Sometimes I ask myself a very simple question. How long will America the great, the nation I call home, the country I would proudly serve, and the land of the semi-free be able to remain sustainable? Has America sat atop a mountain of disposable consumer goods, rather than choose to wash a dish or reuse plastic-ware, and looked down at developing nations with little to no regard for their desperate need for the most simple and staple necessities; and will America remain able to do this much longer? This is a question I have asked myself many times as my awareness of our ability to exchange our human labor for monies or goods quickly flees due to the ever increasing ability of automated machines and intelligent machine code quickly surpasses the ability and quality of human labor. Currently, many industries are moving back from Asia, where labor cost in countries such as China have risen. The exorbitant cost of fuel has given way to much higher logistic cost and automated machines and robotics quickly become standard in most all areas of manufactured goods. Are people really aware of the power of technology? Does the average person know that pneumatic driven robotics can be used to pick fruits such as tomatoes much more quickly and much more OSHA compliant (machines seem to not mind hostile work environments)than their human counter parts? If so, then what system will be available to fairly distribute scarce resources so all people will be able to live fruitful and enjoyable lives?
When I look to the cars currently being road tested for completely automated driving spun from the same technology not too long ago deployed by our military in safe robotics used to dismantle IEDs and other dangerous situations where the cost of human life is too great do I see a potential problem. Drones, powered by new electrical storage devices also being deployed in new electric cars, are able to circle and survey a GPS marked location for extensive time periods without being noticed, by sound or sight, so our service men and women can avoid dangerous situations without risking human life. This same electric drone airplane is now replacing large metro area police helicopters. Technology has never seen this rapid pace of change.
As seen in countries such as Japan, mobile devices, once only used to communicate via voice, now have become online portals and payment devices. Android hand held phones can now read multi-dimension bar codes and deliver location based information almost instantly. The cost of having full access to the internet and all the apps its entails have dropped to almost free or a business marketing tool to attract high tech customers. How long will we be using petrol as a fuel source and how quickly can smaller scale nuclear power be deployed with relative safety? Will it be too long before new technologies in areas such as genetically engineered plants and animals become common place? Will it be long before our body's organs can be replaced with ease by new mechanical organs, such as the heart already in patients, yet only too large to place internally at this point? I only ask because I am not very smart and I had not figured water cooled energy cells would be powering cars this soon. And I did not envision technology changing this rapidly, regardless of my knowledge of Moore's Law. Today is the day, the day I choose to worship God, the God I understand, and I should not labor on this day, so as my eyes become tired and my mind begins to drift to other topics, I will end on this note. Is technology just too powerful and are the benefits of being able to engineer society as we wish too powerful a tool? Have we in some way gambled our own existence by creating a tool too powerful, so powerful, it may soon be the tool used to move us into an Orwellian society?
Wes Phillips
wesphillips.com
