embracing the future with technology essays

embracing the future with technology essays Has technology opened a Pandora's box of social alienation, or alternatively, is it bringing humans into a new era of prosperity and well being? n the modern world technology is all around. Automobiles, computers, nuclear power, spacecraft, and X-ray cameras are all examples of technological advances. Technology may be defined as the process by which human beings fashion tools and machines to change, manipulate, and control their environment. The increasing pace of technological change in the 20th century makes it difficult to place recent developments into perspective. What new branches of science lay before us? Will new-age pseudo science or religious trappings keep us from opening our eyes to the facts of the world around us? Have the humanities been discarded for the complexities of electronics? Is our culture capable of embracing a technically advanced future? The most critical influence of technology in tomorrow's society lies in the social and cultural realms. There exists a diverse body of opinion on the possible ability of this technology to enhance democracy. One school of thought believes technology will usher in a new era of democracy, bringing about easy exchange of dialogue between different groups within society. The opposing school of thought is of a future in which this information technology will be controlled by big businesses that will provide opportunities for surveillance and domination. A recent example of the latter is the windows 2000 program that is designed to replace Windows 97. Here a user's activity on the Internet can be readily tracked by an invisible code that enables Microsoft to sell this information to the highest bidder. People have always wondered how life originated and how so many different kinds of plants and animals arose. Stories of a supernatural creation of life developed among many peoples. The Bible, for example, tells of God's creation of ...