[shahar2k]

The things you own end up owning you.

Is technology advancement, and our beliefs actually conrolling our lives? have they become so great that we are enslaved by our own constructs?
here's the big question: if you had the oppertunity to go back to basics, remove technology, and this entire framework we live in, would you? is it even possible?

I'm reserving my answer for now...

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Slide! - The penguin animal spirit

[nova]

i don't think we could remove all technology, considering its definition:

"technology: 1. a method, process, etc. for handling a specific technical problem. 2. applied science. 3. the system by which a society provides its members with those things needed or desired."

so, something like the wheel could be considered technology, or even a pencil (no.. don't ake it away!) or.. hehe.. carpet.

i don't think it's outright enslaving, because we've created things and tried to advance to solve our own problems. maybe sometimes when we depend on this easier way of getting things done to do something, and know no other way or want to use another path to solve our problem. pc tablets are an example. "no... my wacom doesn't work! now i can't create my art unless i use a mouse which barely functions.."

maybe that wasn't the best example. eh, i think you get my drift


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*nova
!

[This message has been edited by Nova (edited December 16, 2000).]

[Maruman]

mmm well yeah .. depends



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[url=]----PORN PHOTOSHOP AND 3DMAX----All you need for life-Digital CatGirl[/url]

[Spitfire]

Technology, religion and morality are a drug. You never really needed it to live, but once you embrace it, you suddenly DO need it, you're dependant on it.

[Silico]

...Drug...

you have described, in one word, what years of research will never decipher. absolute brilliance, spitfire...



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`~*Silico

[Ragnarok]

I think that going back to the basics would mean cold, hunger and death. I prefer a bit of technology...

[shahar2k]

you'r right by asking what I mean by technology, well here goes
technology (as opposed to "tools")is anything that cannot be made by one person by hand. maybe even anything more than two steps removed (can't be made with hand made tools)
things like microchips the internet, are all technology.
while the wheel can be made with nails and a hammer, and aren't too complex to really comprehend.

thing is, while I love being able to wake up in the morning start the comp, go online in a sec or two, and then type messages on a bulletin board for all to see, it does take time from basic human actions, things like meeting friends, physical activity are cut short more and more by activities which the human body was not naturally made for, and has not yet evolved to.

personally, I do think we have created an unescapable cocoon of technology around us, that in many ways was not made with the basic human considerations in mind.
while things like profit, and power were major factors in creating this world, things such as simple human needs were not

then again, perhaps ragnarok is right, and cold hunger and death will result from lack of tech. but I think that they are out there today too, and we just have a greater sepration between those who have it good, and those who have it bad.


in short, yes I would want to remove technology if only to see what would happen. something like moving out to a shack in the woods, living off your own handiwork is something I consider an Ideal life, which is prevented by my (technological) addictions.

[kig]

Embrace technology, for it is truly the only thing that can immortalize you. Live forever as information. Prepare to be assimilated.

Going back is not an option. It never has been, it never will be.

[Speve-o-matic]

I must be honest Shahar2k, I long for the same thing sometimes . . .

Living in the 'meat grinder' isn't that much fun.

Is technology really progress? Is technology part of evolution?

- Steve

[BrunnenG]

Naw, I'm too completely in love with tech to give it up. Plus it would mean saying hello to 30-40 year life spans and a whole lot of icky illnesses; although, we do create some pretty bad ones. hmmmm

Also, I've heard the whole...lack of human contact, machines dehumanize us...many times (not intending to belittle anyone with that) but it's seems to me that most times a bunch of humans get together for some contact something gets set on fire. I realise that's an extreme position. Some times people get together for great shows of humanity, but it doesn't take too great a shove to make things nuts.

So... I'll keep a little technology induced seperation. Maybe with enough technology we'll finally create those machines that the media's been warning us about that are smarter then us. Let them "enforce tranquilty" on the hairless apes.

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Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most

[DirtyDigger]

Technology makes us a bunch of lazy, whining, spoiled fools.

Want to see what happens when you have tech then take it away? Watch Mad Max again.



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"I Hear High Heels!" - DirtyDigger

[Spitfire]

Who needs a slick-dressed, sunglasses wearing, akimbo shooting, karate kicking, digital jackass with a faggy name (Neo) when you can have a mean cursing low tech motherfucker with a badass name (Mad Max)?

[Transcendence]

power to Mad Max. Or, you could have Ash from the Evil Dead series. Power to the boomstick.

[Dthind]

DirtyDigger,

I got to say, the Mad Max reference was too the point...

