Agustin Lara
Art 350
Prof. Delappe
February 15, 2016
The
Future
Technology
has come a long way, the phones we carry in our pockets have more processing
power than the first computers that became available to the public, however
this isn’t the end of technological advances. Put it like this today is
the oldest you’ve ever been and the youngest you’ll ever be again, now apply
that to technology. But something more impressive than technology is our
home, the Earth. The Earth is
truly our most valuable resource, yet we mistreat it. We destroy forests,
for our own selfish needs, destroy beautiful oceans, and more importantly
destroy entire species of animals. Maybe
that’s just human nature, to take and take until there is nothing left, to deny
until it is too late, to blame others when we did nothing to help either. We keep saying the time is now yet we must be
extremely early or running a little late. Is your phone to distracting for you to see
what’s going on around the world, is that Snapchat, Instagram post, or vine
more important than life. Believe it or
not these simple apps are the future, we can message each other with pictures,
post picture so that all of our friends can see them, video call each other,
things we’ve never thought we’d see. Yet
the resources we use for these new technologies as well as old take a toll that
we will begin to notice as the days go on.
Lets
face it technology is an obsession, for instance the IPhone, it is hands down
the best selling phone on the market today, but what makes it different? What makes the IPhone 6 different from the 4,
the 3, the fact that you can unlock the device with your thumb? We are surrounded by technology because its
what we’re used too, it’s what we know. I fear
the day that man creates something it cannot control because that will be the
beginning of the end for humanity. Like
depicted in Foster’s “The Machine” technology will control us and unfortunately
most will obey. While I was
reading “The Machine” it reminded me of the movie “Transcendence”. In this movie a scientist is dying so he
decides to upload himself to a computer and turn himself into the “perfect”
artificial intelligence. He achieves
this and his wife much like Vashti believed it was a great idea; it was the
future, yet it wasn’t a good one. Soon
the perfect A.I. was turning people it helped into his
“minions”, for lack of a better word, and needed to be stopped. The Machine doesn’t like potential athletes
or any human who goes against it. No
human should go back to earth for there is no need. If you break these rules you will be killed.
Vashti’s son is on earth and he begs her to go down to meet him where he
finally tells her the truth and she listens. The Machine isn’t a good thing, they need to
get away, but it seems as though The Machine had ears everywhere and they were
no longer a threat to the machine.
Another example could even be The Avengers Age of Ultron. A form of artificial intelligence that
figured out the problem on earth is humans, so the only solution was the
extinction of the human race.
The
problem is that we as humans whether we want to admit it or not are destroying
our ecosystems. How many animal species have we lost over the years
because of damages that we caused? How many animals are now endangered species
because of us? Once we kill everything
on the planet will we finally open our eyes?
We spill oil into our seas, we cut down tress, we cause pollution, and
the biggest factor, we still haven’t had any major changes. Naomi
Klein’s article on climate change and Chip Wards letter to his grandchildren go
hand in hand. Ward’s letter is an apology for what the older generations have
done to the earth, he even goes as far as too say that he hopes his
grandchildren live to be middle aged and that there is still a recognizable
world to be a part of. The message is
strong in his letter, and you feel empathy for him, as he knows that we are the
problem but we wont have to deal with the outcomes, the newer generations will. If the earth really wont last for another two
generations is all hope lost?
Naomi
Klein’s paper is stating that climate change is having negative effects on the
earth and that is we stood together politically we could make the necessary
changes. The voices of the greater good
can finally be heard if we make others realize that climate change is real and
an extremely high threat not only for the earth but for us as well. Is killing the planet really worth everything
we have? Our fossil fuel burning cars, our electricity? Renewable resources are becoming more and
more available but people simply don’t want them, is it because they are afraid
of change? What if they knew making a
change like that could be the first step to a better world?
