Technological Dependencies

[Shu]

A future notice, Happy Holidays, but this will be a tl;dr Shu post. So please if you don't like reading a bit of rambling from an older fella, then this is not for you =). So with that being said, this thread is to ask the outweighing question in today's society, is man becoming to reliant on technology? My opinion is this..

I believe man is way to heavily dependent on technology. For one when's the last time you have been without a cell phone for more than a day or even week? When's the last time you just turned off your phone for a few days. This last time I did it I felt a bit panicked, because it was not voluntary. The battery of course ran out, and I was needing to call just to order a pizza and something so trivial started to stress me out. When you order a pizza around here you usually have to wait a good 20-30 minutes even before picking it up. I am a very impatient person, and thanks to it I almost had a panick attack before using my girl friend's (at the time) phone (I had to drive back). Anyways, think about this, imagine a world where all the sudden your cell phone deactivated and so did everyone elses.

Imagine a world where we lose the entire thing we call the internet. No more Facebook, Myspace, Tumbler or the other slew of networking sites. No emailing, no insta messaging, no twitering and lastly no foruming. Now imagine not having a TV where the news is broadcasted. The news itself would be far less main stream and in my opinion would probably be just about important stuff. Imagine no movies, no sports broadcasted live, no cooking shows, no reality television, no video games, and last but not least no commercials.

Haha, and now are you ready? Imagine a life without automotive, trains, planes, boats transportation. Imagine instead of driving 5 miles that would take a little over 5-7 minutes, it would take you 45 minutes walking time. Without transportation as well, women would not have their beauty products as easily. No make up for a week at times probably, and of course no shampoo/conditioner or body wash for a bit. Everything would be more hand made soap (bar) than liquid kind. (factories make this crap)

To me humanity is way to reliant on these electric or gasoline driven devices in which has almost crippled our man power in this new century. If a man had only matches and wood and a tent, I believe he could not technically live until he learned the ways of nature. He would need to know how to cook over a flame, and how to weather the wind so it wouldn't blow out the flame. He would need to know survival techniques in order to keep going. It's even becoming apparent in music these days. People, instead of using drummers are using drum machines. Instead of singing the actual notes they are auto-tuning the notes to get it right without voice cracks and imperfections. The use of electronica is becoming a new norm, in which people use synthesizers and bass products in order to create the new sound, though there are no actual instruments backing it.

Books are starting to become PDFs instead of paper and charging 100-200 dollars for kindles or you can get a free one on the ipod. The books are the same price mind you, but instead of flipping pages and having an "actual copy" you have a digital one. Same with games, instead of buying a cd rom or PS3/XBOX/Wii game, things are starting to be digitally purchased. This is nothing new actually, but still everything is becoming more and more dependent on technology.

All the medical devices (breathing apparatus, defibrillators, anesthesia administrators and such) that we need in order to make folks in the ER/IU stay alive would not be available.

And the last thing I would question everyone with, do you think you could function without technology? I don't think I could, I have not been taught enough, even if I'm camped over 50 or so times, and been on our door trips and been in freezing cold weather on top of mountains. It's just I don't think you know how reliant you are until you away from it. It's like alcoholics or smokers who say it's easy to quit. They just don't know sometimes what they use it for indirectly for. Technology is the bane to human's existence currently. In fact if we didn't have it I think there would be far less people in the world.

 

[Be Unique]

i couldn't personally live without the internet, alot of my close yet not so close friends are from around the world, i like to keep in contact with them every day, without the internet this clearly makes things alot harder, although it would be just as easy to write a letter its alot slower and time consuming, being a in-patient person myself it would drive me mad.

Being without Video games too, lets not go there, but i like to use them to escape reality or when i need some stress relief. couldn't live without them either.

Love nature and more than inclined to learn alot more techniques that i find interesting, like cooking over a flame you mentioned, Alot of people in the moden day couldnt light a fire using two sticks (myself included) but i would be willing to learn without hesitation.

