are lost as we gain new ones. There are some folks who dedicate themselves to retaining and preserving old, archaic skills so they are not lost, but that's a new development. I recently watched a fascinating documentary where an group of brick-layers tried to recreate a dome built in the Renaissance. A lot of the techniques they had to re-invent felt counter-intuitive to them. The older way of building this dome really worked, so hopefully they start re-using it in modern construction projects. Some times the old ways are the best ways. Some times.
ReplyDeleteHope I'm better late than never here...
ReplyDeleteYou are so right. We advance, but we set ourselves back. What good will all the advacnes be if something goes wrong and we can remember how we made them in the first place. This is a truly scary thought. I make a point to practice things that many of my friends consider "quirky". I hand write letters from time to time. I sew up and make my own purses, I cook from scratch, and have been hunting for a type writer. In the back I of my mind, I guess I've always released that I don't want to loose these things.
Great post!