Are You a Techno-Optimist or a Techno-Pessimist?
“Reflections” is a new category of posts aimed to engage discussion about broader issues in technology and ethics. This first “Reflections” post on Techno-optimism and Techno-pessimism asks you to consider, “What are your general views towards technology, and how did you arrive at those views?”
Many of us have opinions about technology that can be classified along the spectrum of being a “techno-optimist” or a “techno-pessimist” — categorizations that reflect our general attitude about our technological past, present, and future.
When you think about the way in which technology has impacted our world—from the environment, to our medical achievements, to human relationships — are you generally optimistic or pessimistic about its influence?
Are you a techno-optimist? Do you think technology has consistently improved our lives for the better, and that it will continue to do so into the future? When you consider problems in society, or even problems with current technology, do you think that the solution to those problems is more technology?
Or would you characterize yourself as a techno-pessimist? Are you generally concerned with the impact that modern technology has had on humanity, believing that it has created just as many problems as solutions? Do you think that seeking out more technology is likely to bring about new problems, because technology inevitably introduces unforeseen consequences and dangers? Do you think that since technology creates so many of its own problems, the answer to human progress often lies in a reduction of technological dependence, rather than an expansion of it?
You may find that you don’t fall solidly into one camp or the other; and extremes of these two camps, of course, both hold with them their risks. Blind technological-optimism and faith in technological fixes for problems leads one to always focus on looking for a technological fix, thereby overlooking non-technological interventions. Alternatively, complete resistance to technology is untenable, and may cause us to overlook potential technologies that could be helpful.
But it’s important to remember that neither of these characterizations has to be relegated to an extreme. A techno-optimist is not necessarily a Singularity-obsessed Cyborg-wannabe, blindly advocating for technological expansion; and a techno-pessimist is not necessarily a techno-phobe who withdraws from society completely to a cabin in the woods (although that’s not to say that these types of people don’t exist, to be sure).
It’s likely you fall somewhere on the spectrum between the two extremes, and have developed that view based on how technology has influenced your own life, and how you have perceived that technology has affected our society. Consider some of the following examples, and reflect on where you fall on the techno-optimist/techno-pessimist spectrum:
- Have social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, alongside communication technologies like cell phones, texting, and so on, increased our capacity to communicate, or diminished it? Have we forged better relationships as a result of these technologies, or has the quality of our relationships deteriorated? Do such technologies stimulate or dull our intellects? Do they tend to enhance our emotional depth, or inhibit deep emotional responses? Do they lead us to be more or less active, physically and socially? Do they allow us to become more aware of the world around us, or less?
- Is the solution to the climate crisis to be found in the hopes of green technologies, or to be found by making changes to human behavior? Should we invest in technology to solve our climate problems, or should we invest in reducing our dependence on energy through social and behavioral changes, such as reducing our habits of consumption? Even if we can do both, does focusing on future hopes for new ‘clean’ and ‘green’ technologies reduce our motivation to make necessary lifestyle changes now? Or are such technologies the only real solution we can expect for our environmental problems?
- Have advancements in medicine been unequivocally positive? What has been the impact of technologies like x-rays, antibiotics, antidepressants, and end-of-life care (like respirators) had on the whole of human experience? To what extent have they improved our quality of life, and to what extent have they affected it negatively?
- Can social and environmental problems, ones that are arguably “non-technical” in nature, have “technological” solutions? For example, given the world’s global food shortage, should we encourage the proliferation of agricultural biotechnology, including genetically engineering crops, with the aim to increasing food yield? Or should we look to individuals and social movements to make changes in human behavior, such as putting emphasis on limiting food waste, distributing food supply more evenly, and placing value on a certain degree of self-sacrifice?
Leave your comment below, assessing where you fall on the spectrum, and why:
Are you a techno-optimist or a techno-pessimist? What experiences or ideas have caused you to develop this view?
I’m 80% techno-optimist and 20% techno-pessimist.
Today’s standard of living is so much better than it was just 100 years ago. Can anyone honestly say that they would have been happier living in the 1500s? Yes, mankind has produced some serious threats to the planet, but I’m confident that we’ll find a solution to all of them.
The 20% of me that is techno-pessimist is because of stories like this one: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1937370,00.html. The article is about the Large Hadron Collider, a $9 billion experiment designed to produce Higgs Bosons, a theorized particle. A minority of well-respected physicists (these are no dummies!) believe that if the experiment succeeds, the resulting Higgs Bosons will create a black hole that will destroy the planet. No matter how much you love technology, you can’t deny the danger here!
