What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

You know what they say "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

The cell phone.

I just received one the day before the Championship, and nice as it is to be able to remain in contact with people whereever they are, I'm starting to get irked by it a bit.

Why, you ask? Simple--before I had one, if I was at my phone in my room, I'd answer it and chat. If I didn't want to talk, I could either ignore the call or, to lose that distraction completely, go elsewhere. Now, especially since my mom expects me to have it on and with me, I can't do that.

And if that's not enough, I simply have to draw on my experience as a cashier at the local Piggly Wiggly. You would not believe how hard it is to conduct a transaction when they're yammering away on their phone.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Cell phones, as far as annoyance goes. But man's ability to create nuclear power is definitely the most harmful.

"Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life." - JFK

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

i somewhat agree. However, nuclear weapons have also added stability to the world because large-scale nations are less willing to fight knowing that it might end up with the whole world in ashes. You could really argue either way.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Escalators. I mean, I get the purpose of elevators, those who are in wheelchairs, those who have strollers etc need a way to get up and down, but stairs that walk for you? I mean, come on, how lazy can we get?

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

That's true, and it was even more so true before this new era of terrorism. But now, nuclear is becoming so (relatively) common that all it takes is one terrorist group to get one missile and the whole world is in ashes.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Even more so....the power sidewalk. You know, those things that they put in some airport terminals that stretch the entire length of the concourse. the peak of man's laziness. a floor that walks for you. gimme a break.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

ummm the Segway? a machine that walks for you everwhere you go
it is really cool though.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Yeah but Segways can make President Bush look ridiculous, so they're ok

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

He dosnt need a Segway to do that, all he has to do is talk

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Alright friends, Election was in 2004. This is 2005. Let's steer a bit away from politics eh?

I'd have to say that the worst invention I've ever seen in terms of effects on society would most definitly have to be Dance Dance Revolution. Don't get me wrong, I love DDR, but it has definitly bred a generation of teenagers who think that they can dance. :)

- Genia

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

I think the point of those in airports is so that people can get places faster, by continuing to move under their own power while on them, thereby getting people places twice as fast.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Hmm, I dunno about you guys, but I think I speak for all of the teams that got from the Airport to their hotel downtown in Atlanta when I say that powered sidewalks and escalators are marvelous. On our way back to the airport, we were all really tired and when we got to the second down escalator (the extremely long one) in the Marta station and were horrified to find that the down escalator had been almost entirely disassembled and the only way down was the steep staircase. Not bad in terms of excercise, not good in terms of having to balance so much equipment and luggage at once!

Other than cellphones, I think that the development of mass media has done more harm than good. This is purely a personal perspective, but I truly feel that the expansion of television networks and other forms of mass media have cut right into humanity's own creative vein. Just look at what happens when you walk up to someone on the street and tell them that you build and compete robots - they ask if it is anything like "Battle Bots", which, IMHO, is about as far away as you can get from the true meaning of FIRST. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, who knows.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

As I'm going into broadcast journalism, I would be interested to hear more of your opinion on this. IM me sometime, spartychica08

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

This is going to be an earth shattering revelation but television holds the potential for such great good but bows down to the popular pressure and has the whole country watching reality (gag cough) shows like they are the fix for everything. How embarassing for a couple to be yelling at each other on international TV. There are times when I truly am embarassed to admit I am a television engineer. I wonder whether the current terrorist movements are not a direct result of TV coverage gone amuck. It covers the bad guys and shows other idiots how to be bad too. This is one that you can fix, though. Start writing to TV executives and let them know how really angry you are. They listen to groups of people and so do sponsors. You can make a difference.

Nuclear power is a problem for me in that there has been little real thought in disposing of the waste. Although all of us want the electricity, we are not really concerned about the consequences. I believe we need to look to the future of energy and stop thinking that our natural resources are unlimited.
OK, I'll step down now and let someone else have the soapbox for a while.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Not to disagree Al, but that arguement could be used against almost all technological improvements in communications. Gutenberg's printing press made information (beneficial or harmful) more easily distributed; radio signals have been used for saving lives during disasters and also as triggering mechanisms for weapons; the internet provides an encyclopedic database of knowledge, but also provides a means for whackos like Heaven's Gate to recruit and influence others.

Technology has always been a double-edged sword.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

This is interesting.

