Imagine what the future will be like, with nanotechnology able to create devestating war machines that can take out an entire group of soldiers in a matter of moments, and wars being ended instantly by a-boming many large cities all at once. If we don't find ways to resolve conflict- one of humankind's greatest challenges, we could end up driving ourselves to extinction! :eek:

The same probably was said about the rock and the wooden club.

Yeah, but a person with a single rock or wooden club can wipe out millions of people in one try.

I'm sure whoever first harnessed fire (or someone associated with them) used it to wipe out rival settlements. Basically, and advancement that we make can be used for good or evil, and I think it's usually equal parts of both.


Yeah, but a person with a single rock or wooden club can wipe out millions of people in one try.

They could if they had a big enough club.

Of the two, technology and psychology, only technology is naturally benign.

It is applied technology that can be dangerous.

I'm sure whoever first harnessed fire (or someone associated with them) used it to wipe out rival settlements.

Yes, but a fire dosen't necessarily kill people, chances are, if someone were to drop an a-bomb on a major city, unless it was allready evacuated, you would kill a couple million people.


They could if they had a big enough club.

How would you carry the big enough club? I guess this is why the rock was invented.:D

Read 1984. All I can say. Technology is foe. We'd all be happier with nothing.

Originally posted by Popcorn8636
Imagine what the future will be like, with nanotechnology able to create devestating war machines that can take out an entire group of soldiers in a matter of moments, and wars being ended instantly by a-bombing many large cities all at once. If we don't find ways to resolve conflict- one of humankind's greatest challenges, we could end up driving ourselves to extinction! :eek:
:eek:!

Actually, IMO, countries would have such great weaponry that none of them would dare use it, for fear of widespread disaster that will affect them as well. Or, no one would use their weapons, because they'd be so paranoid that the other country would have something even bigger and badder. :D

TECHNOLOGY IS MY FRIEND

Its just that it gets into the wrong hands sometimes, ie Governments.

I love the way our future is shaping out, I just hope the story of Neocron doesn't come true :eek: Billions wiped out in a few minutes, make you think.

I think we need more SALT talks that actually work for once

Finally someone believes me! But I'm not entireley looking on the military side of things, but technology changes the way we think, it's addictive. We think that all of these neat little gadges we have will always be there, we can't live without them! For any of you who have tried to keep themselves amused in a power-out, you may know what I mean.

Ah, but there would be no power-outage if there hadn't been any power to be out-ed in the first place, would there? Nor the need to amuse yourself in the dark*. :D



*Not meant in any gross way, lol :D

Ah, but there would be no power-outage if there hadn't been any power to be out-ed in the first place, would there?

Exactly! We rely on technology. If there wasn't any power to be out-ed, we wouldn't have the technology we have today! We would have something to do all the time without electricity, and people will live their lives to the fullest.

But in a way, technology has driven us to strive for things that would have astounded the early man. Arms races have pushed us to boundaries unlimited in creating devastating war machines, but has encouraged higher pursuits in other things.

I don't know, I'm sitting on the fence on this one. It depends on my mood whether I consider technology beneficial or dangerous. Today, it will be dangerous. Tomorrow... Who knows? :)

Posted by %BlueSoulRobot%


countries would have such great weaponry that none of them would dare use it, for fear of widespread disaster that will affect them as well. Or, no one would use their weapons, because they'd be so paranoid that the other country would have something even bigger and badder.

Why do we bother to create such war machines then? :confused: It's pointless. Maybe everyone's waiting for somone to misplace their AA guns so they can carpet bomb 'em before they do something to someone else. :D Technology is a scary thing! :eek:

Because we're paranoid. :) Insecurity is very common in mankind, especially compounded with fear it leads to paranoia.

Humans make no sense at all. :cool: It makes me feel proud to be one. :D :D :D :D :D

Without technology we will go extinct within the next few million years. A meteor flattens us, a plague kills us, etc....

With technology we can survive for untold billions of years...


Friend, definatly friend....

Tell that to the guy who has a bullet between his eyes :(

We need technology. Anyone who says differently is a fool. Whether it benefits us in the long run is a different story altogether.

I'm gonna play WipEout 3, just because that the future I want us to follow *looks to the stars*

Those who are taking the bullet between the eyes, should it be for the certifyable good of mankind, should be willing to make the sacrefice. If they are not it is probably better for mankind that they be dead anyway, as they are selfish bastards.

" and wars being ended instantly by a-boming many large cities all at once."

I guarrantee that if we wanted to do that, we could RIGHT NOW, without nano anything (fission bombs are too big to make the use of nanobots useful, and fusion bombs are likely to be big as well, there is a limit on the size of an atom bomb). We could smuggle in bombs all over the world with special operatives, then get them out of there, then send a high power radio transmittion to the bomb to make them blow.

But yet we don't, why not? It is not ONLY because we have compassion for other countries (as minimally as it may be) but we don't want all that harmful radiation coming over and mutating our asses.

Why didn't we nuke the whole world when we were the only ones with the nukes?...

"Ah, but there would be no power-outage if there hadn't been any power to be out-ed "in the first place, would there?"

Actually, there would be widespread and homogenious power outage, given that noone would have power......

