Friday, October 31, 2008

Why the Future Doesn't Need Us

Joy's thesis is "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies-, robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans and endangered species." Joy is worried that technology will go to far and ruin the human race as we know it. Humans can avoid becoming obsolete and/or unnecessary by not relying on machines to get things done. If people became less dependent on technological advancements and more dependent on their selves then we would not have to worry about technology going to far. Institutions are contributing to this "inevitability" by continuing to let technology advance without thinking about whether it is unethical. Huxley would agree with Joy's article because he was against the advancement of technology. He wanted people to refrain from relying on technology to get things done. Some rhetorical strategies Joy employs in his article are that robots, genetic engineering, and nanotech will change the future of human kind worse.  No I do not think that Joy is a fear monger, he is just stating the facts. If the facts happen to scare people that is just a perk to his article. He is just showing the side of technology that most people do not want to talk about or they are just scared to talk about. Joy's use of literature helps him prove his point that the expansion of technology will ultimately hurt humans. The literature contributes to the message/meaning of the piece as a whole by it shows that technology could become devastating for the future and overcome the human race. This article connects to BNW by in a way BNW is what Joy is predicting. In BNW technology is very involved in the peoples lives, it is not to extent that Joy is predicting but it is fairly close. 

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