HUMAN AND SOCIETY
Most of the time in a simple hunter-gatherer society's human species lives. Agrarian societies advanced less than
5,000 years ago and it is only in the last 200 years that a 'modern industrial society has come into being. Today this
industrial society is quickly converting into a global information society.
Is this societal progress a change for the better? There always been controversy over this question, and presently
the disagreement seems more intense than ever. possibly for the reason that we are more conscious today that society is
making. Because social change is taking place at an ever increasing rate. One of the issues in this current debate is the
quality-of-life in modern society Progress optimists have confidence in that we live better now than earlier generations,
while pessimists question that ife is getting worse.
The Positive View
Material Standard of Living. Several achievements of modem society draw through the idea that life is getting
better. One is the unparalleled rise in the material standard of living; the average citizen lives more easily now
thankings did centuries ago.
Untimely Death is reduced. Another development that strikes the eye is the unintended of an untimely death is
greatly reduced; fewer people die in accidents, epidemics, and murder. A number of social evils have bean
decreased, such as poverty, inequality, ignorance, and oppression. A recent statement of this view can be found
in 'It's getting better all the time' by Moore and Simon (2000).
Improvement in Evolutionary View. This view of development is typically part of an avolutionary view, in which
society is seen as a human tool that is gradually perfected. This idea established during the period of
enlightenment in the 19th century and lives today. The idea that we can progress society by 'social engineering is
part of this belief and forms the ideological foundation many major contemporary institutions, such as the
welfare state and development ald organizations. This journal of Social Indicators Research roots in that
movement.
Reduced Suffering. This is a traditional religious view of earthly life as a phase of penance awaiting paradise in
the afterlife breaks the knowledge that life is getting better.
These advancements are also together with the reduction in time, effort, and cost for production of any material
extending from the microchips to the state of the art automobiles or from the classy devices to the mega structures
coupled with ease in design and development.
These developments also invigorate economic development as effective use of technology. Reduces the material
production cost and the above changes that produce savings in the economy and lead to national development.
The Negative View
Problems and potentials often go hand in hand; problems can be twisted into opportunities. Elements of the
universe exhibits two faces, constructive side, and destructive side.
Society had become more and more reliant on technology. So that we sometimes lack the willingness to think
before we act. We become intolerant if it takes more than a seconds to download a copy of the moming newspaper. We
expect instant response to cur email, and we expect someone to answer their cell phone whenever and wherever we
call.
Science and technology gifts have been knowingly abused by the powerful humanity, and time. There are natural
side-effects of these gifts, but their deliberately misuse, abuse, and cutweigh and evils of the side-effects, which could
have been improved or at least minimized to a large extent otherwise, Human greed, selfish interest, lack of planning
and myopic vision has all led to the abuse of science and technology.
Contemporary Social Problems. Life is getting worse is typically fuelled by concern about contemporary social
problems. One of the kind problems is deviant behavior, such as criminality, drug use, and school refusal.
Another group of problems seen to lessen the quality of life such as social conflicts, labor disputes, ethnic
troubles, and political terrorism. The decline of the influence of the church, family and local community are also
seen to deprive the quality of life of modem people. A recent statement of this view is found in Easterbrook
(2003) "The progress paradox'.
Society Drifting away from Humen Nature. This view of deterioration is often part of the idea of society drifting
away from human nature, because society has changed a lot, while human nature has not. Not a piece of
equipment, but rather an uncontrollable force that presses humans into a way of life that does not really fit
them in society view. The idea that life is getting poorer fits a long tradition of social criticism and apocalyptic
prophecies. In this view, paradise is lost and doubtful to be restored.
The machines that do our work for us and will achieve immortality by downloading ourselves into them is all
about robotics. But Joy does not bellave we will be human after the downloads or the robots would be our kids. Genetic
engineering will create new crops. plants, and eventually now species including many variations of human species. Joy
has many fears about genetics but especially how easy it would be to mess up and create some new epidemic. And
nanotechnology has its "gray goo" problem-self-replicating nanobets out of control.
Societal Collapse
Extravagance of desire is the fundamental cause which has led the world Into its present predicament. Fast rather than
slow, more rather than less this flashy "development is linked directly to society's impending collapse. -Masanobu
Fukucka
There are several attempts to explain the society collapse. This includes the following words: Gibbons' classic
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire also Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, and Jared Diamond's more
recent Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
Tainter (1990), nates that societies need to protect certain resources such as food. energy, and natural resources
in order to sustain their populations. In their attempts to solve this supply problem, societies may grow in complexity in
the form of bureaucracy. infrastructure, social class distinction, military operations, and colonies. Sometimes, the
marginal returns on these investments in social complexity become unfavorable, and societies that do not manage to
scale back when their organizational overheads become too large finally face breakdown.
