Caprica, Gamer, & Surrogates: Overlooked Benefits Of Virtual Worlds.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Human No More

But then, if you prefer older technology... for everyone who wishes they lived 10 years ago, there is someone who wishes they did 20 years ago, or 50, or 200.. it's ironically the same as development, some people will just never be happy.

Thats the problem isn't it? That people are not really able to do what makes them happy without struggle and influence by others. This society does not allow for that, I'd go as far as to say that this form of civilization does not allow for it, as the uncontrolled lust for development by some prevents others from living the way they want to live. In the general picture it is post-industrialized countries (USA, Europe) versus industry countries (China, Chile) versus "developing" countires (Africa) versus native non-country people (all over the world). Of course the details are more complex than that simplification and does not only include wealth, "development" and resources but also environment and social issues. All of these get shifted and distributed inequally and one takes from the other - often without knowing or planning so. This is, why all of this is not working and I say there has to be a change that goes beyond dealing with single issues and symptoms of this.

Back OT - the coming advancements in nanotechnology and human machine hybridization and genetics are of course not much different from cellphones, computers, the steam engine. The differene is only, that they are mostly in the future, so there is still room to think about how to handle these things. Beeing a cynical person, I doubt they will do and I'd bet people will run into it with the same blindness and obedience to this kind of development as always - go forward now, deal with the (social and environmental) consequences later

[Human No More]

We're past environmental consequences now... just look at all the improvements at the moment. The hardest part is just reversing what has already been started, but it's easy enough not to start any more.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Human No More

We're past environmental consequences now... just look at all the improvements at the moment. The hardest part is just reversing what has already been started, but it's easy enough not to start any more.

Sorry I did not get that. Maybe a language problem? What are you saying?
I understood it that way that humanities impact on the environment is decreasing due to improvements, but that can't be right, so I must have misunderstood something...

[Human No More]

What I mean is that we've done a lot of damage to our environment, which may or may not be irreversible, but we've generally (in the developed world anyway) reached the point where awareness is at the point that any further development will be done much more responsibly.
It's easy enough not to cause any further damage, harder to reverse the damage we've already done.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Human No More

What I mean is that we've done a lot of damage to our environment, which may or may not be irreversible, but we've generally (in the developed world anyway) reached the point where awareness is at the point that any further development will be done much more responsibly.
It's easy enough not to cause any further damage, harder to reverse the damage we've already done.

Well - I dont know how you come to think of that. Awareness is mediocre at best (in my country, acceptance that global warming exists dropped from 60 to 40% in just a few years, Electric or Hybrid cars are still not produced for convenience reasons, ...). What best describes the awareness in the people is a growing (and I think very valid) distrust in technology as a bringer of salvation and a solution to all problems.

What however is not always the result is a resonable development. Yes, it is motivated more by "good intentions", but you know what they say about these. Overall, development in the bad sense (exploitation of resources, industrial agriculture,...) is running along almost unbroken even by a financial crisis - the pace at which humans destroy the environment is not slowing down. There are many efforts to find technological solutions for single problems but its like plugging one hole just to discover there are two new ones every time. The examples of this are so numerous I wont even start here, but technologies often bear risks and bring also some problems (socially or environmentally). To find technological solutions cannot work to get out of this - it is a circular dependency. Different changes have to achieve solutions - non technical ones. This is why I argue that the major change has to be a social one.

But back to what you wrote - I do not think at all that we are at a point where awareness or even less so the actions resulting from this are at a point where we could say that development will be "reasonable" or "sustainable" from now on in the "developed nations". Just that the damage is not done in our own countries anymore - it has been exported to India and China. And especially the latter one is not going to go clean anytime soon. And mind you, this is not only because Chinese people want "development", it is also because US and Europe heavily import stuff from there, thereby exporting the pollution generated in the production. "Sustainable growth" is a myth and the "developed nations" are not as clean as they want us to think of them.