 

[Davey Gaga]

I like this but it's a bit paradoxical. I wonder if the Victorians ever asked what their lives would be like without their horse-drawn carts, their manual-labour in the mines, or their man-made candles? Possibly. At the time, they were at the height of "technology". Going back even further, if you're camping - imagine you didn't have a match! Or the materials to make a tent.

I don't think it's a bad thing to become reliant on technology. Sure, we've convenienced everything a lot more than before but at the end of the day, we're programmed to get the best out of life and use the least amount of energy to do it; we're doing quite well at that.

 

[Be Unique]

we're programmed to get the best out of life and use the least amount of energy to do it; we're doing quite well at that.

Suppose your right, however this differs depending on your country, if you look at japan they are becoming alot more advanced fast.

 

[Shu]

Well here's the sad part. Prices are escalating daily, we (the US) have been promised of a rebound in our economy which essentially means gas prices will go down and so will the cost of electricity. The problem is the longer the "US" has foreign relation problems with the middle east, the more our barrels of gas will go up. We have sought to drill off shore, but as you can see with the BP blunder, we are not exactly fond of it currently. Our means to find a reliant source of energy is sort of at a stand still in my opinion. Our hope with finding the higgs boson, which would basically mean an infinite use of energy was a futile attempt.

As humans we are deemed to evolve beyond this, but imagine if the price of gas gets way too high. Imagine if you lose your job, and you don't have the means to pay for an apartment and your folks are either gone or will not allow you to live with them. Your options are either a half way house, which are denying folks every day due to the rise of homeless.. and foreclosures, or salvation army, which house only a few folks a day until they get a job, otherwise they are out.

Energy puts food on the table, provides shelter for folks, but if we do not pay for the energy, well these energy bills will actually shoot up. It's the economy inflation only occurs when there is a lack of surplus or if there is a lack of demand. The equilibrium is out of focus due to folks not using energy or not enough means to get it. We are trying to shoot for coal produced energy, but we are miles to go till we can get even an ounce of clean energy.

So in reality, I'm not trying to spread the doom and gloom, especially around the holidays, but this is the real situation we are relying pretty damn heavily in energy always being there for us. We are relying in our vehicles way to much, and when folks be driving and using over abundant fuel consumers (SUVS), you have to think to yourself.. Where is the rationalizing in human intelligence.

-- Gas Related --

Let me take two things into perspective. 1) Y2K 2) Katrina here in the states. Y2K folks bought out sources of water, stocked up on fuel and all for the reliance in their capability to get around in their car. I guess that's smart, but if it was "the end of the world" I'm not sure how much a car would of helped =P.

Now Katrina and the war combined made our barrels of gas jump way up there. Here is where I can say.. we were to reliant on gas. We went and lined up at the pumps all the way down the blocks till we were actually out of gas.

Gas is back on the steady climb again, and with it means less travel, and less use of gas. Without the demand, these small gas stations run out of business. Only the "walmarts" of our gas industry (BP and Shell) are thriving. In the time of living in Oxford,MS I have seen one gas chain change hands of business 5 times! and currently they are out of business.

Also the decline in truck drivers due to lay offs has been made apparent. Due to this, our gasoline, one of our major resources, seems to be a bit harder to deliver around here.

--- End of Gas Driven ---

In response to you Dave about Horse driven buggies, that is a little irrational though. You always can have manual labor to find all those resources, but energy.. do you know how to make it? Do you run your own internet? Do you make your own gas in your car? (exception to rule is bio fuel)

It's stuff that we can't wrap our hands around, in which we can not directly control that folks like myself are afraid of. There has been talk in the States to charge people per website that they visit. Can I control this? No. Do I strongly dislike this. Yes. Can I do anything about it? No, only not pay for it, but who wants to be without internet.

It's things that we can not directly control, that I dissuade folks from being too invested into.