I think that part of the solution to climate changes lies with change in human behavior as well advances in technology but the right kind of technology. We cannot keep making cars that pollute the air while at the same time, eat the few natural resources we have left. Humans also need to change their consumption habits if there is going to be any sort of positive impact on the earth. We cannot keep living under the assumption that we don’t need to change until everyone is doing it. We are also so technologically advanced that it would be assumed as well as necessary to use our knowledge to improve the environment, much like solar panels. We are using the sun’s energy to create other forms of energy for ourselves without harming the environment. Advances like these are positive and are helping to decrease some of the pollution already caused by humans. However I have to say that at this point in life, humans will always have some sort of negative impact on the environment and I say this because it feels as though as time has progressed, humans have done nothing but made each situation worse and worse. Very little has been done to change them. In future years we may hope to have begun solving all of earth’s problems but in reality we will only be adding to them.
I would say I am mostly a techno-optomist. I see things like certain medicines and treatments and how they’re saved and improved lives. I see things like computers and the internet and how they’ve improved efficiency in communication and research and made it accessible to so many people. Look at how so many of the funds for Haiti have been sent, through text messaging certain numbers and donating an amount of money through your phone bill. Do these technologies take us farther away from society? That may be possible, but I would argue how much less we would know about other societies without technology. I have a friend who grew up in a for close-minded religion (I’ll refrain from using names) that tried to hide much of the world from him in order to keep him as a member of their community. He began to second guess his beliefs, partly due to what his friends exposed him to, but he owes a great deal of his realization to different TV shows, books and websites that exposed certain myths and beliefs that were so central to his religion.
That is not to say that technology is perfect, there are certainly flaws, even within the medicinal world that so many point to as the benchmark of technology. Take a look at drugs drugs like oxycontin and vicodin. When used correctly they can work wonders for people with chronic pain, but are often found to be abused, starting a whole new epidemic of addiction and drug abuse within suburban and affluent cultures. However, the best thing about such flaws? Due to technology we can question the effects of such drugs and find ways to fix them.
I agree with your point that flaws are eminent. I think that not all flaws are technological, but behavioral as well. Yes a technology could have the potential to cause a catastrophic event, but it does not necessarily have to be used that way. We place our values into the technologies and make them what they are. I don’t really know if this would be considered more techno-optimist or techno-pessimist, because though the technology is what is actually causing the effects, we are the ones that should be held responsible since we are the ones that created it.
I would say I am certainly a techno-optimist, though I think in terms of society, it may be making people weaker.
I see the main issue that will need to be addressed someday is overpopulation and what comes with it, and I feel technology will be used to solve it. Is a solution feasible without the use of technology, that is large automated food/crop management systems and huge housing units? Not that I can see, and I don’t think many see any sort of “population reduction” and acceptable answer. More technology will developed, and I believe it will be successful.
Obviously, however, there is only so far we can go expanding to suit an ever-increasing population. Ultimately technology can only go so far, so excluding moving to the moon or other planets, it will fail, but I wouldn’t call that a fault of technology. Nothing is perfect forever.
“We are using the sun’s energy to create other forms of energy for ourselves without harming the environment.”
Let’s not forget the money and energy required to manufacture solar arrays as well as the little return they provide.
“In future years we may hope to have begun solving all of earth’s problems but in reality we will only be adding to them.”
I’m all for finding errors in process, but typically it’s with the intent of finding and moving towards a solution. I’m 100% with you that “We cannot keep living under the assumption that we don’t need to change until everyone is doing it,” but since you think we ultimately doomed, it ruins all of the motivation. As mentioned above, I think the benefit of technology will run out, but the outlook that everything we do will make things worse isn’t productive at all. It suggests an all-stop which isn’t an acceptable step towards a better future either.
I feel as though my views on techno optimism and techno pessimism vary based on the problem at hand. In regards to the climate crisis, I believe that technology and human behavior both have vital roles in making a change for the better. But then again the technology is what got us into this mess in the first place. We’ve become so embedded into our technological lifestyles that I don’t think it is possible for us to better our way of life and lower the detrimental consequences without including technology in the solution. It would not be realistic for us to decide to stop using technology all together, because not all technologies have had negative effects. As I said before, human behavior is just as much of a factor as the technology itself. For example, the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” shows we have had certain technologies in our grasp but have not used them to our advantage. People have put other things, such as wealth, before the environment. The problem is that we do not think about the consequences of the technologies we create until we finally get hit with the negative effects. So I would have to say in regards to the climate crisis I’m about 50-50 techno optimist and techno-pessimist.