As to the 'drug' reference, we are all addicted in the modern world. We would die in the jungle without our drug. Or to be very Darwin about it... "only the strong would survive". Then what... look for the drug again.

I dunno...

[shahar2k]

it's not the strong, it's the fittest, there's a diffrence. even strength can be a downside.
thing is, we aren't obaying darwin anymore.
darwin's theory works only when the environment is a constant, or at least an external variable. humans have come to the point (at least on earth) where we create our environment, we no longer respond to the environmentt, but instead we change it to our needs.
this is the result of technology. but it disturbs something very basic. humans didn't live past 30-40 because they was no reason for them to live past that (breeding, and arguably raising children becomes a burden at that age) people had famine and hunger, and disease, but those with heart disease would die off, and those who were born sterile, or deformed would disapear from the genepool (statistically speaking)

instead we've created a world where illness is treated, not healed, and immunity to disease depends on your environment (did you get imunized or not) which in turn depends heavily on people's knowlege.

maybe it is a good thing. but I see it as a source of stagnation to people... although maybe, once we begin exploring space it'll be better, because in space, there are many elements we still cannot controll (variable gravity, radiation, and so on, might be the thing to bring the "frontier" back into the final frontier.)


anyways, that's my brainspill
then again, we can't change the world (no, you can't, forget all that school crap you learned, in the big picture you mean nothing) but at least we can understand our little corner of it.

[Ragnarok]

Talking about Darwin, he purposed the survival of the fittest as the method of the natural selection, but that's only one of the posible ways of evolution, because when you study the evolution of the species you discover that they aren't continue, there is a small period of adaptation and a long stasis period where nothing changes. Evolucionist are now trying to deal with that problem. There is a good book about that topic and some others called "The Third Culture".

[Bugscratch]

I don't want technology removed. Even if you would remove it, you'd have to remove the knowledge of the existence of technology as well, otherwise most people would go insane or start civil wars. (Is war possible without technology ? Another question)
But still, even if the knowledge of technology were removed I wouldn't want it removed. I have grown too accustomed of technology to live without it. And removing technology would remove too much contact to people.... There's a lot of friends whom I would not know without the existence of technology. So I am thankful for technology.

But I see the problems of technology. I see the internet becoming more and more of a problem. I mean it's really great, I love it because it offers such a wealth of information and the contact to people around the world. But you have to know how to use it. Friends you have online won't go out for a beer on weekends, and can't offer decent help when you've got problems. Contact with real humans is a basic need of man. Online friends are too anonymous to satisfy that need.

[edit]That's also something I like about this forum. People here seem to be pretty real, there's not a lot of "geeks" here. Maybe that's because we're artists. With artistry there comes a sense of aesthetics, which connects you to real world people. But that's really another topic.
Well I've been on other forums, where there were nothing but geeks, they were probably sitting there with the front page of the forum open in Internet Explorer, hitting "Reload" all the time hoping for some new messages from their "friends". [/edit]

-bugscratch

[This message has been edited by Bugscratch (edited December 17, 2000).]

[shahar2k]

thanks ragnarok, I'd like to hear more about that... I didn't rally know about that....

[shahar2k]

but my question really isn't what has happened, or how to do it. my question is, if you could go back to a simpler life would you do it. and by eliminating technology all I really mean is bringing people down to the level where everything that is created can be made with simple tools... or even easier, if you had a chance to go unibmber style into the mountains away from the city and just plain over consumerized, super busy world we have, would you? would you be willing to give up the internet for lack of stress? and would it be beneficial?

[Ben Barker]

There are instances of people from technologically dependant cultures, like America, or the UK, getting stranded in some hostile, primal situation, doing everything right and surviving. Then some people just freak out and die.
Technology is the application of science. Science was around long before the Scientific Method was, so that includes the wheel, the bow & arrow, etc.
If you wanted to shut down "modern" things, you could just take out the powerplants and it would all be over.

[Ben Barker]

No. My life is much easier with technology. The stress of my boss calling me on a cell phone constantly (for example) is far better than the stress of "oh shit, what am I going to eat this winter?".

[Ragnarok]

That's for you shahar :
Actually there are two ways of explaining the way evolution works. Nobody doubts the existence of evolution and natural selection, but the problem is how it acts, when and where.
#1- Punctuated equilibrium (sp?). This theory was explained at 1978 and called: "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm" (Stephen Jay Gould and Dick Lewontin). When it was written many people thought that any life being's characteristic was produced by evolution and everything came from a purpose. This theory says, basically, that when evolution "produces" a new feature many others appear that haven't been selected, they simply are there, that's the point with the simil of the San Marco cathedral.
But this theory doesn't solve the original problem.
#2- Richard Dawkins proposed when he wrote "The Egoist Gen" that we are just vehicles of the genes. They want to survive, so they build us to survive. When a new feature is good, the genes survive and can produce more genes. That's just a simplification that can't solve everything, but can explain the short periods of adaptation.

