One
major problem of modern society is that we are too dependent on technology. Imagine
a world without technology—a world that existed on the same Earth not long ago.
Of course, life would get difficult especially for newer generations who are
born into a society where people are constantly making phone calls, checking their
Facebook or Twitter account, or playing Flappy Birds on their iPhones. These
things we can do with technology aren’t really bad, but its threat lies in the
risk it holds to be bad.
In
his piece “A Measure of Restraint,” Chet Raymo points out the two-faced reality
of progress in technology through his examples of human casualties at the hands
of scientific research. Genetic engineering, a topic currently being
researched, holds the risk of taking away the natural quality of organism
reproduction. The importance of genes to life and their “potentially immortal”
characteristic should be enough to keep us away from tampering with nature. It
could benefit society by making a completely new breed of crops that can grow
in any environment, or it could harm society by making us into something very
different from humans.
Even
though these scientific achievements were intended to benefit society, it was
society’s misuse of it that led to harsh consequences. In other words,
technology is completely in our hands and we hold the power to either bring
mankind to a whole new level or destroy countless human lives from our ignorance.
Raymos argued that transgenics could bring the world to its knees. But then again, we kind of already brought it to its knees with half of our technologies. I argued something like that in my post.
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