Dr. Adam Johns
Seminar in Composition
29 August, 2008
Technology vs. Mankind
Jack Canfield, noted co-author of the popular Chicken Soup series states, that as we “begin to take action toward the fulfillment of [our] goals and dreams, [we] must realize that not every action will be perfect.” Although a very broad notion, it can easily be applied to several of the issues facing humanity today. Technological advancement, while often overlooked, is more than likely the most influential process in the world today. Bill Joy, in his Wired Magazine article, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”, makes the point that we could “make our future much less dangerous” by agreeing upon “what we wanted, where we were headed, and why,” His point is completely unfounded, simply by looking at Canfield’s quote. “Not every action will be perfect,” is really just another way of saying that things are easy in a perfect world, but we do not live in a perfect world. Joy’s argument simply cannot be true because it is unrealistic to see technology, or any other advancement in mankind for that matter, be consensually agreed upon by all parties.Throughout history, there are many examples of practices that people attempted that seemed nearly perfect on paper. Karl Marx, as well as a few other authors, was able to put together a perfect utopian society on paper. Unfortunately, as great as Communism looked on paper, how well has it fared thus far? Bill Joy’s argument is another such example. Joy is basing this ‘extinction’ upon the possibility that our technologies will bring us down because of our lack of agreeable direction. If we look several years down the road at the same pace, it’s possible that we will open “Pandora’s boxes”(Joy), but why should we allow that to halt our development as a species? Technology has been great for our development both personally and collectively so far. Why should this suddenly change?
He goes on to quote Thoreau later in the article, and then begs the question “Will we survive our technologies?” Supposing it would be simple enough to answer this question by saying there is no reason we shouldn’t, and since speculation doesn’t help argument anyway, another question must be brought into this conversation: “Will our technologies ever need to be survived?” Technology and human development, while paralleled in today’s society, will never be one in the same. It is possible for humans to develop without technology. It is NOT possible for technology to develop without humans! There is no reason to believe that technology that we create will cause the downfall of our entire race. It’s completely ridiculous, even humorous to think. It literally sounds like something out of a bad movie. Again, looking back at Communism and its early goings, it was originally believed that Communism would not be started or chosen by anyone, but that it would develop on its own as history took its natural course. One of the easiest things to do is to overlook realistic outcomes. In a perfect world, Communism probably does work, but it just doesn’t in a real world. There are too many ins and outs and loopholes. If humans relied upon technology to an extent where mankind could not exist without it, then Joy could have an argument. As it is, however, this is not the case. Humans could easily survive without technology; they choose not to because technology is a convenience.
Finally, Joy argues that we need to “agree, as a species” the direction our technological development must go. As hackneyed and cliché as it is at this point, it must be stated again that this could be true in a perfect, utopian world. Are we to simply take a vote, and let the majority decide on the direction? How are all humans going to suddenly relinquish everything that history has ever told us, and suddenly begin to unanimously agree on one thing? It will never happen. It has never happened before, and it never will. Mankind’s most important development has come from disagreement. Much like how Communism was supposedly to have begun, humans are all part of a historical dialectic in which there are competing viewpoints. These viewpoints will have a clash of sorts, and will form a new sub-viewpoint which is more or less a compromise between the two original competitors. Joy’s belief goes completely beyond this dialectic. He, much like Karl Marx, failed to understand the fact that history does not suddenly change course and reach a final destination. Both overlooked the reality of the world.
Bill Joy’s argument about “why the future doesn’t need us” is honestly one of the most ridiculous things any person can read. He is quite obviously a very intelligent man, but he simply overlooked a few of mankind’s most basic notions. First of all, without humans, without conscious thought, there can be no future. He may not be stating that, like in the Terminator movies, that technology will ultimately come to rule society, but he is making the point that we are becoming too heavily reliant upon technology. While there may be some truth to this statement, it will simply never come to fruition. No matter how heavily humans rely upon their technologies, those technologies will never surpass mankind.
2 comments:
You rely heavily on generalization and straw men here. The "reductio ad Marx" argument you employ is incoherent, which is a serious problem.
Here's the problem. Let's just grant, for the sake of argument, that your thumbnail understanding of Marxism and Communism is accurate (it isn't, for what it's worth - you show no understanding of the historical varieties of Marxism, of Marx's texts, of his historical context, etc.). You do not, at any point, pay close attention to what Joy is saying, or take him on his own terms.
Rather than beginning with a few simple questions - for instance: "is Joy correct that we are in danger of extinction?", you assert that Joy's idea of consensus can't work because we're not in a perfect world. Later on, returning to this issue, you write "Are we to simply take a vote, and let the majority decide on the direction?" I think Joy most likely would say "Yes!" -- what he is arguing for is the control of science through political institutions, presumably democratically constituted. I'm not clear why you see him as being a utopian instead of as a believer in the possibility of imperfect democracies working. Is that utopian?
Here's another quote:
"He goes on to quote Thoreau later in the article, and then begs the question “Will we survive our technologies?” Supposing it would be simple enough to answer this question by saying there is no reason we shouldn’t, and since speculation doesn’t help argument anyway, another question must be brought into this conversation: “Will our technologies ever need to be survived?” Technology and human development, while paralleled in today’s society, will never be one in the same. It is possible for humans to develop without technology. It is NOT possible for technology to develop without humans!"
The problem here is that, again, you are ignoring what Joy actually says. Why do you say it's impossible for technology to develop without humans? The premise behind Joy's argument is that artificial intelligence is both possible and imminent. You aren't arguing against him - you're ignoring him. Similarly, you simply ignore the reasoning behind his claim that we may not survive our technologies.
I'm rambling, so let me rephrase everything I've said: you aren't responding to Joy. You're setting up a straw man - creating an imaginary joy, then attacking that. The real Joy may or not be right, but you aren't writing about him. You don't attack engage with *any* of the scientific issues which are his focus, nor do you explain in any way I can understand why his idea about the political control of science is so unworkable (I mean, we've successfully controlled nuclear weapons, right?).
Minor point: never use phrases like "throughout history." That's a clear signal of wild overgeneralization.
Another minor point: Strictly from a personal point of view, I'd argue that *faith* in technology is at least as utopian as skepticism of it - and you might be interested to know that Marx himself was deeply confident in *progress*, beginning with technological progress. Just food for thought.
I see that one of the major issues with my paper is an extremely not well-followed through argument. I was really trying to attack specific arguments of Joy's in order to say that if the foundation of his argument is false, then the deductions he makes must also be false. Using the example of Communism, I was trying more or less to relate what Communism was meant to be, with what it actually is today. It was created to be a perfect government system in which all people abided by a strict set of rules. My point, however, was that Communism could never possibly work, simply because of the basic laws of human society. Humans just can't all abide by a set of rules.
I think I could have better worded my argument by bringing in democracy vs. communism (i.e., the Cold War) to show that even though Democracy isn't "perfect", it works a lot better than Communism, which supposedly is "perfect".
Joy's point begins with the idea that humans must focus on a single direction or path. Although I failed to do so, I was simply trying to link that direction or path to Communism and how it's easy to see that if we continue on in such a way, that it will culminate with a certain event, but it will never actually work out that way in the real world.
If I had a chance to rewrite this paper, I'm fairly certain that I could keep the same viewpoint and just argue it a lot better, but I will just focus on supporting my future papers better.
Thanks for the comment
P.S. I'm assuming that my grade was terribly low, but I never actually got an e-mail with my grade.
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