Another problem is evolution isn't continues, there are short adaption periods and long periods of nonevolution. Scientist are looking for ways of explaining this.
I'm reading a book about that and when I finish the evolution part I may post something more, by now this is the mainstream.

-Ragnarok

PS: Sorry for my bad english.

[Starseed]

Here are my comments to your comments:

First, great discussion, you guys have a nice little culture going on here in the Random Musings dark wing of the castle on the sijun rock.

Kig - the Borg welcomes you.

Ragnarok - Everything you've brought up sounds really interesting, and thanks for posting up the name of that book. And, I love when Europeans apologise their bad english, when their english is 10x better than most americans' english.

After not giving the ideas you've put forth more than a few minutes thought, I think I agree with all of them. I think I will agree with them later too.

shahar2k - great topic, and your responses along the way are seem to really be helping it progress . . . I hope this topic doesn't die any time soon.


I don't speak from any philosophy/evolution educated position so it's just (for the most part) ignorant thoughts. Can we live without technology? I don't know if I had really ever considered it until I saw a foreign film, Spanish I think, whose title I forget. It dealt with a wealthy woman and a servant from a yacht being marooned on an island. It's about this man and this woman, and their relationship growing over time on this island where they have accepted that they will probably never be rescued. The woman is initially a bitch, condescending to the man as he was her servant, and approaching life on the island the same way she would on her yacht - except a lot of things are missing on the island that were simply provided to her in here extravagant lifestyle before. After a couple days this sets in for her when she is hungry, thirsty, disheveled and dirty. She's spent two days without toilet paper.

In the meantime, the servant man had instantly assessed his situation and began working to make sure his basic needs were met: food, water, shelter. He knew how to hunt and fish (fashioned a fishing pole) and he had found water that he could transport to his new abode. He seems almost comfortable in his new unexpected predicament and he seems to adjust fairly seamlessly psychologically. Also, considering what he was doing for work before, and being poor, living a very simple life, this transition wasn't great for him.

What unfolds is the contrast between a man who adapts, and a woman, who does not adapt (for the time being, at least). As she gets desperate for food, she watches the man eat his cooked fish comfortably in the shade. He is still not on speaking terms with her and holds a grudge from her nasty treatment on the yacht. So, the woman has to swollow her pride for the only thing that would make her - her life. She had to eat to live, so condensing the story, she begins to do his laundry by hand, prepare food, and clean their little den. He continues to only do the things that he knows the woman cannot do, like hunt for life-sustaining small rodents and fish, and relaxes while she does the rest. She is steaming with rage, resenting this treatment, not only that she is doing more than he is, but that she is doing anything at all.

But life goes on, and this natural hierarchy and distribution of work becomes normal and she even grows to enjoy it. They are both contributing what they can do best to their mutual benefit and survival. Eventually, the two become intimate (very reluctantly for the woman) and we see that she has hidden a great love for this man. A love that came from what was genuinely hate in the beginning. Maybe his role as a provider and the whole situation they shared that just seemed to click with the humanity in her. Or maybe just the tremendous suppressed sex-drive boiling over. Either or, it comes to a point when they see a ship on the horizon one day, a large ocean liner, and she tells him about it. She asks if they should try to signal it or let it pass and live in their little eden here on the island.

The idea that she would give up what she knew she could have - a great lifestyle by all accounts in luxury on the 'outside' - for this simple existence on the island with just one other human being . . .

I believed it. I believed that a person like her could come to a point where she would be more fulfilled by a lifestyle and environment utterly basic. The movie goes on to have them rescued (man wants to because she and he are inseperable, even on the outside, she tells him) . . . and on to an ending that . . . that I didn't like. It was the hardest ending to play out, one where she is taken back by the other lifestyle, almost reluctantly because she does love this man and the life they had on the island. But she is swept back into her normal life. The servant man had a wife and numerous little brats at home living in poverty. The wife was ecstatic to see him. He was not . . . and I can't remember if he killed himself or just left heading no where.

This was the scenario that came to my mind when you described the removal of technology and if we could cope. I think of the rich woman, and her technology being the wealth and what it provided that she was used to living with. She gave it up (reluctantly and by force at first) but after breaking her former ways of thinking, and concepts of life, and how happiness could be so purely and simply derived . . . she was euphoric.

