“Three decades ago,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 27, 2017), “a historian wrote several laws to explain society’s unease with the power and pervasiveness of technology“. Though based on historical examples taken from the Cold War, the laws read as a cheat sheet for explaining our era of Facebook, Google, and the iPhone. You’ve probably never heard of these principles.
1. ‘Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral’. For example, DDT, a pesticide and probable carcinogen that nonetheless saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in India as a cheap and effective malaria prevention. Today, we can see how one technology, Facebook groups, can serve as a lifeline for parents of children with rare diseases while also radicalizing political extremists.
2. ‘Invention is the mother of necessity.’ In our modern world, the invention of the smartphone has led to the necessity for countless other technologies, from phone cases to 5G wireless. Here is a great 2 minute video to show your class to prove the point.
3. ‘Technology comes in packages, big and small. Steel, oil and rail were the package of technologies that dominated the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially in America, just as the internet, mobile phones and wireless connectivity are transforming the 21st century.
4. ‘All history is relevant, but the history of technology is the most relevant.’ The Cold War led to the buildup of nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them anywhere on Earth. That led to the development of a war-proof communication system: the internet. Many related innovations subsequently seeped into every aspect of our lives.
5. ‘Technology is a very human activity.’ “Technology is capable of doing great things,” Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said. “But it doesn’t want to do great things—it doesn’t want anything. The point is that despite its power, how we use technology is up to us”.
It´s amazing that technology can do for us. I am completely amazed and excited about all these innovations. However, here in México only big companies can afford them. My concern is about companies that perform all these tasks manually, which of course can´t compete with the first ones. So our challenge is develop and provide technology to them. Otherwise in the long run we only will have only big companies, and many companies and jobs will dissapear.
EPDPS Administración Industrial UNAM