First thing that comes to my mind is gunpowder. It was used almost exclusively for weapons - cannons, and later firearms, that caused previously unheard of carnage on the battlefield

and leading to the carpet bombing of WW2 in which millions of people were killed by bombers who were so far away they could not even see the people they were killing

60 million dead in WW2 alone, almost all from gunpowder based weapons

by compairson, less than 200,000 people have died to date from nuclear weapons.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

That is a very interesting answer. I must have taken it for granted that there were no inventions used almost purely for harm. I wonder if gunpowder really did increase the death rate. Does anyone have any statistics on percentages of populations that died in pre-gunpowder wars? I know that something like 10% of the populations of Germany and Russia were killed during World War II.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

MTV. I just killed 20 brain cells by saying "MTV". Oops, there's another 20. I better quit while I'm ahead. :rolleyes:

Oh yeah, and the microwave oven.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

PSP....I am supposed to studying and this thing is too distracting....ahhh d$%^ you sony...

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

200,000 in the initial impact maybe, but what about all those that got cancer from the radiation? Or what about the people who had to evacuate their homes because it was no longer habitable.

Imagine if terrorist's set a nuclear bomb off in New York City. With one bomb, millions of people would be killed, hundreds of thousands would later die due to cancer, thousands of square miles of land would be uninhabitable for centuries, and the whole world's economy would be in threat.

Time for a new thread...

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

The number of deaths among the survivors attributed to radiation-induced cancer is less than 500. No genetic effects (i.e. mutations in offspring) have yet been seen, but animal studies suggest that they typically don't appear until several generations after the initial exposure, so the jury is still out on that count.
A single bomb capable of killing that many in one stroke would be unreasonably large. The cancer risk is definitely there, but highly overblown. I'd accept a major disruption to the global economy.

But "[un]inhabitable for centuries"? No way. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are obvious indications to the contrary.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

That's quite an overstatement, unless they managed to find themselves the plans for a high-end hydrogen bomb the size of a bus, and figured out how to put it together and set it off.

Take Hiroshima—one 13 kiloton bomb killed a little less than a hundred thousand instantly, and maybe sixty thousand more afterward due to radiation effects (and that's mostly acute effects—like radiation burns, rather than cancer). The city's population just prior to the nuclear bombing was around 250 000; now, it's over 2.8 million. It is not uninhabitable, and hasn't ever been so, except, broadly speaking, the short period while the contaminated debris was being removed. In fact, for the sort of long-term effects you describe, only something like a very large cobalt bomb would suffice, because of the long half-life of the isotopes of that element. (Those have never been tried, because they're potentially so messy—the terrorists would have to develop it on their own, rather than merely steal one!)

Now, setting off a 13 kiloton bomb is no mean feat. But enough destruction to instantly kill millions of people would probably require something on the order of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, which had a test yield of 50 000 kilotons, and a theoretical yield of 100 000 kilotons. It's said that the 50 megaton explosion would have had a lethal radius of over 100 km, which would certainly accomplish that. In any case, to incinerate millions, you'd need several tens of thousands of kilotons, at least. Once again, those sorts of experimental bombs aren't just lying around for the stealing, even in Russia.

As for whether a terrorist group could manage to make such a device (like the 1940s-era Little Boy, to say nothing of the 1960s-era Tsar Bomba), they would need access to some very specialized equipment (it's not COTS), some significant expertise, and hard-to-find materials like enriched uranium (i.e. with a high proportion of ²³⁵U).

Now, the sort of bombs you might actually have to worry about might include dirty bombs, or even the old-fashioned truckload of something explosive. There's not actually that much you can do to avoid these—short of searching every truck that enters NYC—but the consolation (after a fashion) is that it wouldn't kill nearly so many people. The real trouble is, 50 megatons by H-bomb, or one kiloton by NH₄NO₃-diesel-bomb; it doesn't matter, if it goes off in New York. The world's economy will indeed tremble, and in all likelihood, America will go on another foolish killing spree, if there's no way to strike at the actual responsible party. (But that's for the other thread that Mike spoke of....)

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Taken from http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2001/0...s/08060003.htm
From http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~copeland/atomicbomb.html
What I was trying to say with the cancer argument was that nuclear bombs cause very harmful medical problems, including cancer.

With the advancement of technology, i'm sure that soon a relatively small bomb will soon be able to have that amount of destructions.

And yes, it was uninhabitable... :o

EDIT: I'd just like to say I know nothing about the science of nuclear weapons, but rather i'm basing my "calculations" on what has happened in the past and the huge leap in technology that we've had in the past century.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

First, I agree that nuclear explosives have indeed caused more harm than good. The "plowshares" program never went anywhere; radioactive natural gas was considered a showstopper and conventional explosives are more than sufficient for major earthmoving projects.

