Technology Thrills but’ surely kills?

Man’s quest to survive on this fragile planet led him to explore and devise ways to ease and sustain human life. He was surrounded by objects which loomed large on the horizon of his mind to scare him to bow before them. Man’s needs were many so were his desires and efforts. Every age equipped him with new knowledge, to breast the hostile waves of destruction. He had to fight on many fronts, from physical to spiritual, from earthly to celestial and from life to death. Most fatal of the calamities existed in the form of cataclysm of nature in many forms which could wipe out the existence of many a man in one sweep.

Man tried to hide himself under the shelters, in caves, under the trees’ etc. Man was armed with a very lethal weapon called wisdom. He called into play his inventive as well as reasoning faculties to fight the most pernicious enemies, which ultimately gave birth to engineering. Fire and wheel played a pivotal role in moulding and remoulding man’s life. Man’s ability to bequeath legacy, adorned with the beads of knowledge garnered and gleaned from the fields of life, to the new generations, added fuel to fire to stand his ground when nature threw the gauntlet. Man learnt to conquer nature by yielding to it. It was a strange conquest. New knowledge pushed the horizons of man’s mind and his eyes started looking deep into things. He started tinkering with nature.

Soaring on the wings of imagination man dreamt impossible dreams to realise with the sweat of his brow. Civilisation started creeping out of the jungle. Man came to understand that a jungle can grow by itself but a garden cannot. Loaded with the experiences of his past, he started affecting and changing his surroundings as far as nature could allow. The flights of birds kindled in him the desire to ride the air. The huge waves of oceans invited his courage to bring them under his feet. The moon allured him, the stars beckoned him, the inky darkness of night challenged him to lit it up, the peaks of the mountains piqued his curiosity to scale their heights. He was a new denizen of this planet, everything was new to him. He himself was new to him. He embarked on the journey to understand himself and the environment around him. The engineer in him was gasping to come out to delineate his existence through the art-facts.

Man came to know that he was different from other animals. He could affect his environment and vice versa. Nature had already put in human instinct to create, recreate, discover and even serendipity. Nature was bounteous in its blessings to man. At every step survival was a question mark for man. Man’s civilisation eased his life. Laws of nature helped him saddle the whimsical horse called Nature. The application of the understanding of the laws of nature, science, helped him translate into action what he had learnt from nature, which in turn gave birth to technology. Technology eased human life at every step. It became a shield which warded off the ferocious arrows jettisoned by environment. The price of civilisation had to be paid by natural environment.

Many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and deplete natural resources, to the detriment of the earth and environment. Various implementations of technology influence the values of a society and new technology often raises new ethical questions. Philosophical debates have arisen over the present and future use of technology in society, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it. Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar movements criticise the pervasiveness of technology in the modern world, opining that it harms the environment and alienates people; proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition. Indeed, until recently, it was believed that the development of technology was restricted only to human beings, but recent scientific studies indicate that other primates and certain dolphin communities have developed simple tools and learned to pass their knowledge to other generations.

Man seems to have fallen a prey to his own success. What a paradox! With the atom bomb in hands man is playing with it like a child. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been the nightmare created by technology. Civilisation differentiates us from other animals. It seems as if both Satan and God reside in him in the shape of civilisation and technology. With the depletion of ozone layer man’s hope of survival on this earth is depleting. Technology thrills but surely kills. So far man has hopelessly failed to strike a balance between his aspirations for a civilised life and the maintenance of the natural environment. Everything that technology develops proves cannibal – at some time. Every virtue of technology gives birth to a demon, which goes beyond its power to control. The caravan of mankind seems to be goalless and destinationless. Technology has taken away serenity of mind and tranquillity of heart from man.