"We would have something to do all the time without electricity, and people will live their lives to the fullest."

That is such crap, we can do more with technology, not less. I think power outages are fun, personally. What would be "living life to the fullest"?

I think we can agree that technology helps people live longer and healthier. If we are all dieing of maleria and malnutrition in Africa, how can we live life to the fullest?

"I don't know, I'm sitting on the fence on this one. "

Without technology, that fence would never exist

Technology was made because it made things easier (therefore more efficient in some way or another), not because we thought "hey we want to jack up society, right?"

Technology is our friend. The people that wield technology are the problem. People are the weakest link.

We need to use technology to help us build a better society.

Technology is developing at an incredible rate, yet as a society we have acheived little since the Roman Republic.

Complexity and complacency have been the biggest hinderance to social development. Computers excel at aiding in managing complexity. The 20 million dollar question is how to use computers to help.

Without technology we will go extinct within the next few million years.

That is very optimistic. We would go extinct almost immediately. Suppose some magic wipes out all of our technology today -- all our electrical power plants and refineries, gone; no way to power our manufacturing plants. All of our ships, trucks, cars, highways, gone; no way to move goods around the world. All of our manufacturing plants, gone; no goods to move around the world. All of our tractors, plows, and other farm machinery, gone; no way to produce the massive amounts of food we need. All of our computers, books, universities, gone; no way to reproduce all that we have lost. All of our hospitals and medicine, gone; no way to fight the diseases that kept our life expectency at 35 years until recently. How many of the 6.36 billion people currently alive would still be alive one year from now? Not many, I would venture to say.

Technology is absolutely essential in sustaining our livelihoods, our health, our wealth, and our very lives.

see they taught you 'well' in school then

How many of the 6.36 billion people currently alive would still be alive one year from now? Not many, I would venture to say.

Extinct means ALL dead n' gone ....if only a few are left, that's not "extinct".


Technology is absolutely essential in sustaining our livelihoods, our health, our wealth, and our very lives.

If that's true, how did the human race begin? And how did they survive for millions of years with nothing but stick and stones for weapons?

I don't think you give humans the credit that they deserve ...or else much too much credit to technology.

Baron Max

Extinct means ALL dead n' gone ....if only a few are left, that's not "extinct".



If that's true, how did the human race begin? And how did they survive for millions of years with nothing but stick and stones for weapons?

I don't think you give humans the credit that they deserve ...or else much too much credit to technology.

Baron Max

The human race (homo sapiens sapiens) did not survive for millions of years, since it has been in existence for at most 195,000 years, and maybe as little as 35,000 years (depending if you call hominids prior to Cro-Magnon "human"). Hominids have been around for far longer, but those prior to 195,000 years ago are not of our species.

The world population is way beyond the level sustainable by stone age technology. We would undergo a massive die-off should our technology suddenly reverted to stone age, and most likely to a population level below what we had in the stone age. Life would be brutal for those who did survive.
We have breed the survival skills out of our domesticated plants and animals. Would they survive without our technology to sustain them? What would we eat?

But extinction? Maybe, maybe not. So I exaggerated. I don't care if some small pittance of humanity would survive my hypothetical technology-destroying magic. Our world cannot sustain 6.36 billion people without technology. Dispute that.

You could keep a fair number alive with stone age technology. Provided you mean neolithic period. They had domestication of animals, farming, irrigation, crude wooden boats and fishing, etc. I would hazard a guess that the population would stabilize at perhaps a bit over half a billion worldwide if we are lucky.

Paleolithic, on the otherhand, would basically involve us living as animals. Our greatest piece of technology would be a piece of wood that we stick in large quadrapeds. I would guess our worldwide population would be stuck in the millions.

Either way, we die like any other animal species next time an extinction event rolls on.

You could keep a fair number alive with stone age technology. Provided you mean neolithic period. I would hazard a guess that the population would stabilize at perhaps a bit over half a billion worldwide if we are lucky. Paleolithic, on the otherhand, would basically involve us living as animals. Our greatest piece of technology would be a piece of wood that we stick in large quadrapeds. I would guess our worldwide population would be stuck in the millions. I would hazard lower guesses. Our population didn't reach 10 million until around 5,000 years ago.


Either way, we die like any other animal species next time an extinction event rolls on.Our population level may well have been knocked down to a mere 10,000 by the last extinction event, the eruption of Toba in Sumatra around 70,000 years ago. The next extinction event may well be ongoing right now -- and its one of our own making.

Note that I never have answered the original question -- technology, friend or foe. I merely said that it technology is necessary. Technology is neither a friend nor a foe. It is a double-edged sword.

I would hazard lower guesses. Our population didn't reach 10 million until around 5,000 years ago.
Of course large portions of the world were still in a hunter gatherer existence back then. Without agriculture, 99% of the earth's land went uninhabited except for those rare instances where the nomadic population plods through. For this arguement I am presumeing a homogenous worldwide population at the peak of neolithic technology. While primitive from civilized standards, such people are doing a lot better than cavemen.

Technology is a friend in Clockwood's sense.

However, it is foe when it comes to consumer-oriented lavishness.