I generally agree with you, Felix. But the main action is in the detail IMO.Felix wrote:Greta, in this and other threads, you have associated technical progress with evolutionary advancement. The fact is, they can be antithetical. Man's reliance on technical tools can cause him to rely less on his natural abilities, such as reason, memory, and empathy, which may then atrophy through disuse.
For example, before the advent of printing and the widespread dissemination of books, humankind mostly passed on their knowledge orally, which developed the powers of imagination and memory. The book and later the digital hard-drive came to replace the brain as the main repository of information, information began to be mistaken for knowledge and eloquence faded.
A more current example: children growing up communicating primarily with others via electronic devices such as smart phones. As a consequence they may fail to develop primary interpersonal and critical thinking skills. Image is mistaken for substance: that guy your teenage daughter met on Facebook seemed so genial, how was she to know he was a predator?
So I wouldn't expect technology to be mankind's evolutionary savior, it could instead become the instrument of his destruction.
We are arguably at a point where we can usefully parse "humans", as in individuals, and "humanity" the collective. As most humans (the italics are critical) become more inflexibly dronelike, as you observed above, the collective of humanity becomes ever more knowing and empowered. Eusocial dynamics in action - most members are limited in potential to create greater potential for both the "royalty" and the collective as a whole.
So, while our "proles" (let's call a spade a spade) become more base, more mired in reality TV, superstitions, conspiracy theories and competing in a rat race they aren't meant to win, the intellectual, physical and moral exemplars of our societies achieve ever greater refinements to the efforts of their predecessors. It's a dual dynamic, one that tends to happen during the early stages of speciation.
So when you speak about "saviour", it's worth asking "saviour to whom"? You're right, technology won't save the common people. They are doomed and always have been because the Earth has limited carrying capacity. However, not all humans are equally exposed to the issues. In the long term I see technology as of more use to the planet than humans, in that human space travel is the best way that the Earth can distribute its "seeds" to other worlds before the Sun's future catastrophic expansion.
Re: technology, at what point should humanity stop or slow down technological progress? More to the point, how is it possible to slow down technological advancement in a competitive world where each nation has a huge stake in being first to achieve various AI, biotechnology, nanotechnology and quantum computing goals, amongst others?
Sure, intelligence is clearly not the same as wisdom, although it helps. After all, how could an ancient healer "wisely" help a patient who was ill with a bacterial infection if they didn't know about germs? They may have conducted their pointless exorcisms with a wise and moderate approach as judged by the standards of their societies, but it's still obviously foolish behaviour from a modern perspective.Felix wrote:Intelligence is not wisdom, there is nothing more destructive than ingenuity without sensitivity.Perhaps the moral of the story is that if something seems huge and keeps doing inexplicable and seemingly impossible things, then the chances are it's smarter than you, and probably obtuse as regard the subtleties of your life.
While on the subject, it occurred to me recently that wisdom is about being able to achieve one's ends using the "lightest possible touch". Life inevitably involves destruction. The wise, I expect, would achieve more with less disruption to others than the unwise. Human society obviously has some way to go there.
Re: sensitivity: consider what strange, blundering beasts we humans must seem to ants. Of course we are insensitive to ants (only in the last few years have I made a concerted effort to no step on the ants nesting near my front steps). Consider the subtlety of ant senses and their tiny interactions. Humans are like mobile earthquakes by comparison - big, mindless walking natural disasters. This is, not coincidentally, how we individuals tend to view governments and corporations - giant, mindlessly consuming, insensate beasts when compared with the poignancy of each individual humans' experience. Culturally immature entities that are still in the "mindless consumption stage". As the fruits of mindless consumption become ever more clear, there will come an emerging, if not morality, at least a strategic pragmatism as regards society and environment, which would make a nice start.