It’s amazing the conversations that can happen when we’re on time…
Published by
Dave
2 Comments
Dave, I’m upping the ante….way up, with this comment. I’m skipping over many years, maybe even a century and getting right to the endgame. Here are two websites that express my concerns about technology, though, I admit to being fascinated with it, not for the conveniences it affords us but for the sheer power and knowledge it lets loose. This is how one scientist (who helped develop nuclear weapons) put it,
“I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it’s there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles – this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds” Freeman Dyson quoted in “The Day After Trinity”
Cheryl, I appreciate your concern and certainly track the logic behind at some level…although, to be honest, that last website in your comment smacks of undocumented conspiracy theory to me…and the point of my post wasn’t really to cover the same ground as “I, Robot.”
The theological implications are huge for this conuundrum, however, and I think you’ve hit on that. Do we abandon research into cures for cancer? I don’t think any reasonable person would answer yes to that. The tension we walk is this: we were created as creators, and thus I think it is natural for us to cover brave new territory and to push our limits. I think that is ultimately safe, because there is, at the end of the day, a line which we will not be able to cross.
I fear more the loss of appreciation for the miraculous. The more we convince ourselves that we create the miracles, the less we will look for them around us. And we certainly don’t need any more spiritual apathy in our culture.
Dave, I’m upping the ante….way up, with this comment. I’m skipping over many years, maybe even a century and getting right to the endgame. Here are two websites that express my concerns about technology, though, I admit to being fascinated with it, not for the conveniences it affords us but for the sheer power and knowledge it lets loose. This is how one scientist (who helped develop nuclear weapons) put it,
“I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it’s there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles – this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds”
Freeman Dyson quoted in “The Day After Trinity”
Some days I feel overcome,
Cheryl
http://www.wired.com/wired/
archive/8.04/joy_pr.html#8
http://www.tecsoc.org/innovate/focusbilljoy.htm
Cheryl, I appreciate your concern and certainly track the logic behind at some level…although, to be honest, that last website in your comment smacks of undocumented conspiracy theory to me…and the point of my post wasn’t really to cover the same ground as “I, Robot.”
The theological implications are huge for this conuundrum, however, and I think you’ve hit on that. Do we abandon research into cures for cancer? I don’t think any reasonable person would answer yes to that. The tension we walk is this: we were created as creators, and thus I think it is natural for us to cover brave new territory and to push our limits. I think that is ultimately safe, because there is, at the end of the day, a line which we will not be able to cross.
I fear more the loss of appreciation for the miraculous. The more we convince ourselves that we create the miracles, the less we will look for them around us. And we certainly don’t need any more spiritual apathy in our culture.