The horse carriage thing is something I doubt we could ever have a problem with unless our Resources completely diminish. We can always breed horses, always cultivate lands manually, but the problem is, with more automative processes in today's day in age there are less farmers.

People forget the know how to do stuff, because we leave it up to "energy" driven machines, and less man power. So if by chance some how an atrocity occurred where energy was not as available, humanity would have to cope.

 

[StrungOut]

I think I could live without technology. If tomorrow, there would be no more cars, trucks, hi-tech medical devices, computers and electricity it would would be a huge adaptation for us. A lot of people would think it's the end of their lives and they would have to find a new meaning to it.

We would much likely spend more time meeting our basic needs, such as eating and heating our homes. A lot of families would have a farm and we would have to cut our own wood. We would have a lot less spare time to entertain ourselves, learn or read. People would be less educated and the life expectancy would drop due to the lack of medical technology. Maybe we would learn new things though, such as how to survive in nature, how to work wood properly to build a home, how to grow vegetables or how to hunt.

Personally I could live without technology but it all depends which one. Internet is great and I'm on it everyday reading the news and i use it for school so I don't see my actual life without a computer. I could live without a cell phone, my is often close and I only use it 3 or 4 times a week. I could live without my car, school and work are close to my place.

I think sometimes how I would do in a post-Armageddon world, when almost everything has been wiped out of the surface of the world and the technology is close to inexistent. I think I would manage to survive.

 

[Rapture]

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I lived in a time like the victorian age or something to that extent. No internet, no cars, and none of the advanced medicine that we have today. I would probably be sitting around in a dress, reading books, and my family would be trying to find me a husband to marry me off by the time I was 18 or so. *shudder* While I do think it would be fun to try for a day or so, I would never want to have to live my entire life out like that...because it would be incredibly boring.

While we have made many, many technological advances since then and have become much more dependant on them to function day to day...I don't personally see how all of them are so bad.

If you look at it from a medical standpoint, people are living longer and some but not all are living healthier lifestyles because of the increase in knowledge about the human body and the effects that the environment has on it. My uncle had a triple coronary artery bypass just this last year, and that advancement in technology has saved his life. I love him and I'm glad I can enjoy more time with him because of it. However, on the other hand...you have the life support machines that keep people alive even though they are brain dead. This could be because they are in a coma and the family has decided to keep them around longer to see if they will come out of it...or possibly for the selfish reasons of the family to continue life support even though they have been informed that the outcome is poor.

Cars made it easier to get from point A to point B. If you pick up and move away from your family and you can't afford a plane ticket you could see them with however long a car drive if you live in the same country. If we lived "back in the day" if you lived in New York and your family moved out to California...that would be an awfully long, uncomfortable ride in a horsedrawn carriage However...with this convenience also comes problems though, because we are polluting our Earth with the emmissions from them. I am glad that we are advancing to hybrids and semi-electric cars now...even if it should have been thought of earlier. But I guess better late than never

The internet, cellphones, video games, movies....are a way to keep us entertained, informed, and in touch with our family and friends. I love how you can pick up a phone and be able to talk to a close friend or family member, even if they live far away...So you could say the same about facebook or whatever... Video games while fun and enjoyable, need to be done in moderation so you don't turn into a couch potato. I could live without them but I would prefer not to. They aren't my life but I play them in moderation with doing other things so I am not totally dependant on them for entertainment....same with movies. The internet has revolutionized so much, I would hate to imagine life without it. You can learn so much off of it, shop, keep up with the news...

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that there are goods and bads to technology, just like everything else. Its how you use it. For the most part, we've come a long way. Whats so wrong with trying to save lives/keep in touch with family and friends/and gain a better knowlege base in life?

