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Entry: The Snare Of Progress Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_snare_of_progress#29496 Post contents: "The real major threat to the environment in most countries isn’t technology per se or man’s attitude towards it, it is the booming human population and the pressures it places on resources." Sorry, the booming human population is a direct result of increases in human longevity (often unwanted, judging from the popular support of euthanasia among the elderly) brought about by innovations in medical technology. In fact, we are on average having less kids than we did ages ago. Same goes for the pressures we place on the environment: per person, we have a larger ecological footprint than we have in the past precisely because of our technologically-oriented lifestyle - we need running water, electricity, cable, instant access to food, fuel for cars, and a whole host of things that either didn't exist or weren't thought of as necessities 100-200 years ago. Anyone who really, truly desires to know the truth about technological progress and its relation to tradition, family, and Christian religion, and other such things conservatives hold dear, would do well to check out Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society. The notion that technology is merely a "tool", without any sort of inherent moral value, is patently false, in the sense that each technological innovation leads the way for another, and progresses in a geometric fashion, and since these innovations are almost always invented towards the purpose of greater efficiency, anything which is not strictly utilitarian and pragmatic is thrown away - thus the erosion of local cultural traditions, religious doctrine, the family (countries that strongly value the family have high occurrences of nepotism, which is highly inefficient - one split their loyalty between the family and the technological state), the natural environment (which is viewed mainly as either a sterile, human-free preserve for wild animals or merely as a natural resource to be exploited, not as a place for suitable habitation, something that is part and parcel of the human experience and something that has shaped mankind's traditions and values for centuries.), etc. Sent at: 2008 12 02