Forums → WEPR → Is technology a good thing?

And as for modern technology, would we have car accidents without cars?

Mining used to be one of the most dangerous professions, but now it has been transformed, at least in the US (in other countries it's still dangerous, but not to the same degree).

I'm asking "are we really better off because of all these things like computers, TVs, 120mph land travel, etc.

Well, having a computer / TV is a choice. You can choose not to have one or choose not to watch it. But people choose to watch them, thus showing that they WANT to watch it - they believe it is conducive to their happiness.

If we live longer, there are more of us, which brings overpopulation and starvation, which causes third world countries.

1st objection - overpopulation and starvation do not create third world countries - a weak economy that is there creates overpopulation and starvation, and this will be fixed and and if these countries industrialize.
2nd objection - Population is self-correcting. It is a very prevalent view that we need to actively curb the population, but such proponents do not understand the nature of populations - if there are too many individuals and not enough resources, then individuals will die off, and the population will correct itself, and the species as a whole may end up better off as before, with the "weaker" genes being "selected out." Now understand this is from a purely ecological standpoint, but I'm explaining a viewpoint that is better than genocide, which people in the other thread (should population be reduced or something like that) have proposed.
3rd objection - You wrote: "Tell me which person does more: the average pioneer, or the average American citizen?" How do you measure "doing more" - is it by their output; the end result? If not, then explain how.

Pioneers cleared the frontier. Americans today sit on the couch.

Americans have jobs and are involved with paving roads and building cities. Pioneers rode around for months on various trails so they could just cut down a bunch of trees. The American does more in this scenario.

The fallacy here is that you are reducing it to something far too simple. Americans don't spend all their waking hours sitting on a couch. Also, by the standards of living nowadays, Americans must contribute more to other people and themselves, because they have easier lives.

To your first objection: So we fix the problem by forcing everyone else into what we're doing? I mean, I know they're suffering and all, but easy isn't always better. If everything is easy, then what's the point in doing anything?

No - coercion is not the solution. Coercion is the reason they are third-world countries. Without government interference, they would establish a free market and create prosperity.

To your second objection, I assume you basically say that we can fix population problems by waiting for them to decline. How do you know that we won't just keep up the steady population rate despite reduced resources?

If so, then we will have enough resources to survive, so I don't see what's wrong with that.

Please don't go all out and slam me with my own words like I have a feeling you'll do soon, I really don't know entirely what I'm doing.

Don't worry...there's sort of a learning curve with all this stuff. And maybe you'll learn something along the way...

I might get flamed to a crisp for this, but is technology necessarily a good thing?

I don't see how it might be a bad thing, really.

Like, just think: Two hundred years ago, the pioneers built log cabins with the bare minimum of tools, and cut down the trees themselves.

Been talking to your grandparents a lot? Just kidding.
You act like it's a bad thing that we have improved the quality of our lives. We no longer need to build log cabins, we've upgraded to houses with insulation, carpeting, etc. We no longer have to cut down the trees ourselves, we have machines to do that. The purpose of technology is to make our lives easier, and that is exactly what it is doing. I don't see how our lives being easier to live could possibly be a bad thing. Perhaps you could explain your point further?

Please don't go all out and slam me with my own words like I have a feeling you'll do soon, I really don't know entirely what I'm doing.

Dude, it is a learning process. No one is quite sure what they are doing (besides me) and it will take time to get to know the ropes.

Also, to answer your first question, technology, when defined like you have defined it, is most certainly a almost exclusivly bad thing. For ourselves and for the globe.

The advancement of medicines is making people live longer and have more kids. This creates a thing called "Holy Crap, There Are Way to Many People on the Planet." Or, to use more scientific terminology it creates an overabundent population of life. Simply put, with the creation of more tecnology, people are taking over the entire planet, and destroying it slowly as we go. The more people, the more taxing life is to the planet, when the planet is finally completly exhausted of raw materials, we all die, just because we can't cope with barbarity any more. It weakens us, makes us less strong in an anamalistic world and really, what are we but highly esteemed animals anyway?

