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?