 

[Dr. Percival Cox]

For one when's the last time you have been without a cell phone for more than a day or even week? When's the last time you just turned off your phone for a few days. This last time I did it I felt a bit panicked, because it was not voluntary. The battery of course ran out, and I was needing to call just to order a pizza and something so trivial started to stress me out. When you order a pizza around here you usually have to wait a good 20-30 minutes even before picking it up. I am a very impatient person, and thanks to it I almost had a panick attack before using my girl friend's (at the time) phone (I had to drive back). Anyways, think about this, imagine a world where all the sudden your cell phone deactivated and so did everyone elses.

This part made me kinda chuckle because I haven't had a cell phone in well over six months and, to be honest, I really have not missed. Then again, my phone was pre-paid so that kind of took away the fun.

Anyway, yeah. I could deal without vehicles because I don't mind traveling on foot. I've walked for three hours to get to a friends house in the middle of a heat wave. And this was back when I was fat... Hm, that was probaby one of the reasons I lost so much weight.

If the internet went down, I'd be a little depressed. Even though I don't use it to look up information that often, I do however think I would become bored without having video websites to watch people get hurt. It--...it would just put a real cramper on things.

Television. Meh, I could probably do without. There's only maybe one or two shows that come on per night that actually interest me (basic television is very...basic).

Now, if I lost video games, that'd really suck. Mostly because I tend to use games as a crutch because they're my form of stress relief. Nothing like some dick screaming at you and then you go home and crack someone's skull open against a brick wall. Since it's a video game and therefore not real you can't go to jail for doing it. Profit? I think so.

But I don't think that it would totally cripple me. I don't mind reading.

Now, I can't really argue with you about the medical supplies thing. It'd be a real tragedy if electronic hospital equipment quit running.

But, with all the technology gone, look at the benefits. Without video games and television and such, there'd be no devices with which to keep us inside. No, we'd actually have to go out and *gasp* interact with each other. That'd probably be a hump for me to get over. Since we'd be alot more active, obesity would be severly cut down. There'd be no radio, so I wouldn't have to hear Ke$ha (who spells their name with a fuckin' dollar sign!!? ). I imagine there wouldn't be any more threat of nuclear war. There'd be no computers or switches to detonate the damn things. And since there's no electricity, no one'd be able to craft a ship large enough to carry one of those baby ones.

You do have a point. We'd be pretty crippled, at first. In the past, the human races strongest aspect was the mental capacity to adapt to hardship. And though I think a dependency on technology has SEVERLY depleted that ability, I think we'd in time learn to adapt again. Hm, we'd adapt to adaption... Uh, anyway. I think we'd manage. Even though I all but despise the human race, we've survived some harsh shit. I think we could survive it again.

 

[Shu]

While we have made many, many technological advances since then and have become much more dependant on them to function day to day...I don't personally see how all of them are so bad.

Oh I never said these things are bad. Especially my car, don't know what I would do without it. We live 5 miles outside the city, so it would be a bit of a walk to carry groceries 10 miles. What I'm saying is, if by chance we didn't have the means of energy to actually run these machines, would humanity be able to cope? It's like quitting cold turkey, but instead of just one means of convenience, entertainment, or necessity, it's all of them.

 

[blakstang98]

Well, I think humanity would cope just fine without technological advances if they never had them to begin with. The caveman back in the day didn't sit there and think "boy, I wish I could call my buddy up and tell him to watch out for that T-Rex around the corner". And I know this was true, I was there.

But seriously, even in our time period, we never realized how convenient it could be to have such advancement, until it's taken away from us. Before we had cell phones, there was a such thing as a car phone. This thing had a base in the back of the vehicle that had a powerful antennae on it, that sent out the signal for the corded phone you had next to the drivers seat. This worked well when there was no such thing as cell phones. And before those were around, you had to find a phone booth to send out calls when you were on the road. But nobody saw that as an inconvenience because they thought something like a cell phone would never exist. I'm sure some thought something like that would be a really good idea, but we still didn't know enough yet to make that happen, so we were okay with the phone booth thing. Low and behold, everybody carries cell phones now, even pre-teen bastids. Now if we went back to the old phone booth deal, we could never do it, just because you know it's so much more convenient to have a phone on you already.