I believe that it is very difficult to categorize my view of technology as either fully techno optimistic or techno pessimistic, just as the article states. I believe that it is more about finding a reasonable balance between the two, rather than looking to pull more or less to one side or the other.
In terms of the social networking sites, I would say that I’m torn between the short-term returns of sites like Facebook and the long-term implications of these sites. In terms of techno-pessimism, it is hard to ignore the fact that Facebook makes it possible for individuals to stay connected to a large amount of people that they could not otherwise stay in contact with. This type of communication is especially effective for college students who, for the most part, leave their friends and family behind to study in school. Without social networking sites like Facebook and technology like the cell phone, these students would have virtually no contact with these people who are thousands of miles away. Communication through Facebook is a much better alternative than a complete loss of communication between two individuals. But at what price? On the other side of the fence, Facebook diminishes the relationships that have the capability to be much more intimate through face-to-face interaction. Facebook has a way of clumping together the relationships that have no choice but to be through Facebook because of distance and the relationships that are held through Facebook with friends we already see on a daily basis. The danger here is the loss of the meaningful intimate relationships that we have the capability to possess with individuals who we see daily; individuals whom we really do not need to communicate with on Facebook at all.
I believe that we need to pay attention to patterns like this. Humans possess a need for face-to-face interaction. We thrive off of personal and intimate relationships; we are essentially social beings. Without these, we will lose what it means to be human. Facebook is a utility, an application and supplement to the already existing relationships we have with others. As wonderful as Facebook is for keeping in touch with old friends and distanced family members, it should not replace the valuable relationships we can have with those individuals we have the ability to develop an intimate face-to-face relationship with.
In regards to social sites like Facebook, I am more of a techno-optimist because I believe that it is the person who distinguishes the meaning behind their relationships, not the technology. It is that individual’s responsibility to separate their friends from the profile picture or daily status updates they may make on a site like Facebook. In this way, Facebook can be used as a supplement, and a very helpful one at that.
I seriously doubt that Facebook is used as a supplement. Young adults and teenagers spend hours on Facebook every day. How many of them spend hours in real conversation? Modern technology advancements seems to me to have a very flattening effect on communication.
Communication, in its latest technological fad (i.e., Twitter), has been reduced to 140 character, often grammatically unintelligible thoughts announcing to the world “Hey, look at me!!!!” And this is progress in communication? Somehow even phrases such as “Lol” and “FML” and “WTF” have pervaded into our spoken vocabulary. Language is perhaps our most precious technology.
There is a very strong argument that without language we could not even meaningfully think–all your thoughts are in a language, are they not? Yet, this modern technology is enabling people to dissolve communication and language in a rapid way never truly possible before. To think that we could have any meaningful communication in 140 characters is ridiculous in the first place. But as much as I hate Twitter, it hasn’t progressed to the level of Facebook, which it is nearly impossible to live without in today’s world.
Facebook is an egregious offender in terms of flattening communication and relationships. I have people who were completely serious tell me that my relationship with my current girlfriend “wasn’t official” until it was on Facebook. For the record, it didn’t show up there till one of us got bored one night 4 months into the relationship and decided to add it. Immediately afterwards, people asked me about my “new” relationship, and when I told them I had been dating her for 4 months, they were offended that I hadn’t advertised it on Facebook. But yet, had they had the interest in actually engaging in meaningful conversation with me at any point during the previous 4 months, either by phone, email, or in person instead of sitting behind a computer screen pseudo-stalking their “friends,” they would have known I had a girlfriend. To be sure, this is a small example…but I can’t imagine that I’m the only person who has observed and experienced this flattening of communication.
I would generally classify myself as a strong techno-pessimist. I’m not out here advocating a return to log cabins in the wilderness, nor even small self-contained communities. Globalization has done wonders for world economic growth. Mean quality of life increases usually follow in capitalist societies where economic growth occurs. I cannot debate that our standard of living is exponentially greater than it was before the Civil War just one and a half centuries ago. It is truly hard for me to comprehend what life must have been like for my parents who grew up without digital technology, let alone the lives of those who lived before the industrial revolution.
That said, however, I cannot agree that technology tends to make us better off. I argue instead that technology makes life easier. It makes it more comfortable–for those who have the luxury of accessing it. Here, of course, I am speaking of “modern technology,” rather than the technologies of political, economic, or other systems. But, this is certainly not the same as saying life has been made better. Sometimes easy isn’t always the best.
