Will technology save us all, or will it tear us apart?
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Publicado: 16 de septiembre de 2012
Will Technology Save Us All, or Will It Tear Us Apart?
LONG BEACH, California — “When we look at the wonders that we have created, is it the fire that lights up the world or the one that burns itdown?”
It’s an appropriate question to ask at the Technology Entertainment and Design conference, the annual gathering of some of the world’s biggest thinkers and exposition of advancements inscience and technology. It may be especially apt from the man who posed it on Tuesday, TED curator Chris Anderson.
Are our devices going to be markers of our rise to glory, or instruments of oureventual demise? More prosaically: Do you think our glass is half-full, or half-empty?
Paul Guilding, writer and former CEO of Greenpeace, definitely thinks the latter. “The earth is full,” Guildingsaid in his presentation. “Full of us, our stuff, demands. Our economy is bigger than its host, our planet.”
Guilding attributes humanity’s rate of consumption to our relentless growth as a species.At its current consumption level, the world’s population is already over 50 percent beyond sustainable capacity. Or, in financial terms, “it’s like we’re spending 50 percent more than we’ve earnedevery year.”
Guilding believes that we as a people are so wrapped up in economic growth, so focused on the expansion of markets, that we’ve ignored decades of warning signs foretelling our impendingdemise.
And these signs are not necessarily in the form of giant natural disasters or atomic bombs. They are in the civil dissent of the Occupy movement’s protests. They are in the spiralingeconomic crises in Greece and elsewhere in the European Union. They are seen in our exponential population growth, which affects the climate and causes us to scramble for scarce resources like food, waterand energy.
“It’s the system in the painful process of breaking down,” says Guilding. “Our overloading panicked earth is eating itself alive.”
Of course, TED talks don’t end in complete doom...
LONG BEACH, California — “When we look at the wonders that we have created, is it the fire that lights up the world or the one that burns itdown?”
It’s an appropriate question to ask at the Technology Entertainment and Design conference, the annual gathering of some of the world’s biggest thinkers and exposition of advancements inscience and technology. It may be especially apt from the man who posed it on Tuesday, TED curator Chris Anderson.
Are our devices going to be markers of our rise to glory, or instruments of oureventual demise? More prosaically: Do you think our glass is half-full, or half-empty?
Paul Guilding, writer and former CEO of Greenpeace, definitely thinks the latter. “The earth is full,” Guildingsaid in his presentation. “Full of us, our stuff, demands. Our economy is bigger than its host, our planet.”
Guilding attributes humanity’s rate of consumption to our relentless growth as a species.At its current consumption level, the world’s population is already over 50 percent beyond sustainable capacity. Or, in financial terms, “it’s like we’re spending 50 percent more than we’ve earnedevery year.”
Guilding believes that we as a people are so wrapped up in economic growth, so focused on the expansion of markets, that we’ve ignored decades of warning signs foretelling our impendingdemise.
And these signs are not necessarily in the form of giant natural disasters or atomic bombs. They are in the civil dissent of the Occupy movement’s protests. They are in the spiralingeconomic crises in Greece and elsewhere in the European Union. They are seen in our exponential population growth, which affects the climate and causes us to scramble for scarce resources like food, waterand energy.
“It’s the system in the painful process of breaking down,” says Guilding. “Our overloading panicked earth is eating itself alive.”
Of course, TED talks don’t end in complete doom...
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