THE CURSE OF TECHNOLOGY (IN TWO PARAGRAPHS)

Technology moves us ever closer to the machine of ourselves, that is, to ourselves as machines, albeit fleshy and organic ones, as beings to be fixed and repaired, as cogs in a still greater technological framework. Technology moves us ever further from the soul and the spirit of ourselves as human beings. In its movement for control, which may be seen as improved and better physical and perhaps mental function, technology leads away from the heart of ourselves. Many might say that technology, like guns, is used as the possessor sees fit, for better or for worse social function; that technology is innocent of any blame by those Luddites who cannot fathom it. But this is not so true at all, for loaded guns are not to be put in the hands of infants; not that they will do evil with them, but that they might inadvertently pull the trigger and hurt themselves or others. “Forgive them Father, for they know now what they do.”

But that is not the essence of this conversation. Humans now have technology as a great convenience and as an improvement in many fields, such a medicine and statistics of all kinds. Technology “crunches numbers” far faster than any human mind could do so in lifetimes. And it promotes both the notion while creating the reality that we are human machines. But technology aims outward and expands; it does not lead us inward in order to discover just who and what we are in this order of human being. Worse than being loaded guns in the hands of infants, it is a distraction from our discovery of ourselves, of ourselves as far more inner (or greater) beings which we must find if we are ever to be truly human and be able to live accordingly. Our inability to live accordingly makes us as infants—with no understanding of our world or mastery or control of ourselves. Humanity still lives in utter ignorance of itself, though now possessing the technological means to destroy itself.  Technology wonderfully leads us away from ourselves as human beings into a cyborg reality in which we are as machines. And most people LOVE that this is happening.