Finally...

Technology is the human complement to achieving new things. We are limited as human beings in all facets of our lives--physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Technology helps us overcome some of those limitations. At the same time, technology is limited by size (even though it's seeming more and more like it's not) and capabilities. We complement technology by finding new ways to improve technology. I think the thing that scares many of us is that we see technology as being "smarter" than we are. The difference is that technology alone does not overcome any human limitations. It's not self-creating, in that somewhere along the lines, it took a person to do it. People, however, throughout the history of the world have found ways to overcome their own limitations without the use of technology.

Technology is controllable. It often doesn't seem that way because there are really very few reasons to control it. In the grand scheme of things, technology has been very beneficial. The negative cases are comparitively few. Many point to the development of nuclear weapons as an example of uncontrollable technology, but even that could be controlled. There are ways to stop Iran and Korea from proliferation, we just don't feel the problem is serious enough to resort to certain means. (I'm not suggesting war to stop nuclear proliferation. I am merely stating that if the situation causes enough fear, and we weigh the benefits of preventing it to be greater than the costs of war, it is an option to stop it.)

Society can in some ways regulate technology the way it has always regulated human behavior--law. The internet is the perfect example of our attempts to regulate technology through the law. In some ways we've been effective, in others we have not. The human spirit and ability to reason outside of a program gives us the ability to find new and better ways to effectively regulate technology. We have at times been ineffective, and it leads us to believe that technology cannot be regulated. What society must do is find better ways to create laws that regulate technology.

I am afraid of what might happen if we allow the democratic process to control R&D of technology. Sadly, I think the "moral right" would be very strict on technological development without first considering and weighing the benefits. However, in a country like the U.S. and in a globalizing world where democracy has become the popular form of government, I'm afraid the we would have no choice but to let the people, through their elected officials or through the vote, regulate R&D.

I don't necesarily think that the right to access technology is a basic right. It helps here to distinguish technology from knowledge. The right to learn and seek new knowledge should be a basic right, although there are still some things that should remain protected from public knowledge. Trade secrets should not be made available to everyone. However, technology has even more limitations. Technology is only useful to those who know how to use it. It seems common sense to say that, but we seem to think that everyone today should have the right to a computer. A computer is a tool that is not needed to function in the world, however much easier it may make it. Technology is a privilege, not a right. We need to begin treating it as such.

Technology is amoral. Its use can be moral, immoral, or amoral. The automobile is not good or bad. Speeding in it is bad. Giving a friend a ride is good. Driving to class is neither good nor bad (unless you live on campus, and you are adding one more car to the craziness known as "parking at harding," which is very bad. But that is for another post.) Our actions as human beings, and to a certain extent, we ourselves, are good or bad. Technology's morality is not in its definition, but in its use.

A technology's worth is dependant solely upon the additional good it allows us to accomplish. For some things, the good obviously outweighs the bad from its discovery, such as the wheel, and is obviously a worthy technology. For others, such as the A-bomb, it is more difficult. It was a very useful technology for good in ending WWII. It was useful for bad in the destruction it caused. And therein lies the rub. Weighing the good vs. the bad when the scales seem balanced. If only we could use technology to create a better scale...