So I think that humanity would not be able to cope with the idea of taking stuff away that we already had. But if we never knew it existed already, then humanity would cope with it just fine, because that's the only options they have. Taking something like cars away would be really inconvenient for me and people of my area because it's just too damn cold to walk around.

 

[Toshiya]

Most people are heavily dependant on technology, I think. But it's important to know when to stop 'obsessing'. I mean, everyday things like cars, household electrical appliances - everyone in the richer countries of the world is dependant on these things, and I mean everyone. Nobody walks 50 miles to somewhere they need to be instead of taking some form of transport if they can help it, nor do people light fires in their gardens instead of using a cooker.

It's technology such as computers, games consoles that I think people shouldn't be too dependant on. I mean, I enjoy playing the PS3 and coming online but in all honesty, I do prefer going out with friends etc etc. The only reason I've been online so much recently is because the weather has stopped me from leaving my town to see anybody

Sure, it's great to use these things for entertainment purposes but still, I think people need to value real life more than their online lives still.
Mobile phones however... wow, I don't think I could live without mine. When I haven't left it lying around somewhere I'm practically glued to it

So yeah, whilst I don't think I could really live without technology (oh, how I'd miss my hair straighteners ) I think some people need to get a grip. Like, the people that sit and game for hours on end and ruin their lives through it.

Also, I believe some technology is needless. Like, Tyler mentioned the kindles in the opening post. In my opinion, paper books don't NEED to be replaced with 'e-books'. Reading stuff on a screen for a long time hurts my eyes 90% of the time. I'm all for becoming more and more dependant on technology if there's a point to it, but I don't see what was wrong with owning a paper copy of a book.

 

[Gaige]

I think personally it would be a test of character, not for humans as a whole, but every human separately.

Myself? I can't say I'd find it easy. In fact I'd find it an absolute nightmare. I don't often use the Internet for comparatively trivial reasons. I chat to people on here with similar interests, and like to think I've made a good few friends on here. If they were all suddenly taken away from me, it wouldn't exactly be easy.

Now, the first thing I'd do is gather everyone in the library. Books can be good information resources (after I smashed the automatic doors that were no longer working thanks to the technology fail. )` That done, I'd have time to put theory into practice.

Now with cooking in particular, it'd be trial and error and trial by fire to boot, and there'd really be no way to see how good/bad we are than to try. As for transport, you'd have to set up camp, really. Some would die, some would adapt. We're human. it's what we do.

 

[Rapture]

[/color][/font]Oh I never said these things are bad. Especially my car, don't know what I would do without it. We live 5 miles outside the city, so it would be a bit of a walk to carry groceries 10 miles. What I'm saying is, if by chance we didn't have the means of energy to actually run these machines, would humanity be able to cope? It's like quitting cold turkey, but instead of just one means of convenience, entertainment, or necessity, it's all of them.

I guess I chose to focus more on the good and bads. I think what I was trying to get at was that we've come so far, how would we ever be able to go back? I don't think we could ever completely quit cold turkey because the days would become so tedious and inefficient.

 

[Rydia]

About two years ago we had a bad wind storm with hurrican like winds, that knocked out the entire city's electricity for 3 days. We had no hot water, no stoves, most resturaunts were shut down as well as most radio stations. No TV, no internet, no lights ect... A lot of cell phone towers were also not working.

And people were MOODY, me included. They were irritated about cold showers and that they had no lights or TV. And they were bored and how no idea what to do with their time. When someone on my street got their electricity back (my uncle) EVERYONE wanted to go over there just to watch TV. My aunt and uncle are kind people and had a party for the neighborhood. I heard that GE got so many angry calls for those three days. I couldn't imagine going a full week with out those things. I think there would be riots in my city!

