Technology – overcoming challenges

Today, too many people think of “technology” as having only to do with information technology. Others (rightly) speak of the evils of “technocracy” as a form of increased government control by a self-chosen elite.

But there is much more, and technology offers solutions to many problems we face today. Just as it has in the past. However, it is also just as dangerous and wrong to think that every problem can be solved with technology or that any problem can be solved only with application of technology.

(This is a failing that we believe Americans and Brits share with at least the Germans: that technology can overcome all the problems that we humans create for ourselves.)

Despite the ups and downs of the economy, political and natural climate, and wars (and rumors of war), we humans are an inventive lot. There are always new inventions. New products for sale and “coming soon.” (Or so readers of Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and government publications are taught to believe. And the adverts and articles and “academic” and popular papers tout the wonders, the marvels, of each one, and how they can solve our daily and more serious problems.)

Consider this “discovery” (invention) by Swiss scientists and engineers: a new type of plastic based on plant waste material and common chemicals, not petrochemicals. Touted several years ago, nothing has come of it yet: nothing in the stores (brick and mortar or online).

Or this new concept of energy storage by Japanese researchers working for Toyota: swappable hydrogen cylinders. Sounds really good, but your local car or equipment dealer (or fuel station or maintenance shop) isn’t carrying them yet. And no indication that those in power (government agencies (regulators), bankers, insurance providers, etc.) will let that happen soon. And few (if any) vehicles or engines can use the stuff.

Ditto for all the various marvels: micro nuclear power plants and batteries, geothermal energy, the latest and greatest vaccines and protocols for curing everything (or preventing everything). The list goes on and on. And many of them we instinctively recognize as bogus, totally unrealistic if not outright scams.

And of course, we can see that because we know that sometimes the hot new inventions and products of a few years back are discovered to be lemons and not worth buying. Consider that even Ford has decided it wasted billions in developing, producing, and marketing electric vehicles. Or consider all the wonders of medical “solutions” that turned out to make things worse.

Still, every week, we hear or read about new inventions: new batteries, new medical devices, new foods, new benefits from old foods, new discoveries that will change the world. And sometimes, it seems that these new developments are changing the world as we watch. The claims and applications to which “Artificial Intelligence” (AI: Absurd Insanity, as some would say) are such an example. Almost nobody in power or in the various media seemed to have previously calculated what is now claimed to be disastrous impacts on water consumption, power consumption, and more electromagnetic fields. At the same time, the warnings of 1984 and Brave New World and Make Room, Make Room have taken on new life.

But to us, the most telling feature is how often governments (at all levels) seek to styme inventions, new products, and especially the manufacture and distribution of all these things. This should come as no surprise: the biggest challenge any part of life faces today is that presented by governments at all levels, it seems. (Beyond the usual fact that we are human and get old and will die.) Although we realize that most government decisions are motivated by greed for wealth and power, we know that fear is also a factor. And change is feared.

More thoughts in the next commentary. In the meantime, provide us your own thoughts.

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