Costs and Benefits of Technology
We live in a world that seemed like a fantasy to my grandparents and their parents: jet travel, climate control, the internet, Facetime, Zoom, streaming video, search engines, and electric cars, to name a few of the obvious life – Changing technology. A century ago, most of us couldn’t even imagine the comforts we take for granted.How we live in the developed world in the 21st centuryYingshi Century seemed like a dream. My grandfather, Ben Cohen, was born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S. where he became a baker. For him, work is literally bread and cash. He brings home both of those things, which is what being a baker is for. Creativity, innovation, learning, communication, institution building, and self-actualization—the elements that motivate me in my work life—are not part of his world. He struggled to support his family and found spiritual fulfillment in family life, friendships, and the synagogue.The nature of work, the purpose of work, and the work-life balance have all changed in 19 yearsday20dayand 21Yingshi Over the centuries, there has been a steady stream of new technologies. Many of these technologies bring incredible benefits, but all come with enormous costs. The central issue of our time is understanding and mitigating these costs when we can, and adapting to them when we cannot.
Technology has transformed economic life; more and more people are engaged in the service economy rather than in the production of food, clothing or shelter – the activities that once dominated economic life. We have moved from manual labor to a brain-based economy. Some workers in the service economy have jobs that involve interaction with customers and customers, such as healthcare professionals, educators, and service and food delivery workers, but a growing number are in support, creative, analytical, and Or manage functions at home or almost anywhere. This is an important lesson of the COVID pandemic. The Internet, cloud computing and mobile phone technology, as well as low-cost information and computing technology, have made it possible to separate work from the workplace. This brings the benefit of flexibility when workers are responsible for caring for family members. It brings the benefit of reducing commuting costs and time. But it comes with costs of organizational management and separation of work life from home life. When you work from home, you never leave your job and your job never leaves you.
Technology can also cause harm through misuse or by putting people at risk. For example, car accidents have been the leading cause of death for children in the United States for many years. Recently, car-related deaths have been replaced by gun-related deaths as the leading cause of death among children.as Dustin Jones As reported on NPR’s website last April:
“Car accidents have been the leading cause of death among children for decades, but in 2020, firearms became the number one cause of death,” the researchers said. Overall gun-related deaths rose 13.5 percent between 2019 and 2020, but such deaths among 1- to 19-year-olds jumped nearly 30 percent. a research letter In the New England Journal of Medicine. There were a record 45,222 gun-related deaths in the United States in 2020, researchers analyzed data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Patrick Carter, co-author of the study letter and co-director of the University of Michigan Institute for Gun Injury Prevention, said about 10 percent of these deaths (4,357 in total) were children…Motor vehicle accidents have been the leading cause of death for children for more than 60 years main reason. But over time, cars have become safer and driver education has improved. “
Transportation technologies offer the benefits of greater mobility, enhancing social interaction and exposure to places and experiences, but they also pose risks. Firearm technology provides a perception and possible reality of greater safety, but can lead to accidents that injure people. I am not using these examples to attack the use of cars or the use of guns, but simply to acknowledge the costs that technology imposes.The car example is useful because we’ve had fifty-seven years since Ralph Nader wrote not safe at any speed In 1965, considerable success was achieved in reducing the risk of motor vehicle travel. Seat belts, airbags, reinforced cabins and other technologies have been deployed to mitigate and adapt the risks of automotive technology. Driver safety training and education has also progressed. Roads are designed to reduce accidents. Nader and others fought the car companies for years, but ultimately, the companies learned that car safety was good for business and that reducing risk was a feature of cars that attracted customers. In short, addressing technology costs can create new products and new opportunities. Perhaps the issue of gun safety seems to be replacing the issue of gun control, and it may lead to products and services that reduce gun accidents and even reduce the number of mass murders committed with automatic weapons.
New technologies bring benefits to social, cultural and economic life, but also costs. These costs need to be taken seriously and understood. COVID-19 has affected the world as a by-product of air travel and the global economy. It has caused enormous suffering and harm, but it has also spawned new technologies for vaccines, tests and treatments. It has also led to a rediscovery of some fundamental public health practices, such as testing, tracing, quarantining and masking. The process of understanding this virus and dealing with its impact becomes an ideologically political issue. Science and scientists under attack; the same phenomenon we see with tobacco and climate change. We are happy to enjoy the benefits of new technologies but attack scientists who try to understand and address the costs.
New technologies can both protect and harm the planet’s ecosystems and resources. Power plants pollute the air, but chimney scrubbers can reduce this pollution. Catalytic converters reduce air pollution from internal combustion engines. Electric cars don’t need catalytic converters, solar cells don’t need stack scrubbers; technology developments bring different benefits and costs. Current renewable energy and battery technologies generate toxic waste. Perhaps the next generation of these technologies will reduce these environmental costs. Often, the most effective way to deal with technology costs is to develop new technologies to address those costs. The spread of COVID on ships and jets is a by-product of the technologies that structure the global economy; vaccines and therapeutic procedures have been developed to counter this unintended consequence of globalization. We’re on a technology merry-go-round, and it’s unrealistic to think we’ll never get off. Our way of life depends on these technologies, and it is too late to simplify our lives and get back to the land. Too many people, too little land, it won’t work.
The solution is the need to use technology more complexly and address the costs that come with technological advantages. As we build this technological world, we need to concentrate the majority of the public in cities, leaving wild and unspoiled places for future generations, and those that can function in rural areas without disrupting their economic functions. “John Duttons” and their families around the world are encouraged to continue ranching on Yellowstone. Every piece of private property need not be developed for the highest financial return. Protect national parks for our children and grandchildren. Build sustainable cities that provide parks and outdoor spaces for everyday life for the most people. And to move away from ideology in the process of ensuring our technology is controlled and our planet is environmentally sustainable.
