The rate of technological advances since the era of “The Industrial Revolution,” notably featuring mechanized looms for the weaving of fabrics, was exponential and ubiquitous. The temporal sociology of Mankind gratefully accepted and adjusted to the advent of new achievements, such as the automobile, the airplane, and new and ubiquitous facilities of mechanization. Most notable, in our view, was the ongoing exponential development of facilitated communication, which, for better or worse, has resulted in a society of remote digital communicants.
Capabilities in the areas of science and medicine, the latter, including vaccination, antibiotics. and notably, the surgical replacement of vital organs constituted a boon to society, affording better quality and increasing the length of human life. The positive experience of such advancements, technological and scientific, empirically ripened to the shared view that the capability of human intelligence should be exploited to pursue technological advances without reservation or distinction. The latter principled motivation led, in addition to many beneficial outcomes, to some unforeseen results which were despicable, even Frankensteinian.
Certain historically illustrative events provide the principal theme of this writing, viz., that the ethical consideration of human capability for advancements, relative to the choice of what we “can” do, in contrast with the ethically and responsibly humanitarian consideration of what we “should” do.
To be clear, we unreservedly award kudos to those uniquely brilliantly creative individuals capable and sufficiently talented to conceive of new and innovative technology, but have observed that some “advancements” have ultimately unintended, regressive, and ultimately harmful results on mankind and society.
The zealous pursuit of the scientist’s “aha” moment of epiphanic realization can unexpectedly, perhaps, tragically, result in empathic remorse and feelings of guilt upon its exploitation; the reaction reportedly experienced by Robert Oppenheimer and the many other brilliant scientists who split the atom and created the instrument that eviscerated the population and geography of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Considerations of far more than “scientific advancement” must responsibly be considered in the exercise of the human capability, dedicated to the pursuit of technological goals. The potential humanitarian impact of an “advancement” must mandatorily be exhaustively and thoroughly considered.
Followers of this blogspace are presumably aware of our singular disdain for the societal harm and psychological impact (especially on the young) of the hapless. substitution of the impersonal, facile, “smartphone” for salubrious personal conversation.
The humanistic consideration of “should” must responsibly be given metaphysical prominence over the consideration of “can.”
-p.
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