If one compares high tech places (Japan, USA, Europe etc) and places with very little technology (Most of the middle east, just about every African country), the death rate, infant mortality rate, etc will be higher in the latter but the standard of living is higher in the former.

But a possible answer to this is that correlation (what you have given) is not necessarily causation.

In which case they would form a government that worked for them, which may or may not be free market (how do you know free market is the best in every scenario?)

I understand your skepticism, but I've written at length about this kind of things to the forums. I'll try to dig up some links for you...

The following is quoted from previous threads. I have not "quoted" them here, because it italicizes, and that's annoying to read...

Government spending money - it "stimulates" the economy more if they don't spend the money at all. It's fallacious to look at the amount of money spent, but instead, you have to look at capital.

The value of money is dependent on how people value money, which itself is dependent on the supply of money and the amount of goods buyable with money. Ultimately, the economy itself depends not on the money itself, but on the goods that are produced.

We'll look at 3 scenarios - Government spends the money, Government burns the money, Government taxes less.

Scenario 1 - Government spends the money

If the government spends the money, they must choose where to spend the money. Now, understand how the free market works - by companies competing with one another, there is competition, and the most able company - the one that is the most able to engage in mutually beneficial trades with consumers is the one that will be victorious.

Government spending, however, upsets the mutually beneficial trades between consumer and company by helping one particular company - giving it an unfair advantage over the other companies. Thus, certain companies may be favored that are more inefficient at satisfying the consumer (through mutually beneficial trades) than other companies because of government sponsorship.

Now let's look at scenario 2.

Scenario 2 - Government Burns the Money

It looks awful - the government is burning the money! However, notice that the government is - 1. Decreasing the supply of money, and 2. Not affecting the amount of goods in the country. They are doing nothing but affecting inflation. In fact, they are making everyone else's money worth more!

Obviously, severe deflation, like in the Great Depression can have a negative impact, especially if a person is at a constant income or making constant payments over several years. However, notice that you're not hurting the economy directly - you're only making everyone else's money be worth more.

Scenario 3 - Government taxes less

If the government taxes less, then the government will have a smaller share of capital, meaning that people will have a relatively larger share of capital. Because of this, people will be able to have certain trades that they would not have had otherwise. Through free trade, they will be able to "stimulate" the economy in a more efficient way.

1. People will pursue what they pursue (basically, to say that people will do anything else, like &quoteople should buy healthcare" is false, OR, if it is true, then it confuses correlation with causation).
1A. People will not pursue that which they believe is bad for them - they choose what they want for their own lives out of their own choice.
2. Government spending requires money to have come from somewhere. Wherever this money originated, it would have been used for that person's benefit the best way they saw it.
2A. Thus, government spending ignores that which is not seen, and it results in a net negative happiness.

Alternate ending:

3. Government spending requires coercion to achieve its end, as it is something people will not do voluntarily - otherwise, there would be no "need" for government intervention.
4. Thus, through coercion, you interfere with 1A. You interfere with a person pursuing what they want, and thus create negative happiness by forcing a particular government policy.

A response by aknerd:

Okay, I have many problems with your argument here. But, in the spirit of being concise and understandable, I'm just going to point out a few flaws.

You're trying to write a logical proof that states all government spending is unjustified. You make logical points, so good job there. BUT you don't prove anything, ironically for the very same reasons that you critique the government for. You "ignore that which is not seen".

The jump from &quoteople will act in their best interest" to "government spending gets in the way of this action" is a leap of faith.

Because, while it is logical that people want to act in their best interest, you never prove that people are capable of these actions.

Furthermore, you never never prove that people are capable of knowing what they want.

You never prove that the government can't act in someone's self interest better than that person can.

In order to prove that government spending ALWAYS results in net negative happiness, you must prove all of these things. I'm not saying one can't prove them, just that you definitely have not.

NoName started a very interesting thread on a few of these subjects a while back, you should check it out if you want to improve your &quotroof".

(You'll have to find the thread yourself...)

ps: before you start arguing with me personally on these issues, I'm just pointing out holes in your argument, not stating my position on these issues.

My response:

ps: before you start arguing with me personally on these issues, I'm just pointing out holes in your argument, not stating my position on these issues.

