Better or worse?
Out of context: Reply #4
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- detritus0
"Does continuously updating science and technology make our lives easier or harder?"
This is a bit of a weird question, as it seems to imply there is a baseline with which to compare our current state. It also seems to imply that 'the continuous updating of science and technology' is something alien, something outside of nature. This is a mistake I feel a lot of Greenies and holistic-path nature's navel hippies seems to get lost in. Part of the very essence, or purpose, of Man is to act as a 'catalyst/enabler for meta-evolutionary pathways'.
Compared to the presumed null state void before the 'Big Bang', the universe is unnatural. Compared to the majority of the universe we can see, Life itself is unnatural. DNA is an aberration. Perception, consciousness, intelligence and whatever comes afterwards are, in turn, too.
A product of these increasingly unlikely aberrations, we are born unnaturally, reproduce and develop unnaturally.
Everything that we are is an iterative function of what we've already created. From the first purposeful wielding of a club, to the spark of fire, planting of seed and everything since - all unnaturally natural.
So, does tech make life easier? It enables our aspirations, whilst at the same time inflating them, necessitating further drives to reach ever-ascending ambitions. We will always reach. Conversely, we will always remain unfulfilled.
So. Are things easier? Yes. I don't have to club a deer every week to eat, or synthesise my being from the base quanta or funda of the universe when I awake in the morning. I'd say that's easy. Easier, at least.
But as a mere page or chapter in a very long book, we can expect - we MUST expect, things to be harder. We make our world more complex, and we must adapt to it.
Otherwise we, and therefore the part of the universe we inhabit, won't evolve.