Technology has helped humans throughout history to solve problems, make discoveries, and adapt to their environments. However, by fostering a growing obsession with technology, humans can potentially leave problems that do not have technical solutions unaddressed. This problem stems from too much emphasis on technology as a cure all for our problems and too little focus on how human values contribute to world issues. This potential for distraction was illustrated by Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl. The people in the book become so caught up with genetically engineering foods, animals, and people and finding new technology that they fail to solve their problems and create new ones in the process. Though the case in the book may be exaggerated, it still highlights the potential for technological obsession to solve some problems while concealing social, political, and environmental issues.
The search for technical solutions to our problems can leave many social issues unaddressed. Some components of these issues cannot be resolved using technology but must be considered in order to solve many of our larger issues. Because the people in the book were so fixated with using genetically modified animals and humans for inexpensive labor, they failed to fix many of their preexisting social problems. For example, the people still had social issues including unfair labor laws, poverty, and racial discrimination between the Thai and Yellow Card people. In addition, because of their new engineering technology, there are strong divisions between unmodified humans and the genetically modified New People. Though we have many of these issues today, the people in the book do not even try to address them and instead focus almost exclusively on technological innovation. This highlights how over-dependence on technology can lead to obsession and further problems. An example of this today would be the development of expensive air purification technology that developing countries cannot afford to purchase. Though the technology could help solve the issue, solely focusing on the development of the technology without consideration for social and economic factors could impede progress on the issue as a whole.
Complete focus on technological innovation can also leave issues related to political corruption and environmental destruction unadressed. In the book, because technological development was prioritized, GM companies were highly connected to the political sector. As a result, there was corruption in all levels of the society. This would be comparable to today's connection between oil companies and the government. Government prioritization of energy production promotes technological innovation and development. However, in Bacigalupi's book, the people do nothing to address the rampant corruption in their government and industries and instead chase their overarching goal of increasing technological innovation. This demonstrates how corruption can go unaddressed when only technological innovation is prioritized as it is in the novel. Also, the people in The Windup Girl are so focused on producing and storing energy that they left many environmental concerns unaddressed. They continue to abuse animals in the pursuit of more efficient technology and production. This demonstrates that with all of their development, the people still fostered an anthropocentric view of sentient creatures. In addition, as evidenced by Emiko's overheating, they are still facing several climate issues. These issues took a backseat as their obsession with technological innovation increased.
It is great to develop technology for human innovation. However, this should not be done at the expense of other nontechnical issues. Otherwise, technology only serves as a distraction and cover for other pressing world issues. Using technology may help us solve some of our problems to a certain extent. However, viewing technology and a cure for all of our problems will not change human attitudes that impede progress.
Your post is similar to mine in that it covers how technology can become harmful in the future. This also goes into the idea of how this society is using a reactive approach to everything. Yes, technology can be very helpful in solving many of our problems, but also has a way of simply covering up problems, or creating unforeseen problems. However, I also feel that the people in this society were very selfish and greedy and even without technology it would still be very corrupt.
ReplyDeleteI understand your point on how relying on technological innovations could give excessive amount of power to these sectors, creating more corruption within society. However, the social problems that were created within the novel cannot solely be blamed on technological advances. The social divisions and inequality, I think, stems because of human inherent flaws. If humans were inherently altruistic, the technological innovations could have been effectively used without creating inequalities and increasing social grievances. Techonological innovations could, like you have suggested, be instrumental in helping people achieve their self-interested goals.
ReplyDeleteI agree that technology is sometimes more harmful than good if used in the wrong way, but do you think that the society in the book over dramatized what would happen if the world really did come to this? Do you think that this once again plays on the defect of human nature as discussed in class?
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that the society in the book is an over dramatization of what would happen. I do not think that our society would respond as harshly as the society in the book. I do think however, that solely focusing on technology or anything too extensively could lead us to ignore the negative aspects of human nature.
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