Technocracy.
Machines rule our lives.
Our phones absorb our every waking thought.
Mechanized factories have made work scarce and brought down doom upon the urban proletariat.
Processed foods, themselves semi-mechanized, destroy us from the inside out.
Government drones haunt our skies.
The end is nigh.

Ever since the march of “progress” pulled us from an idyllic life of wandering the woods, gathering nuts and berries, into farming communities where our diets decreased in variety and size and a ruling upper class began to exploit us, we have been marching like lemmings toward a cliff face where human speech will be supplanted by strings of 1s and 0s and brains with circuit boards.

If you didn’t laugh, or at least smile at that, I think now would be an excellent time to reveal the joke. Clearly, all of that’s at least a little ridiculous, hyperbolic, exaggerated, whatever you want to call it. But, sometimes, it doesn’t seem too far from the gospel some are preaching. And I am here to decry the false prophets, and spare the reputation of our almost symbiotic servants, technology. There’s a lot of opinions to the contrary - Even Albert Einstein, whom I respect immensely, said “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity” - and how could we disagree with him? - but I’m here to do just that.

We all use technology, or at least benefit from it, in hundreds of ways every single day. It’s become so ingrained in our lives that it’s essentially impossible to even imagine how life would be without it. This fact alone does not mean that technology is a benevolent force - death is the same way, and, really, nobody’s glad about that one - but other facts do; technology has greatly improved the lot of the people of the world, none more so than those of us fortunate enough to be born in the developed world.

Technology’s effect on the lives of all of mankind is essentially immeasurable. The lives of men and women around the world don’t even resemble those of the ancient peoples. Advancements like long range communication and transportation allow people to buy and trade all over the world, selling products to far-away places as well as being able to receive aid in emergencies. Even one of the oldest technologies on Earth, agriculture, has enormous effects. Food can be produced much more efficiently and with much less land than with hunting and gathering, allowing for the feeding of many, many more people. Medical technology also plays an enormous role in improving our lives, particularly vaccinations, such as the one that allowed humanity to defeat smallpox once and for all. Even seemingly simple technologies like mosquito nets save hundreds of lives. It’s important to remember that not all technology is complicated or flashy - some of it is as simple as seeds in the ground or a net over a bed, but it still falls in the same category as Saturn 5s and iPhones.

Speaking of Saturn 5s and iPhones, the developed world, more than anywhere else on Earth, has reaped the harvest of the technological revolution begun so long ago when people began to, well, reap harvests. As an example, the computer I’m typing this on provides me with an incredible number of uses: education and research using the internet, communication from email, Skype, etc., entertainment from games and again, the internet, and practical services like word processing or spreadsheets. That’s just one example, and there are thousands more. Just looking around my own middle class house I can list an amazing number of high-tech gadgets - and make no mistake, as benign as many of these might seem, they’re still, in many ways, miraculous: vacuum cleaners make our lives more sanitary and pleasant, toasters give us delicious toast, televisions entertain and inform us, fish tank filters protect our pets, electric lights make all times daytime, grills and stoves and ovens help us prepare food quickly and safely…. the list goes on and on and on. All of this stuff makes our lives much safer and easier, as well as stimulating our economy through its sale and creation so that we can buy it along with actual necessities.

I can hear the battle cry of the opposition-  what about the evils that technology brings? What about the addictions that technologies like the internet bring? What about technology as a weapon? If technology has done so much to help the whole world, why are countries still wracked with poverty?

The answers to all of these questions are actually the same; people caused these problems, not technology. Internet addiction, etc., is present particularly because of how great the technology is - it’s so entertaining and interesting that it can be hard to stop. Of course, that is something of a detracting point, but through wise human action and moderation, it’s still possible to enjoy technology without becoming dependent on it.

Technology being used to harm and destroy is much harder to defend. It’s probably what Einstein was talking about in the quote above, that our ability to level cities through the atomic bomb has exceeded our humanity. This much is true. The science of killing is a shady and disreputable science, at best. This doesn’t mean that the technology behind the weapons is all bad, however; explosives, for example, are also used for peaceful purposes like mining, or even fireworks. Atomic technology is also used for the constructive purpose of creating energy. It is not the ideas themselves that are untoward, but rather the way in which they are used. There is another odd benefit to improving military technology, that as people become easier to kill it makes no sense to put them in harm’s way. It is not the best reason to develop military technology, but it does help to exonerate it somewhat; as time goes on, individual soldiers become relatively more effective, reducing the number of troops needed. The bloodiest wars of all time were in the time frame between the development of more technology and this realization, such as the American Civil War or World War I.

The remaining question now is this: if technology has so much potential to help the world, why is the world still such a mess? As I said earlier, the answer is people. Agriculture has produced the ability to grow great amounts of food and feed the world, but corrupt governments and lack of charity prevent this from happening. Similarly, medicine could save millions in developing countries, but the same barriers prevent it. Ecological devastation, once again particularly in developing countries, is due to poor  management of resources, usually by greedy governments and outside corporations. All of these problems stem from the misuse of technology, not the inherent evil of those technologies.

I hope you now have a little more optimism and faith in humanity, despite the fact that it is us and not our creations responsible for the evil in the world. The fact that we managed to create them in the first place is proof positive that we are an incredible species. So, go look around your house and marvel at the wonders that you own and that make you happy. And, just remember, that despite the miraculous usefulness of technology, it’s only miraculous when used right.