Mar 20, 2003 12:34 PM
2237 Views
(Updated Mar 20, 2003 12:48 PM)
Technology doesn’t have any inherent boon or bane characteristics !...It depends on how it is used i.e. to what end.
A common analogy to this can be fire !
You can cook your food with the help of fire or you can burn your house with it. It depends on how you use it..what your intentions are....and also how wisely you use it.
So you can use nuclear weapons to destroy the world or use its powers to make energy that can light our lives.
It can be noted that in the past 100 yrs, mankind has made more technological advancements than in the last 5,000 years !...so in a sense we are witnessing a technology boom or an acceleration. This is unprecedented.
To tell a person that you can talk to another person on the other end of the globe instantaneously ...would have been a risky proposition and solely at you own risk of being called a 'madman' ! But now you a I do it everyday through internet.
Again, 500 years ago to tell a person that the earth is round could be a breach of religious beliefs...in the western world...( in Indian culture, scriptures, it was well known even thousands of years ago that earth is round and that it revolves round the sun )
All these medieval superstitions were buried by technology...and yet it is technology that today threatens our very existence....for what would happen if tomorrow the pakistani generals decide to nuke india after failing to get kashmir by force..the same technology could spell disaster !
It can be concluded that any technology has to power to do good as well as harm...so it depends on us how we use it.
This is true even in case of technologies that are meant for beneficial purposes....like if we do not properly follow the procedure of taking antibiotics then, the same can become ineffective and might give resistance to the virus/bacteria against whom it is suppose to work.
Similarly , a doctor performing an operation remotely from his office in Los Angelis via satellite connection on a patient in Delhi, what would happen if suddenly the sat link breaks during a delicate procedure ?
For that matter, what would happen if during a sun storm, the satellites in the orbit get disrupted....all our telecommunications, internet, electricity, railway, defence, every thing would come to standstill !
The same rocket used in sending satellites to orbit or sending man to moon or mars can also be used as missile to deliver a thermonuclear device to destroy another country !
It has been widely claimed that a civilisation that existed about 11,000 years ago on an island continent in atlantic ocean between america and africa called 'Atlantis' flourished with technological capabilities comparable and probably superior to ours.
It is said that this civilisation perished due the adverse effects of testing of an experimental weapon far more powerful than the atom bomb.
The ruins of this civilisation is under water for thousands of years now...all that technology wasted for nothing !
Here we hope that our's will not be a similar end. We hope that we would use technology as a tool to better our lives and not to shorten it !
