Technological advancement and the frightening power to deceive

Jul 03, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
In the world today, mankind has to grapple with enormous political and social tribulations, mental disorders, post-traumatic stress, poverty, displacement from wars, refugee and concentration camps, food and clean water shortages, alcohol addiction, drug abuse and domestic violence. The list of tribulations is long, with no visible sight of the silver lining at the end of the tunnel, and now the world has to deal with the technological ills.
The same overrated ‘technologically advanced’ and ‘peak of modern human society’.
This would certainly bring great disaster to our already overburdened planet. The rules governing our personal and social lives should be clearly established, and we should not be obsessed with the excessiveness.
Today it’s a silicon chip, the stuff of techno-dreams. Also of a glinting grain of sand. Hold it in your hand and you hold tomorrow. Turn away from it, and as sand flows through your fingers, see all the potentialities slip away. Can we allow ourselves to commit a pitiful abdication of such a heavy technological responsibility? We cannot absent ourselves from the moral and social questions raised. To leave it in the hands of the godless.
The advances of technology and science, rather than obliterating the world of myths, have enhanced its power to deceive. We live imaginary, virtual worlds, created by persons that profit from our being deceived.
Humanity belongs to the “cult of distraction” where society is consumed by the vacuous and the vapid rather than striving for self-awareness, contributions and accomplishment. The godly must take the helm of the technological complexes and be free to make decisions that strip away layers of accumulated dysfunction to arrive at touchstone to a digital life worth living. Let’s reach for the twinkling star on a stairway made of glittering sand.
In the silicon chip of the electronic age, there is hope and there are immense dangers. This is where religion is utterly, absolutely, imperatively needed. The digital earth co-exists with the lost earth. My four year old granddaughter takes the computer mouse and moves it with lightning speed; elsewhere others sleep with rats; lost people by the millions, and among those young girls and boys, digital porn, games, chatting and facebook.
Say what you want, do what you want, print what you want and waste endless time. As a result of our advancement, we are now facing several new disorders which devastate our family structure and the existence of human kind. Among the medical and social challenges are repetitive strain injury, electromagnetic hypersensitivity, narcissism, phone headaches, hearing loss, internet addiction and facebook depression.
Consequently, a young boy drops dead in Japan after gaming for seventy-two hours; a young man shoots and kills innocent people in the USA after spending countless hours practicing war games in cyberspace. A young girl posts nude pictures of herself and awaits the feedback blogs. Oh, what is really going on with us “humans”? Oh, what a form of mental illness.
Technological communication has improved, but basic human communication has deteriorated. A man, his wife and children sit in the living room and it is absolutely silent, everyone focused on different screens, pushing buttons and listening for a peculiar, reoccurring sound for hours, and not a word is said to each other.
People have said and done pretty crude things when they thought that no one would ever know it was them? Beware of firing off nasty postings with venom and hate on the internet. Think before you type, think before you click on that website link; for every atom weight of evil we do, we will be questioned and every atom weight of good we do, it will stand for us.
The technological advancement of the super highway is phenomenal. Let us use it for the right purposes and stay away from the dirty obscenities. Get your degrees, do your trade, send your emails, but establish and keep a limit.
Years ago I read that Winchester -the inventor of guns – apologized to the world for their inventions. When they made the gun accessible to the public it was for recreation, hunting and protection from dangerous animals. Today, humans use the gun for indiscriminate killing sprees of the human kind. I do hope that Mr. Bill Gates, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg and the owners of Apple Incorporated would not have to be compelled to do the same as Winchester.
Nazar Mohamed

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Technological advancement and the frightening power to deceive

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