Like H.A.L. from '2001: A Space Oddysey'

Technology is undoubtedly a potentially dangerous, and the least widely acknowledged, double-edged sword. It has empowered me to check my email via my iPhone in places where I once would have never fathomed, but it has also permitted me to accidentally phone my mother in a social setting and subsequently leave an embarrassing and highly incriminating voicemail. I would expand the first statement above to include not only the U.S. but what is, in a blanketed understanding, Western society. Not only do other nations wish to emulate Western technological progress, but encourage it through the campaigns of their companies. Other nations’ aspirations to further develop in the fashion of the United States are problematic to our global inability to acknowledge how profoundly dangerous technology can be.

Technology does have the potential to be our avenue to salvation, but only if embraced in a very particular way. The most obvious detriment to the planet in the way of technology is the automobile. In order to curb the constant effects of our country’s addiction to transportation (i.e. oil), the automobile industry must be heavily regulated. However, capitalist pressure does an efficient job to ensure this will not happen anytime soon. To think idealistically, I would advocate for government regulation of all technological industries. For example, if the government were to start funding research of alternative technologies – in a fashion more closely resembling government research versus subsidization of the private sector to conduct research – the technologies could be made more accessible than if they were marketed in the free market. Economic theory states that competition drives technological development, among other things, but I personally also believe that a conscientious acknowledgment of the drastic nature of the situation would prove to incentivize technological development more than enough. If the government more heavily regulated the technology sector, by way of taxation and other forms intervention, it would have more resources to be able to hire the best and brightest in the field. This probably resonates with communism (or even heavy-handing socialism), an idea that I’m not afraid to consider but overarchingly a conversation that is not being held. In addition to the firm grip on policy held by the automobile and oil lobbies, the two party system perpetuates the lasting nature of our economic system.

I concede that technology can play a role in resolving the deterioration of the planet, but it can also continue to play its primary role as a negative factor. One idea that kept recurring while I wrote this response was the metaphor of digging a hole with a shovel – you wouldn’t use the same shovel to get out of the hole you’ve dug yourself in, now would you? I look forward to everyone else’s insight.