Four new factors that may contribute to the collapse of present and future societies was also suggested by him
such as human-caused climate change, but also build-up of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages, and
the full utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity. Diamond draws attention to the danger of creeping normalcy,
stating to the phenomenon of a slow trend being concealed within noisy fluctuations, so that a detrimental outcome that
occurs in small, almost unnoticeable steps may be accepted or come about without resistance even if the same outcome,
had it come about in one sudden leap, would have evoked a vigorous response.
Different classes of scenaries involving societal collapse
a. Local Societal Collapse: Individual societies can collapse, but this is doubtful to have a determining effect
on the future of humanity if other advanced societies survive and take up where the failed societies left off. All
historical cases of collapse have been of this kind.
b. Global Societal Collapse: We suppose new kinds of threat (eg, nuclear holocaust or catastrophic changes
in the global environment) or the trend towards globalization increased interdependence of different parts of
the world and create a vulnerability to human chvilization as a whole.
RELATION OF TECHNOLOGY WITH HUMANITY
When we talk about the relationships between technology and humanity, it is obvious that we have to deal with
the interrelations between a very complex phenomenon technology, science, society, and systems of rights of a universal
nature. A large number of powerful energy sources-coal, petroleum, electricity etc. have enabled humanity to conquer
the barriers of nature as part of discovery and development. All this has facilitated the growth of fast modes of
transports, which in tum has transformed the world into a global village
The Future of Humanity
What was dissimilar in the 20% century? Surely, the technologies underlying the Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD)- Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC)-were powerful weapons that had an enormous risk. But building nuclear
weapons required, at least for a time, access to both rare indeed, effectively unavailable raw materials and highly
protected information; biological and chemical weapons programs also inclined to require large-scale activities.
Technologies in the 215 century such as Genetics, Nanotechnology, and Robetics (GNR)-are so powerful that they
can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerous for the first time are these accidents and abuses.
These are widely seen within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw
materials. Knowledge alone will allow the use of them.
Therefore, we have the possibility not only to those weapons of mass destruction but also to those knowledge
and enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication.
Prediction of Artificial Intelligence
Good (1965). The idea of a technological singularity tied specifically to artificial Intelligence and stated:
"Lot an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man
however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could
design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an intelligence explosion, and the intelligence of man
would be left far behind. Thus, the first ultra-intelligent machine is the fast invention that man need ever make... It is
more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultra-intelligent machine will be built."
Vernor Vinge elaborated the idea in The coming technological singularity, adjusting the timing of Good's prediction:
"Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly thereafter, the
human era will be ended"
Technology and Its Usability
Technology is good and it can change our society, but the way we use it will measure if it is beneficial or not.
Future technologies have to be planned to serve people and society, they have to be user friendly. The society has to use
future technologies with good intentions.
The design and use of future technology Human have unique capabilities of imagining the impossible and
creating new ideas and this will determine
The type of technology to be used tomorrow will determine through imagination and creative thinking.
• Computer technology future
• Next generation wearable computer
• Watch technology upcoming
• The forthcoming of home technology
• The coming of classroom technology
HOW TECHNOLGY IS TRANSFORMING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
The sci-fi genre has imagined all sorts of groundbreaking inventions, but reality holds as many captivating examples
of advance technology that is changing people's! human everyday lives which could impact them in the future.
Technology is really transforming the human experience, helping people to achieve things that would have only been
previously dreamt in fiction, though some of the new inventions should potentially stay there.
• Hearing colors Hearing at Arm's Length
• Eye-Camera/Smart Contact Lens/ Eyeball Jewelry Implant
• Human compass
• Password Pill
• Electronic Throat Tattoo
• Interaction with Devices
• Robot Arm/Controlling Wheelchair
• Bionic Limp
• Artificial Vision System
• Terminator Arm/Titan Arm
• USB finger/Mind Uploading the
new Pandora's Box-also known
as "TECHNOLOGY"
The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have
noticed. Ideas can't be put back in a box, unlike uranium or plutonium, they don't need to be mined and refined, and
they can be freely copied. Once they are cut, they are out. Churchill remarked, in a famous left handed compliment, that
the American people and their leaders "Invariably do the right thing, after they have examined every other alternative."