Now, to put the quotes from MikeWasHere05 into slightly more focused context:

This is neither cancer nor genetic damage. This is merely disrupted development, very similar to fetal alcohol syndrome.
This "excess" is fewer than 100 individuals. While statistically significant, it is also clearly not the magnitude of issue that some people think it is.
The statistics support you when you say nuclear bombs cause medical problems including cancer. However, they contradict you when you predict the number of deaths.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Yeah I see that now, I never really researched this kind of stuff and threw a predicted number out there. Learned to not do that again :o

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

On second thought, I gotta say the Xerox machine

thousands and thousands of Monks, out on the streets - out of a job, with no prospects!

"It says here on your resume you've been a scribe for 38 years
do you have any other job skills?"

"Is not speaking for a year a job skill? " :^)

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

PC solitaire.

-Andy A.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

hmm. What about this "wheel" invention. This just lead to man needing the desire to "accessorise" their new toy with "combustion engines" and "gyros" later on. We should all just be happy with what we have and stop trying to progress.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Every great technological advance has brought about both good and bad.

"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds"

J. Robert Oppenheimer after witnessing the Trinity test

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

That has always been one of my favorite quotes. not because it is kinda dark or anything but because he understood that he just invented something that could cause every other invention to disappear

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

This is gonna sound crazy, but...

The invention of the gasoline automobile has been extremely good for this country and this world in the 20th century. However, the harm is soon to come...

It has created an unsustainable economy based on fossil fuels. Big, heavy SUVs (especially Hummers) are the worst. In terms of moving the person or the goods concerned, SUV and Hummer engines are less than 1 percent efficient. That means that almost all of the gasoline is wasted. As you know, oil is a fossil fuel (nonrenewable), and it is running out, and production has either recently peaked or will peak in a short while. In the mean time, however, we have made an economy so dependent on oil that even a small reduction in production can cause a recession (I.E. the 1970s). What would the economy be like with, say 20 percent less oil production? 40 percent? HALF?? LESS??? It would be in total and complete ruin.

This is not even considering the vast ecological impact such as global warming that an oil economy has had on the environment. I will not rant about it here. There are plenty of websites for that.

Meanwhile, the leaders (of both major parties) down in Washington DC are idling around about energy policy ("Nukular" is not sustainable, at least not by the current methods, and "clean coal" pollutes). Understandably so. It would cause a political party great damage when such a policy is declared, and it would probably cause problems in the short term. In the long-term, however, there is a sustainable economy that will be there for many generations to come.

We are engineers, though, and can (or will be able to) solve these pressing issues. However, it is time for an honest, organized, and major endeavor. It is unfortunately too late to look for "Market Solutions". That time would have been in the 1970s and 80s, and everyone knows how the previous energy independence effort ended. It is time for an enormous bipartisan effort to solve this problem (Although, with the same cost of the current Iraq war per year over five years, will probably get us over 90 percent to the goal). It is time for nothing less than a new Manhattan Project, to gain energy independence.

P.S.: Such a project would also inspire millions of Americans to become engineers (and join FIRST) and would guarantee them with important, high-paying jobs.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

WTH??? My microwave oven is a lifesaver... I pity the people who don't have one.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

The combustion engine is a pretty big one. It drives our economy (and FIRST) and the automobile basically rules our lives (before the automobile most peoples lives never extended beyond the borders of their own towns).
But the automobile has also cause a dependency on oil that influences our foreign policy, the creation of pollutants that are basically destroying the earth and it's inhabitants, the decrease of natural land to roads, parking lots and such, ill health (why walk when you can drive) and the automobile is probably the most dangerous object you can freely buy (perhaps even more so than guns). It's alot of responsibility and I think there are alot of people driving who really shouldn't be.
It is a powerful invention.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Technological advances have already made oil a renewable resource. For example, there's a thermal depolymerization pilot plant near a Butterball facility in Missouri that produces more than two barrels of mid-grade oil from each ton of turkey offal it processes, with more than 80% of the energy content of the incoming waste ending up in the outgoing oil. The process works with any organic input, including plastics, sewage, and medical wastes. It's presently more expensive than imported crude oil -- the output from the pilot plant is something like $80/barrel -- but that'll go down with increased scale. That it uses up garbage in the process is a bonus.

Because the oil produced by TDP comes from wastes and is not a fossil fuel, burning it doesn't add to the carbon dioxide in the biosphere. The overall result isn't as clean as a hypothetical hydrogen economy could be, but it has two clear advantages: it makes full use of existing infrastructure, and it's a whole lot less expensive than producing hydrogen from non-fossil sources.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

I'd contend though that if it were utilized more, Nuclean Power would be a real benefit to the planet. It's cleaner and fairly safe (when people are not cheap and/or lax). Unfortunately you don't really have the ability to have the power without the potential for weapons.