I'm want to improve the argument. I'm glad that you are critiquing it, because I just wrote it out once, and so it needs to be refined a bit...

The jump from &quoteople will act in their best interest" to "government spending gets in the way of this action" is a leap of faith.

I agree that this needs to be expressed more clearly - the reason that government spending gets in the way of this action is that gov. spending requires coercion to be enacted, thus interfering with what would have occurred. If I can find a better way to express this idea...

Because, while it is logical that people want to act in their best interest, you never prove that people are capable of these actions.

This argument caught me off guard for a minute. However, this argument simply justifies government spending for that which benefits people as a whole, - bla...

I'm trying to explain this: Say the military or police actions as a whole are worth $100 (choosing a random number) to a person. But even if he were given the choice, he would not simply "donate" $100 to the military / police force, because the difference that money will make is negligible, and thus he will not benefit from his investment at all. Because of this, many people will not benefit from a potentially beneficial investment. This is an example where people are not capable of acting in their best interest alone - but as a whole, they would benefit.

However, with all other aspects of trade, these can arguably be solved by the private sector better than by the public sector. In addition, this argument is especially against that government spending which is designed to "stimulate the economy."

Furthermore, you never never prove that people are capable of knowing what they want.

This is postulated. If any people can think of a way to suggest / demonstrate / prove / refute this, then please do so.

You never prove that the government can't act in someone's self interest better than that person can.

If people know what they want, and if these people are capable of these actions, then the government cannot act in someone's self-interest better than that person can.

Ideally, these would be included in the proof itself, but I can append this as a responses (to the &quotroof&quot and defenses (of the &quotroof&quot.

Looking over it all, should I have made links instead?

Sources:
http://armorgames.com/community/thread/6998551/taxes/page/1 (from this point onward)
http://armorgames.com/community/thread/7003649/predict-what-will-happen-to-our-country-if-we-keep-spending-money/page/3 (from this point onward)

it's overall impact is neutral.

I feel like we've adequately demonstrated that technology is a positive force in our society.

When I say technology, I'm not referring to the entire definition, as I assumed that people wouldn't whack me about that. I mean technology like computers, microchips, fuel burning, etc. And think, also, about the environmental impact, and other things. And would those lives need to be saved in the first place had we not invented that technology?

So what just the technology of the past 100 year? This seems very arbitrary and one sided in how your defining it.

-Less social interaction

In many ways we have more social interaction. Just the methods in how we interact have changed.

-More damage to the environment

There are many things coming out that are helping to reduce our damage to the environment.

-Higher demands for necessities (food, shelter, etc.)

This has less to do with technological advancement and more to do with increases in populations. However technological advancements do play a part in allowing for this increase.

-less willpower or physical strength

I don't know about the less willpower part, this seems to be remaining relatively the same. We have just become more aware of our lack of willpower thanks to the increase in which we can access information. As for less physical strength, being physically stronger isn't as necessary anymore.

-less "vital" knowledge, i.e. how to build a fire

Again this "vital knowledge" really isn't all that vital now a days. How many times do you run into the need to make a fire with sticks or a bow in your day to day life?

-less challenge

I'm not sure if this should count as entirely a bad thing. All this shows is we have overcome those challenges that we once faced.

There's just no more challenge to life any more if we always use the tech in everything.

There are still challenges in life, those challenges just aren't the same as we once had. But as stated this isn't entirely a bad thing.

This creates a thing called "Holy Crap, There Are Way to Many People on the Planet."

Also don't forget that with further advancements we may just be able to over come this issue.

Relying on technology is a problem if the technology fails.

That's not really an argument against technology anymore then saying something like "relying on our muscles is a problem if they give out".

If your computer blue-screens/crashes, then you can't "work" that day.

Ignoring that many wouldn't have a job in the first place if it wasn't for computers.

If a new bug comes along that we can't vaccine, it becomes an epidemic.

Which could and has happened anyway without technology, at least with the medical advancements we stand a chance at eventually finding a vaccine.

And then we can only control the outcome.

The use of technology is how we control the outcome, it's how we have always controlled the outcome.