Consider: It was very easy to win victory in Japan during WWII by employing two atomic weapons. It would be hard to say that was the best thing (morally speaking, that is) to do. Moreover, imagine the nuclear apocalypse that could happen because nuclear weaponry has been invented. Yes, we ended half of a terrible war. But at what cost?
Consider: We have created oral hormonal contraceptives which allows for us to engage in sexual activity more freely and without the threat of unwanted pregnancy, nor having to use “mood killing” barrier and “natural planning” methods of contraception. The downside? Studies are consistently showing that while hormonal birth control seems to decrease the risk of ovarian cancer, it increases the risk of liver cancer and cervical cancers. The effect on breast cancer is debated. Is this necessarily a good trade off? It certainly is an easy one, because the short-term payoff is excellent. But thinking long term, might it just be better to take a minute to put on a condom and/or insert a diaphragm before sex…or even wait until times of the month where a woman is least likely to get pregnant?
Consider: Refridgerators and other cooling systems famously employed cloroflourocarbons (CFCs). It was easy to do as CFCs functioned as very effective refridgerants. Turns out they were destroying the ozone all along. The problem? We cannot just go up into the atmosphere and rebuild the ozone. We can only wait and hope it regenerates…and hope our other technologies (like cars) don’t continue to deplete it.
To be sure, modern technology has made excellent strides pushing forward the comfort and ease of life. But I wonder if it is really worth it. I’m inclined to think not. I don’t want to go back to the lifestyle of 1850. But I certainly wouldn’t mind slowing down the ever-quickening process of modern technological advancement just to make sure we’re making a good long-term investment in true quality of life for ourselves and future generations rather than putting all our money on the short-term ease of life that modern technology almost always promises in abundance.
I consider myself a techno-optimist, but only by a very slim margin. There’s no doubt that modern technology has left us with a slew of unintended side effects. For example, modes of communication have recently come about that center around goals of efficiency and social predictability (text/instant messaging, e-mail), but I believe they divide us even further in a broader communal and social sense, as people eventually become accustomed to having conversations that take place in an implied, almost metaphysical social universe instead of actual real life. There’s no doubt in my mind that this has had a detrimental impact on our social interactions and capabilities. By utilizing technology to help us alleviate certain social anxieties and stigmas that appear in real life, we blind ourselves to the real solutions to these problems. This is only one example of how technology hurts our development as human beings.
With my nuances on this position clearly outlined, however, I must point out that when people generally reflect upon the subject of technology at an instant, they always seem great at pointing out the deficiencies and newly created problems that arrive with it, but lack a serious understanding of the history of technology to fully appreciate how gingerly we live today because of it. In fact, it can be said that many of these technologies have become so interwoven within our own lives that we inevitably take them for granted and fail to even recognize them as vehicles of social progress. (Our ability to make fire, for example, is still a technology, but it’s improved use over thousands of years has made us consider it almost a given.
I believe my opposing feelings represent a fundamental problem in attempting to classify technology as being either helpful or hurtful in the larger spectrum of humanity. It seems to me if humanity wants the taken-for-granted social progresses (technologies like electricity, plumbing, agriculture), it must also willfully accept that at some points technology may go astray. It’s like Socrates said, “We don’t debate ends, we debate means.” The same idea can be applied to technology. Humanity will inevitably falter in its search to implement technologies that make life more efficient and enjoyable, but it must learn to live with these possibilities instead of attacking technology as a wholly abstract idea.
Techno-optimists and techno-pessimists are two polar opposite categories, which I believe almost no one truly falls under. To be a Techno-pessimist is impossible given the technology drenched societies we live in, and the Amish people serve as evidence for this fact. They have slowly and begrudgingly accepted tractors and phones to enter into their otherwise primitive life styles. The reason techno-pessimism is so implausible is because without technology we would not be human. If we take a purely Darwinist approach we would reason that it is human nature to use technology to its advantage and therefore the rejection of technology is simply inhuman. Although it is a harsh approach, it is true that humans would have never survived had they not constructed their own weapons and shelters in order to avoid death at the hands of predatory animals. The counter argument would be that creating the metropolises we have today is excessive and therefore no longer “human nature”. True, such “urban jungles” are indeed no longer human nature but instead human desire. Every animal seeks to survive above all else, and the opposition each individual faces in this goal is nature, predators, and other individuals of the species. This is a fact that is represented in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The farther we get from having to live a subsistence lifestyle the more liberated our minds are to find other means to improve life and make the task of survival easier. So technology began as constructing defenses from nature and predators and has developed into a tool we use in competition with other human beings. Whoever has the best technology will undoubtedly make more money and live more lavishly than those with worse technology.
