The Solow Paradox refers to the fact that when you look at society and studies regarding productivity, computers and computer use are everywhere in the former, but occur rarely in the latter. This has changed somewhat in in the last five years, which is partly to be expected (because computers are becoming an integrated part of most people’s lives) but much more surprising (what took so long?).
I wonder if, in absolute terms, they represent much increase at all, though they certainly have changed processes and emphasis in the workplace and in our lives. It strikes me that perhaps all of these studies in productivity boil down to a kind of general law that there is only so much productivity to be had in our system, that we are getting most of it, and that the pool is never destroyed (or increased), only redesistributed.
This blind acceptance, or commentary, on technology, makes me sick. Whether you are for or against it, technology is so pervasive in our lives today, that a more critical discourse must be had. If criticism, or philosophy is, as Plato said, learning how to die, or a confrontation with death, then the only way we can confront our deaths today is by facing technology. What is life today as opposed to 2,000 years ago or 2 million years ago? And what is death, or that which is non-vital, the death-in-life? As Jaspers said about St. Augustine: “he thought in questions.” The question today, the white elephant on the couch, is technology. Anyone who does not see this is an idiot.
For example, your daughter has a disease-diabetes. What is probably the most prevalent sickness of the modern age-cancer, is extremely rare before the industrial revolution. So cancer is to a large extent created by the industrial revolution i.e. its pollution, enviromental destruction etc. So death becomes redefined to a large extent in the industrial revolution by technology through cancer as does life by the standardization which technology introduces into life via the factory, the assembly line, mass production etc. Now, assuming diabetes has a similar trajectory as cancer, your daughters death has been influenced by technology- as has, like everyone elses, her life. So if your daughter, or any other person afflicted by a disease or indeed living in the modern world, wants to know what their life, as opposed to those things which are not vital in them, or their death, is, they must confront technology.
Now obviously, the corporations which created the pollutions etc. which cause diseases like cancer etc. to spread massively are also producing their treatments, while also creating an untold number of new diseases. Does this mean that technology must therefore not be discussed critically?
Fortunately (or not), there is no evidence that Type I diabetes has become more common since the industrial revolution. Type II, which is most often a symptom of obesity, is a different story. So you make a fundamental assumption that is wrong in trying to tug at my heart-strings.
Secondly, I have no desire to go back and live in a different time (except as a learning exercise or as an enjoyable, but temporary, trip) of the mythical golden age. Or earlier, when being pudgy and short-sighted would have meant you wouldn’t have emerged from adolescence alive.
I’m not blindly accepting of technology unless by that you mean that in the same way that you appear to be blindly critical in that I do think about it, but so far I have come to terms with my perceptions.
Leave a Reply