A Unabomber In Training

I really love some of the anti-technological advancement crowd. It seems as though no technology that improves the quality of life is acceptable. Bruce Sterling proves my point in his column over at bcentral.com.

Nuclear weapons? Useless and barbaric. Forget the fact that their mere presence kept the Cold War cold, forget their importance to our national security against such kindhearted nations as the Red Chinese, forget all that. Nukes are an absolute evil in his mind.

Coal power? It's dirty, get rid of it. Never mind that it comprises 25% of our electrical supply. Forget the fact that the only practical way to replace our coal power plants is by building those dastardly nuke plants. We wouldn't want to even contemplate the prospect of "blackened skies over China." They must use a much better brand of coal over there.

He wants to get rid of internal combustion engines. One of his reasons: "...if you stand inside a closed garage with any internal-combustion engine, it will kill you. That is bad." Like we didn't already know this. Getting around this problem is pretty simple - open the damn door.

I could go on and on as he did, rebutting each of his arguments for getting rid of the light bulb, manned spaceflight, prisons, and DVDs. I can agree in principle with containing the land mine problem, but I really fail to see how cosmetic implants and lie detectors are these horribly evil advancements that he wants us to believe they are. Relatively useless? I guess it depends on your point of view. But are they truly one of the most evil and despicable advancements of mankind? Hardly.

I really have issues with columns like this because the author sounds so elitist never cares what the consequences of his actions might be, and never really proposes a solution to the "problems" he raises. Yes, he mentioned fuel cells as a possible replacement for the internal combustion engine, but is it practical to bring one to market now? No. It's a concept still in the proving stage.

It's one thing to bring up items for debate without having a definitive solution in mind. It's not the greatest way of accomplishing things, but if handled right (meaning both sides of an issue are considered) then it may contribute to the betterment of society.

But to demagogue points using words like: "death wish," "destructive addiction," "eye-watering stink," "tribal rage," "stupid," "little point," "giant, two-million-person ghetto," "aberrant," "alien," "too crude," "voodoo," "Orwellian," "fiendish spam," and "miserable, endless war of attrition" is not to debate. It is designed to prejudice; to stifle debate by asserting a position - using no factual proof - and then proceeding to defend it by saying "Well, disprove my statement."

Some technologies, however, are so blatantly obnoxious that the human race would rejoice if they were obliterated. A wise society would honor its young technical innovators for services rendered in annihilating obsolete technologies that are the dangerous hangovers of previous, less advanced generations.

Perhaps we would be wise, but only if we rejoiced because they had developed a real, viable alternative to the "obsolete" technology. Without a real alternative, we are progressing into the past. I see no reason to rejoice in people being forced to read by candlelight because the country cannot produce enough power to light their fluorescent light tubes.

I wonder how many acid raindrops in China he created by writing and publishing this dreck on his computer. I think it's time for him to turn off the car, open the garage door and to go see what wonders our modern technological world has to offer.