Comments on: Technology will save us. Won’t it? http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/technology-will-save-us-wont-it/ An engineer's perspective on sustainability, climate change and innovation in Australia and around the world Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:15:21 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Brett Robertson http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/technology-will-save-us-wont-it/#comment-31 Brett Robertson Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:08:36 +0000 http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/?p=76#comment-31 Thanks for your comment. Good point - a broader definition of "technology" would be very useful when it comes to solving these issues. Thanks for your comment. Good point – a broader definition of “technology” would be very useful when it comes to solving these issues.

]]> By: twilight83 http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/technology-will-save-us-wont-it/#comment-30 twilight83 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:54:08 +0000 http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/?p=76#comment-30 I completely agree with your observation that the above argument is blindly technologically-dependent. It would seem to me that our "technology" is calling for a behavioral change, not the invention of yet another new device. This reminds me of something very interesting I learned in high school. I was given an assignment to ask random people outside of the school which technology they thought was the most important. A very open-ended & very bogus assignment. Most people I asked picked typical stuff, they liked circuit boards because they yielded computers, or they liked propulsion because it gave them planes and cars, or whatever they felt the correlation was. One person said they thought the most important technology was hygiene. I thought it was a really lame answer, so I asked them to explain. This person went on to say how one day science discovered that little creepy crawlies were responsible for infections and sickness, and that all you really had to do was wash your hands and wash your medical equipment to stay safe. The result they said, was a dramatic decrease in mortality rates. Okay, maybe their answer wasn't so lame after-all. I feel like its the same thing going on now - we have advanced sufficiently so that we know what the problem is, but some people thats not good enough. They want one more technology, they want something to wash our hands for us. I completely agree with your observation that the above argument is blindly technologically-dependent. It would seem to me that our “technology” is calling for a behavioral change, not the invention of yet another new device. This reminds me of something very interesting I learned in high school. I was given an assignment to ask random people outside of the school which technology they thought was the most important. A very open-ended & very bogus assignment. Most people I asked picked typical stuff, they liked circuit boards because they yielded computers, or they liked propulsion because it gave them planes and cars, or whatever they felt the correlation was. One person said they thought the most important technology was hygiene. I thought it was a really lame answer, so I asked them to explain. This person went on to say how one day science discovered that little creepy crawlies were responsible for infections and sickness, and that all you really had to do was wash your hands and wash your medical equipment to stay safe. The result they said, was a dramatic decrease in mortality rates. Okay, maybe their answer wasn’t so lame after-all.

I feel like its the same thing going on now – we have advanced sufficiently so that we know what the problem is, but some people thats not good enough. They want one more technology, they want something to wash our hands for us.

]]> By: Technology will save us. Won’t it? (2) « Everything is changing http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/technology-will-save-us-wont-it/#comment-29 Technology will save us. Won’t it? (2) « Everything is changing Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:07:20 +0000 http://everythingischanging.wordpress.com/?p=76#comment-29 [...] will save us. Won’t it? (2) Following on from my previous post about simplistic technological fixes, dk.au at LP found a similar limitation in the debate about an [...] [...] will save us. Won’t it? (2) Following on from my previous post about simplistic technological fixes, dk.au at LP found a similar limitation in the debate about an [...]

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