Will Technology Save Us?

By Rick Ruffin

In his book ``Collapse,'' Jared Diamond argues that sometimes, indeed too often, technology comes back to bite us. It causes more problems than it hopes to solve.

As an example he cites the case of the automobile, powered by the internal combustion engine. A 100 years ago people in Europe heralded the advent of the gasoline powered automobile, for they would no longer have to step around horse feces every time that they ventured outside.

Well the automobile did solve that problem. Horse traffic came to a halt, piles of steaming green manure suddenly disappeared, and those poor horses that once pulled buggies were now destined for the slaughterhouse, to be made into glue or fed to the French, whatever came first.

But look what technology begot. The internal combustion engine alone has had a more adverse affect on life on Earth than we normally imagine.

The automobile has given birth to an urban sprawl that has created a nightmare of asphalt and concrete and eliminated green space. Korea, a country of formerly quaint pastoral images, has become a road builder's paradise dissected by concrete arteries.

The car has made us fuel dependent and slaves to fossil fuels. Bio-fuels aren't the answer either, as they ― sugarcane, corn and palm oil ― are grown where virgin rainforest once stood.

And the car has spawned clouds of soot and particulate matter that go deep into our lungs, giving us cancer, respiratory and heart disease. Automobiles, many people say, are primarily responsible for the rising levels of CO2 around the world, the gas responsible for global warming, melting ice caps and rising sea levels.

Another technology that threatens the future of the human race is medical technology.

Hundreds of years ago there was no penicillin. If you stepped on a dirty nail you got gangrene and you died, like the unfortunate soul in Hemingway's novel ``The Snows of Kilimanjaro.''

Back then millions of people the world over died from tuberculosis, smallpox, polio, measles, hepatitis, malaria, and even the common cold. Thanks to what I call the ``First Wave'' of modern medicine ― vaccines and antibiotics ― these diseases have largely been eradicated, or brought under control. So, we are living longer.

We are now in what I refer to as the ``Second Wave'' of medical technology, taking yet another quantum leap toward tomorrow. Medical technology is advancing so quickly that we are soon going to be living for 150 years. The question we must all ask each other is ``Where are we going to put all these people?''

I recently saw a TV program which explored medical science's ability to make us live longer. Need a new kidney? Here you are, no problem, we grew it in the lab. How about a liver? We got some nice ones here, they're plump and juicy.

But who would want to live forever? Well, the answer is a lot of people.

Ray Kurzwell is one of them. The futurist and inventor is hoping to live forever ― well, almost forever. He's drinking green tea ― an antioxidant ― and popping health supplements and waiting for the day when medical science is advanced enough to make the human race virtually indestructible.

He sees that day as not too far off in the future, maybe 20 years ahead. In the meantime he's drinking his green tea, taking his health supplements, and waiting for nirvana.

But the question we must all ask ourselves is ``How are we going to feed and house all these people?''

The population of the Earth is now approaching seven billion, almost three times the amount as right before World War II and is predicted to reach nine billion by 2050.

Experts at the United States National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition say that the world will have to reduce its population by one third in order to avert ecological collapse.

And the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), says that humans have far outstripped the Earth's carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is the ability of the Earth to care for its inhabitants.

So medical technology means we live longer and die less than ever before, but can technology save us from ourselves?

Marshall Savage, a proponent of space travel, says that human population will reach five quintillion by the year 3000, with human beings spread throughout the galaxies. But the late scientists and thinkers Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov both said that humans must solve the population problem here, on Earth.

In any case, technology, the hand that feeds us, might come back to bite us.

Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, envisions a nightmare scenario in which machines take over the world, sometime around 2020.

The writer, a graduate of University of Texas, Austin, now writes from Gangneung, Gangwon Province. He can be reached at rick_ruffin@yahoo.com.

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