Thus we see ourselves entering the problems of Techno-optimism. Technology has developed a great deal since its origins and now its main purpose is to improve our lives. Living entails having freedom, and it is sadly another human propensity to attack the freedoms of others in order to secure one’s own freedom. This is evidence of Darwin’s theory of competition for resources. Money is how we quantify an individual’s access to food, water, and shelter. Technology is known to improve our access to all three of these necessities beyond the necessary subsistent needs. But we have moved past the point of necessity and into the realm of extravagance. This extravagance is available to whoever is able to afford it. The result is that technology is constructed with the sole purpose of attaining capital, which leaves humanity susceptible to the unforeseen impacts technology might have on our ability to survive.
My hope is that Techno-optimism and pessimism do not accurately describe anyone because both views are extremely skewed. My view is in line with Lowrance’s position that humanity must continue to produce technology, because it has far too many positive aspects, but we will undoubtedly confront “tragic decisions” in the future in order to preserve our quality of life. That is to say humans will come upon technology, like genetic engineering, that can be enticing from the outset but further down the road it may reveal itself to be jeopardizing our human freedoms or possibly even our lives. The tragic decisions made to end research despite the technology’s tantalizing aspects will hopefully preserve our lives. Therefore, I believe we must approach technology the same way we should approach our government: with healthy skepticism.
As the post states, it’s difficult to find someone who is a complete techno optimist, or a complete techno pessimist. I tend to side more with the techno pessimist side. I see the reasons that technological optimism is a valid perspective. The reason for this, is that the positive effects of technology are difficult to deny, and seen in many aspects of our life. Without technology we would not have most of the many conveniences, and scientific advancements we have today. How can I say that technology is bad given the fact that technology is the reason some of my family members are alive. How can I say technology is bad when it has provided us with methods of ensuring cleanliness in our food and water, and heat in our homes. Regardless of the fact that I can recognize the benefits of technology, I can also recognize the drawbacks. Of course it creates a lot of dependence, and impersonal connections between people and their individual medias. Not just that, but by trying to further technology we increasingly jeopardize our efforts to save the environment. We constantly attempt to make everything “green” but regardless of the fact that something is green, we’re still creating and making green things run by using old harmful technologies. We now have electric cars, and they’re considered more “green” than gas run vehicles. In some senses they are, because you’re not using gas, but on the other hand you’re using more electricity, which is acquired either by nuclear means, or by burning of fossil fuels. If everyone switched to electric cars, wouldn’t we just be trading one evil for another? I believe that technology is contributing to a lot of negative effects on the environment, as well as on human relationships, but what can we do? The positive effects it contributes, won’t allow us to move away from technology, or become more independent of it.
I am more on the side of the techno-pessimists, though not completely so.
Technology has surely provided us with means for improving our lives. Medical technology has improved the length of our lives, people in wealthy nations often have access to cheap electricity and food, and the Internet allows us to communicate with people all over the world and to find out about all kinds of things with little effort. All of this belongs to the fulfillment of the promise of technology, as philosopher of technology Albert Borgmann puts it in his book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life.
Even if technology has improved our lives in some ways, in other ways technological developments pose ecological, social, and ethical problems. Most generally, very often today we interact with reality as a commodity. Just as we can turn on the tap to get some water, we can quickly, easily and safely send an email, access pornography, or get fast food. If all this represents an advance from previous ways of doing things, where we had to put much more effort into what we were doing, at the same time this represents a profound loss for our quality of life. Instead of spending a long amount of time composing a letter to send to an acquaintance, we send a quick email or comment on someone’s status update on Facebook. Instead of gathering together with our family to cook and share a meal, each member of the family has his own bag of food from MacDonalds, and the television’s presence precludes any conversation. Television itself is a good example of engaging with reality as a commodity. Quite often, we simply turn on the television and passively let the images play on our eyeballs, rather than taking up a more demanding, skillful and rewarding activity.
So, we can’t let the blessings of technology and a technological culture blind us to their downsides. I haven’t even mentioned the ecological and ethical dimensions, but suffice it to say that there are profound injustices and inequalities in the ways in which the benefits of technology- from medicine to healthcare to potable water- are distributed. But perhaps the main reason why I’m more sympathetic to the pessimists is that I think we really need to question our drive toward control and mastery of nature, so that everything comes to be subject to our manipulation and derives its value mainly from its instrumental potentialities. When the world appears as something mainly to be changed according to our will, it loses its value as something intrinsically interesting and compelling, and becomes subject to the control of narcissistic, control-driven, commodified individuals.