How Technological Evolution Will Destroy Us All! Maybe.
If you think about it, we really haven’t been at this very long. Despite the fact that humans have been around for millions of years, we hadn’t really come into our own until just a few thousand years ago. Discoveries like agriculture, animal husbandry and bronze working were huge for their time, but our time requires a lot more to keep our modern society happy. Today we want things like android phones, iPads and video games. They might not be all that effective when hunting for food, but our modern day tools are essential for navigating today’s busy life.
One unfortunate thing about our place in the human timeline is the fact that technology is beginning to take off at astounding rates, giving way to newer and greater discoveries around virtually every corner. It’s hard enough for average citizens to keep up with the changing technological times, and the challenge is even greater for a variety of media industries such as newspapers, magazines and television networks.
I am a person who looks forward to new technology. I’m happy to live in this time and feel almost blessed to be able to live amid this uprising of technology in an ever-shrinking global arena. Part of me see’s the Internet as an amazing boon to the world, allowing its’ citizens to instantly connect on a personal level with anyone, at any time. This sounds very wonderful and it really is, but it’s not reality.
The sad truth is that new technology is killing off more traditional industries and that is threatening the global economy. Just look around! Everyone has heard stories about newspapers going out of business due to poor circulation. Musicians have filed suits seeking monetary compensation while fans simply trade music instead of purchase it, and movies are burned in minutes, watched and deleted before the authorities ever catch wind. These points are all pretty nefarious, but all of the reasons aren’t so shady. Television audiences are dwindling because watching your shows online, whenever you like, is far more convenient not to mention the fact that there are far fewer commercials to tolerate.
These things seem insignificant but they’re stealing an inreasingly large chunk of consumers away from traditional industries and into new entities. I am not a tireless defender of traditional industries or anything like that, but I do understand that this kind of technological change is something that should come on a lot slower than it has been, and that it is going to be very difficult to adjust to these changing times and how they influence our economy, both domestic and global.
At the end of the day, however, I can’t imagine that we won’t be able to adjust, to adapt to changing times. Sure, the economy may take a serious hit and could take a permanent nose-dive if coupled with something like another war, but that’s just a risk we have to take. Technology hasn’t ever stopped for our ancestors, so it’s not something we can wait around on now.