Our ties to technology seem all-encompassing - I think so too. They seem that way, and to take the mindset we live in now in 'civilization', and to supplant it unchanged in 'un-civilization' would logically and just viscerally feel impossible. It seems we couldn't handle it. The tough among us who use the illusion of strength as their defense against things like this, saying "I wouldn't be affected, I would be fine if I were marooned with nothing by trees, sand, water, and animals and insects around me" would probably be kidding themselves. They would adjust though, just like those who weren't kidding themselves.

I sincerely believe, that humans could be put in any environment, and as long as their basic needs are attainable through thier surroundings, they could not only survive, but learn to enjoy the little 'highlights' and the little struggle to avoid the little 'downers' that life would deal them. Any surrounding would create a spectrum of feelings. There would emerge things that we valued most, that were most pleasurable on this spectrum of experiences, possessions, relationships, etc. And there would be the things on the bottom of the spectrum that would become what we detest or fear as pure evil.

If your quesiton is if we would go insane and not be able to cope without technology, I think after adjustment (however long) we would learn not just to cope, but to enjoy it every bit as much, or more than our current circumstance.

But . . . the way I describe this, I know it almost sounds like I'm making the simple life to be the better one. The technolgoy becoming just an added superficial addition to our lives that only makes our lives better in small increments that requires a new superior superficial addition (new technology) on a regular basis with steadily increasing doses to maintain the artificial enjoyment.

Though that makes sense to me logically, I think technology becomes more than that in the end. Technology now just seems to be making little baby stems with every new innovation, getting us a little closer to something. I think eventually, we'll look at technology more like we do nature. It's just there. Its just like how people are describing what the internet will be like in 50 years. It will just be there, we wouldn't even think of where we are getting our information, our music, our movies, our postcards, our directions to the hotel. We just get it, because it is our human right to have information at our disposal whenever and wherever we like. We don't question whether there will be the required amount of oxygen to sustain our normal breathing every time we inhale. So in the end, technology (I dont just mean the internet) will operate seamlessly with our lifes. I'm sure you've all had the same thought, in some form or another.

A really sci-fi image of our next "stage" of being has been on my mind lately. Almost a la Matrix. But I didn't arrive at the image from the Matrix. That transition between having to worry about the physical demands of our body and living thinking only about the ideas, concepts, images, etc within our heads. I guess what I picture is similar to sci-fi renditions of people with little tubes in them on freaky chairs looking very dead. Because, think, food and water intake is easy - intravenous. Thats not very intrusive. But think about waste products and their collection. Think about music atrophy and the electronic pulses that are constantly sent through most major muscles just to keep us from rotting to nothingness. We wouldn't have to care about minor muscles bucause they would have no use for them (facial muscles for expression, small minor muscles responsible for slight motor function variations like in the fingers, the neck, the stomack for twisting, etc.). So imagine all of our muscles being hooked up to little pads emiting electronic pulses, kind of like those infomercial products except all over your body. The body is regularly rotated through 360 degrees for blood flow (and probably increasing flow to brain where almost all activity is now taking place).

Anyway, the whole thing seems kind of creepy, but lately it just seems to make so much damn sense. Can't you see the rich getting this first, because it will cost so much to run it for the rest of their lives? It would require paying for all the initial research that had gone into making the robots that operate it, and the actual procedure, etc. They would be only who could afford to use it after the test subjects confirm that it isn't going to kill them. But the payoff is worth it because they can make what they want of their lives -exactly. If they want challenge, they can implement that. They could start to live in worlds that grow from imagination over years, centuries, where they have forgotten what the earth even looks like, or never knew. They have no concept of gravity, no concept of so many things. It would open the door to that revolutionary thinking that you could never have when you live in this world where we still all think of the same basic things, then a few original thoughts about this and that and who we are and what we like in comparison to what this person likes. . . blah.

Sounds straight from the twilight zone, and I think this has got kinda long.

-mt

PS. Anyone (Spaniards?) recognise the movie I was describing?

PPS. If you got this far, what do you think of this? Has it been bugging you too?

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everything is relative

[This message has been edited by Starseed (edited December 24, 2000).]

[Ragnarok]

I think you are right, and that story exists, but I can't remember if it was spanish, or a book or what.
I have to help preparing tonight dinner (it's 18:27 now) so I'm replying you tomorrow.

