toldailytopic: What are the best things, and worst things, about technology?

[Granite]

You posted this from your phone, didn't you. :chuckle:

I think there's the Internet is tremendously empowering. It makes information freer and more widely accessible, but it can harm our personal interactions when used incorrectly. I suspect that in short order, we're going to start recognizing a need for safe guidelines (not necessarily regulation) limiting how much of ourselves we invest in being online, much as we have for alcohol use.

Nice. But no, my phone's actually a bit of a dinosaur. The wife has one of those 4G super-fast ultra-trendy mobiles. I just don't see the need for one.

The interesting thing is that we have no issue with volunteering information (often deeply personal) on sites such as Facebook, but remain intensely offended, and even threatened, by the idea that some people might try to mine the data or even try to unearth fresh information about us without our consent. In other words, it's not the disclosure that we take issue with, but rather the disclosure's form.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Off the top of my head...

Access to information is surely one of the best and most frightening gifts the Interest has given us.

The ability to improve our lives in every conceivable way is offset by the ability to wipe out life on this planet many times over.

YES!
There is plenty of information available - thousands of 'schools' worth.
You can
educate yourself enough in a few days to
actually cure almost any disease for a few hundred dolalrs
(if you have an hour a day to read and research)
but
the 'licensed' pros are not allowed to do that..... the 'system' WANTS to WIPE OUT LIFE. the published quota for earth is 500,000 people.
the 'system' plans to eliminate the rest by any means possible.
(the plans for population control are widely disseminated, easy to find)

 

[rexlunae]

Nice. But no, my phone's actually a bit of a dinosaur. The wife has one of those 4G super-fast ultra-trendy mobiles. I just don't see the need for one.

Until I added it to my phone's dictionary, it would autocorrect the name of the company I work for to "Uterus". This caused me to send a few really odd messages.

If you don't have a need for it, I'm a little jealous. It becomes just another way to feed an Internet addiction, or alternatively to do work from more obscure locations.

The interesting thing is that we have no issue with volunteering information (often deeply personal) on sites such as Facebook, but remain intensely offended, and even threatened, by the idea that some people might try to mine the data or even try to unearth fresh information about us without our consent. In other words, it's not the disclosure that we take issue with, but rather the disclosure's form.

I agree with what you wrote here. People are so weird about the information that people glean from them. But I realized that I was being unclear. When I meant was that a lot of people put too much of their socialization into it, which I don't think really fills the need very well. I know a fair number of people whose personal interactions have suffered as a result of this sort of thing.

 

[Town Heretic]

One of the most odd things about technology is our communications. We have cell phones, e-mail, video conferencing, and every other imaginable type of communications technology. Yet... it seems like we talk to each other less and less.

It's almost as if... the more communications technologies emerge the less we actually communicate with each other.

Saddest thing I've actually seen recently: a "couple" walking through a mall together talking to other people on their cell phones.

Second saddest? Me in a mall. lain:

I think technology has the capacity to reinvent the front stoop, the community we lost when television and air conditioning called us indoors and market fluctuations turned us into economic nomads.

 

[zippy2006]

Nice. But no, my phone's actually a bit of a dinosaur. The wife has one of those 4G super-fast ultra-trendy mobiles. I just don't see the need for one.

Me too. Little known fact: text "google" and they will give you most information you get out of expensive phones:

i.e., if you say:

weather <enter zip code here> you will get back a forecast
define <enter word here> you will get back a definition
pizza <enter zip> a listing of pizza companies with addresses and phone numbers

...etc.

:e4e:

 

[john w]

Saddest thing I've actually seen recently: a "couple" walking through a mall together talking to other people on their cell phones.

Second saddest? Me in a mall. lain:

I think technology has the capacity to reinvent the front stoop, the community we lost when television and air conditioning called us indoors and market fluctuations turned us into economic nomads.

And many times when I hear chicks talking, I assume now it is not to me, but on their cell phones. I probably would be married by now, if not being "numb" to them talking around me. Chicks are often digging me, and I don't even know it.

 

[rocketman]

Technology is a blessing and a curse. On one hand it enables us to have instant communication and the ability to accomplish things in times that were unheard of in years past. The curse is it has introverted and perverted society on many levels Internet porn, identity theft, cyber crime to name just a few. Our children park themselves in front of video games instead of playing and discovering outdoors. You can't throw out the baby with the bathwater but, we have to monitor ourselves with tech so we don't lose ourselves in it.

 

[chrysostom]

the best thing is that the gospel can now reach all nations

 

[Town Heretic]

the best thing is that the gospel can now reach all nations

And don't forget Bible software.

 

[Ps82]

Yesterday, I saw for the first time the new 'computer bar code'. I really don't know what they call this little square design printed onto paper ... but if you hold your smart phone identifier over it, then your phone tells you where to go on the net to find more information about that item... and you can even see it from your phone.

I guess I'm just learning about this ... but it was really neat.