In this case, we must act more presciently to do the right thing at last may lose the chance to do it at all. As
Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad, it rides upon us, and this is what we must fight, in our time.
The question is, indeed, which is to be master? Will we survive our technologies?
According to Nick Bostrom (2004), there are four future scenarios for the Humanity and Technology:
1. The EXTINCTION SCENARIO perhaps the least affected by spreading the timeframe of consideration. If
humanity goes extinct, it stays extinct. The cumulative probability of extinction increases menotonically over
time. One arque, that the current contury or the next times, will be a critical phase for humanity, if we make it
through this period then the life expectancy of human civilization could become extremely high. Several
possible lines of argument would support this view. For example, one might believe that super intelligence will
be developed within a few centuries, and that, while the creation of super intelligence will pose grave risks, once
that creation and its immediate aftermath have been survived, the new civilization would have vastly improved
survival prospects since it would be guided by super intelligent foresight and planning.
2. The RECURRENT COLLAPSE SCENARIO becomes progressively unlikely the langor the timescale, for
reasons that are apparent from figure. The scenario assumes that technological civilization will hesitate
continuously within a relatively narrow band of progress. If there is any chance that a cycle will either break
through to the post human level or plummet into extinction, then there is for each period a chance that the
oscilation will end. Unless the chance of such a breakout meets to zero at an appropriately rapid rate, then with
probability one the pattern will finally be broken. At that point the pattem might degenerate into one of the
other ones we have considered.
3. The PLATEAU SCENARIOS are the recurrent collapse scenario in the level of civilization is theorized to
remain confined within a narrow range, and the longer the timeframe considered, the smaller the probability
that the level of technological growth will remain within this range. But compared to the recurrent collapse
pattern, the plateau pattem might be thought to have a bit more staying power. The reason is that the plateau
pattem is reliable with a situation of complete motionlessness such as result from the rise of a very stable
political system, propped up by greatly increased powers of surveillance and population control, and which for
one reason or another chooses to preserve its status quo. Such stability is inconsistent with the recurrent
collapse scenario.
4. The CUMULATIVE PROBABILITY OF POST HUMANITY, like extinction, increases monotonically over time.
Contrast to extinction scenarios there is a possibility that a civilization that has achieved a post human condition
will later return to a human condition. The reasons paralleling those suggested earlier for the idea that the
annual risk of extinction will decline significantly after certain critical technologies have been developed and
after self-sustaining more colonies have been created, one might maintain that the annual likelihood that a post
human condition would revert to a human condition will similarly decline over time.
POSTHUMANITY THEORY
A clarification of what has been referred to as "post human condition" is overdue. It is used to mention to a
condition which has at least one of the following features:
1. Population bigger than 1 trilion persons.
2. Larger than 500 years' life expectancy.
3. Large fraction of the population has cognitive capacities more than two standard deviations over the present
human maximum.
4. Near-complete control over the sensory input, for the majority of people for most of the time.
5. Human psychological suffer become rare occurrence.
6. Any change of magnitude or profundity comparable to that of one of the above.
Post humanity is a theory of concept that is of an advance level of technological or economic development that
would involve a radical change in the human condition, whether the change was brought by biological enhancement or
other causes.
The Longer Term
The four families of scenarios we have considered such as extinction, recurrent collapse, plateau, and post
humanity, it could be controlled by varying the period aver hypothesized occur. A few hundred years or a few thousand
years might already be plenty time for the scenarios to have an opportunity to play themselves out. Yet such an interval
is a blip compared to the lifetime of the universe. Let is therefore zoom out and consider the longer term prospects for
humanity.
Message to Humanity
It is needless to say that like any other aspect of development, the technological development is similar to a
double edge sword which on one side can kill someone and on the other side can lead to one's own protection. However,
the decision to use it proficiently in proper perspective is one's own decision and choice.
If technological advancements are put in the best uses, it further inspires the development in related and
nonrelated areas but at the same time its negative use can create havoc in the humanity of the world. Technology has
and will, change the moral fabric of humanity, it is up to the present generation to heed warning and not allow such
societal travesties of immense proportions ever to occur again. Technological advancements will continue to advance
rapidly as we move into the new millennium. What important is to ensure that these advances benefit humanity as a
whole.