But if there were too be a disastor that would knock out the worlds electricty and sources of power we'd all be screwed XD

 

[StrungOut]

About two years ago we had a bad wind storm with hurrican like winds, that knocked out the entire city's electricity for 3 days. We had no hot water, no stoves, most resturaunts were shut down as well as most radio stations. No TV, no internet, no lights ect... A lot of cell phone towers were also not working.

I went through something quite similar...

We had a big ice storm in Quebec in 1998. It damaged most of the electrical lines in the Montreal region. We lost electricity for more than two weeks. Everything was paralysed for over a week. Everything was close, except some grocery sotore that were running on huge generators. The price of gas generators, oil lamps, wood, battery radios and even candles went up like crazy.

It was a bit of a surrealist period, because almost nobody had experienced something similar to that before.

There was a lot more theft during that period, since there was no alarm system working and people were away from their home.We all realized that we were very dependant towards technology. My grandmother had a hearth at her place, so my family was sleeping there. I actually have good memories about those two weeks because since we had nothing to do (except playing cards), we were mostly talking and telling each other stories. This period actually brought the family closer.

It was a relief when electricity finally came back and that we could return to our normal life.

 

[SaShman]

EDIT: Shit, this post turned out longer than I though it would. Hopefully it's worth reading


I think there are two ways of looking at this question: firstly there is the idea that technology still exists but for some reason it is unavailable to me eg: if I don't have money to pay the internet bill, electricity, petrol etc. In this case I don't think it would be too much of a hassle for me, I only got my drivers license a few months ago and I was coping just fine without it. Because I live in a (relatively) small city, I had little problems walking wherever I needed to go.

Additionally things like video games are mostly just cures for boredom, I'd probably be fitter if I didn't have a PC tbh

Of course not having a mobile would really be an inconvenience but, there are plenty of other ways to keep in contact with people.



The second way of interpreting the question is whether or not humanity as a whole would cope if (for some reason) all machinery, electrical things etc were to stop functioning. In this case I'd say society as we know it would most likely crumble.

Urban populations would probably be the worst off because they have become condensed into cities with little land that can be utilized for farming.

I've been reading a history book by Felipe Fernandez-Armnesto recently and in it he raises an argument that societies which hunt and forage tend to last longer than those which farm. He argues that this is because farming leads to a dramatic increase in food which results in a population boom which means that farming civilizations are forced to expand in order to sustain themselves which can lead to all sorts of troubles. Hunting and foraging societies on the other hand complement the ecosystem and the issue of over population is not as likely for them.

How does this relate to the topic at hand? The use of machinery in farming has dramatically increased the population to the point where the population simply could not be sustained without said technology.

Farmers could no longer rely on machinery to help them, which of course means that less food would be produced and harvested. There would also be the problem of distributing enough food to feed the inner city population without trucks etc..

The lack of food would cause unrest and this would probably end with governments being overthrown and a dramatic change to the structure of society.


tl;dr: The current structure of our societies would be fucked (for better or worse) without technology.

 

[Valvalis]

I like this but it's a bit paradoxical. I wonder if the Victorians ever asked what their lives would be like without their horse-drawn carts, their manual-labour in the mines, or their man-made candles? Possibly. At the time, they were at the height of "technology". Going back even further, if you're camping - imagine you didn't have a match! Or the materials to make a tent.

This is an interesting way to think about it I suppose technology is relative to one's time period, and humans have always been reliant on some sort of technology. Never thought about it this way before

In terms of being too reliant on the modern technology we have now, though, I think we are. I don't like the idea that if a computer crashes, all your information and records for certain things are lost--pen and paper should always be a backup for important things, especially photographs, bills, bank statements, and official documents. I mean what if someone went in and deleted all of your bank records, and you had no proof of all the money you'd had in there--then you'd be totally screwed. I think it's great what we can accomplish with advanced technology, but I also feel that there should always be a backup for everything.