[Bradford]

How far are you talking about going "back"? I think the big technology boom was the beggining of the 20th century. Ive always wondered about this topic being created. I do not believe in going back, because to me technology is all apart of the human evolutionary process. Has technology made us weaker? In some ways yes, im referring to if you were without certain forms of technological advancements, you'd be stripped of survival. Because We've come to rely on technology so much it's like an organ.

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[email protected]
icq#:3704871

[DirtyDigger]

Starseed is correct in his assertion that humans will adapt to almost any type of climate. After all humans are on all continents. Vikings and Eskimos dealt with cold climates, aztecs and africans have dealt with tropical and desert existances in extreme temperature ranges.

There are of course limitations. Humans will naturally congregate to more moderate and fruitful climates when discovered, as the Vikings did.

Day to day existances are also adapted to. A teenager in the US today has no idea what it was like without computers everywhere. When was the last time you went to an airport and were amazed they had the flight information on a CRT screen? We take it for granted for sure.

The ancient Roman nobles were very satisfied with their lives in their housing. Having grand feasts. There are not many (if any at all) existing documents of Roman nobles bitching and complaining about their houses.

Adapting is done over time. If you've gone the route of being semi-poor in a smaller house and then being in a huge home you will see the difference. You take it all for granted within a week. Ever gone from having a beat down car to having a new one? You have a self-satisfaction with your new car for a week or so. Then afer that you don't sit there and gloat over it...you just start yelling about traffic again.

So, yes, over a period of weeks on a deserted island when you're starving and finally you nab that boar it is going to taste mighty fine after eating fish for weeks on end. You will have the same satisfaction level as you would getting a new car. The only change is the environment you are living in and the 'glass ceiling' of that environment that you can reach. After all, by yourself on a deserted island you can only develop so much of a cushy existance whereas in the modern culture with many others producing goods for you, you can have quite a decent existance.

The feeling of satisfaction is only moderated by your knowledge of what you don't have and how envious of a person you are. If you are very envious of others and someone is making 250k for the same quality of work that you are producing, you are not going to be satisfied at all... however if you are that person making 250k then you are satisfied.

Julius Caesar once wept at a statue of Alexander the Great.

here is an excerpt as found at:
http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/caesar.html

"Caesar served in 63 BC as a quaestor in Spain, where in Cadiz he is said to have broken down and wept in front of a statue of Alexander the Great, realizing that where Alexander had conquered most of the known world at thirty, Caesar at that age was merely seen as a dandy who had squandered his wife's fortunes as well as his own."

In reality after your basic needs are met you, as a human, look to further yourself beyond where you are currently at. Whether that is becoming a better artist or finishing a degree, self-satisfaction comes down to feeling that your existance has a meaning far beyond processing food into waste.



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"I Hear High Heels!" - DirtyDigger

[Spitfire]

everything is not going to be okay


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Everything is not going to be Okay.

[Ragnarok]

Spitfire, do you change your signature every week?

I think there is an error in your "theory". Yes, we adapt to a better quality of life very fast, but when we go to a worse one, we don't adapt that fine. In fact you will always remember there was a better life you don't have anymore.
If we were put in an island we would complain and think it was a shit for months, and we would remember our better life for years.

[shahar2k]

I've been away from this thread for a while, first things first:
starseed, thanks, (and I thought I had long responses)
Ragnarok: I think there are many ways that we could look at evolution, untill now, what I've been refering to is the physical type, where the human form evolves through selective breeding, however another way we could look at our own evolution is through the social perspective, our habits, tools, and environment aren't really that seprate from ourselves. we create our own little microcosm (little universe)which we then inhabit, but even with that, our creations become part of us, and as such, "evolve" with us, as useless creations are not re-created. can you imagine today going to a doctor to get your skull drilled for a headache? or perhaps getting your daughter sold to another family for the honors of weding their son? no, because those habits have become... counter productive, for lack of a better term, they have "evolved" out of our social Identity, as well as many other habits and objects. so in a way, we could say that the human animal has evolved into the human "being" by including it's own surounding into it's own evolution.
what am I babeling about you say? I'll tell you, we have become more than nature, I think that when people talk about transcending nature, becoming more than common creatures, they don't realize it, but we have allready, we humans have created a world, which has surpassed the individual, we no longer are *a* human, we are now humanity. inseperable from our technology, we've become part of it, as much as it is part of us.
which goes back to the original question and adds to it, is it so great that we've become active in our evolution? and will this eventually cause us, the biological part, to evolve out of our own society? that's why I'm wondering, is technology, overall really that great.

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maybe I'm just paranoid, maybe it's you!