The same could be said for gunpowder and similar explosives. If you don't want to limit yourself to modern technology, I'd place gunpower as more harmful then nuclear. Look at the number of people killed over time by guns, bombs, rockets, missiles, etc which are all based off the an explosive in some respects (i.e. gun powder). But also look at all the benefits. We would not have modern mining, or many tunnels, or roads and railroads through some tough terrain with out gunpowder and other explosives.

There is a moral question that engineers and inventors really have to deal with... Are the benefits worth the potential harm?

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George,
I have to disagree. The amount of radioactive waste that is building up in holding pens is getting bigger everyday. We need to look at the fact that this material needs watching for thousands of years or we need a better way of safely disposing of it. (quite frankly, I would think that grinding it up, mixing it with the tailings of uranium mining and sticking it back down in the hole it came from would work better than what we are currently doing.) The breeder reactors that France is so fond of are another source of fear in many repsects. The fact that they produce additional radioactive material as a product of operation and that sodium is used as the primary coolant scares me.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Indeed, an article in this month's MIT Technology Review by Stewart Brand, a prominent environmentalist, does a good job of explaining why nuclear power shouldn't be ignored as an alternative to fossil fuel-burning power plants. Many environmental experts are now saying that the problems of waste storage/disposal and proliferation issues should be addressed rather than rejecting nuclear power outright.

The regulatory issues need to be worked on as well -- as long as it's essentially forbidden to do anything with the radwaste except sequester it, nobody will be able to come up with a better solution. The most promising technology is "forced transmutation", but the only available place to do experiments on it is the French Phenix breeder reactor, which is reaching the end of its useful life and should be decommissioned in the next few years.

The last time I checked, there was only one sodium-cooled breeder reactor operating in France, and it's being kept in operation mostly because it's the only source of the kind of fast neutrons that can transmute long-lived radwaste into less problematic elements -- it's the one I mentioned before. Besides the Phenix, all of France's nuclear power plants use pressurized-water reactors.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

I'll buy that. I think if you look at it from a perspective of the energy produced vs the waste product created it is cleaner. But Nuclear waste does take a LOT LOT longer to get rid of. How do they run nuclear reactors in closed systems such as submarines and aircraft carriers. I don't think those produce a whole lot of waste (but I could be wrong - on the whole subject really).

I think the problem, esp with the any power generation technology, is that it seems to cause some kind of harm somewhere. Coal produces smog, strip mines, and health problems for miners. Oil produces oil spills, and carbon monozide. Even Hydroelectric can be a problem if it the dam destroys and ecosystem or floods some archilogical site (or potential site). Wind? The commercial wind farms could be considered an eyesore and they might effect birds flying by. Solar may be ok. (But it might help heat up the earth too, who knows?)

I think it's easy to find problems with technological advances. Almost as easy as it is to find benefits. The issue is recognizing, or theorizing, the problems before hand and minmizing them. And weighing the benefits against the problems.

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There is no "perfect" energy generator. Like Newton said, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." What we are trying to find is the lesser of the evils. What technology will let us produce the most energy with the least amount of harmful byproduct?

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George,
I am under the impression that ship board nuclear generators succumb to the same problems land based reactors do. The core material reaches a point where there is a diminishing return on the amount of energy produced vs. the energy left and the core gets swapped out. At some point the reactors need to be refurbed or replaced. Perhaps someone on the east coast has a better answer.
Alan,
I was under the impression that all French breeders were liquid sodium cooled. If there is but one left, then they must have seen the light and decommisioned. It seems to me that there may have been as many as seven at one time. Do you have any info on the French system at present? I am going to check and see what I find.

ed. My fault for not keeping up on this, but it appears that most countries have abandoned breeder reactor programs, France included. The one remaining online is the Phenix as outlined by Alan while thier second remaining breeder reactor is undergoing rebuild. All others have been decommissioned. The rather large sodium fire in a Japanese reactor in 1995 made many operators take a second look at breeders and many have revised their programs. In the articles I read online, Russia seems to be still working on breeder research as other governments like Germany, close down plans for breeder production. 90 percent of French electric energy is generated by nuclear plants according to a Feb 2005 article.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Even worse- Sesame Street-

it essentially trains little kids that everything in education (therefore life) needs to be entertaining in 2 minute clips. As a result when school gets tedious or hard the kids just switch channels and give up.

I blame a good part of the problems we have in education with the development of kids being spoon fed educational TV and not a work ethic. Luckily FIRST opens the door to fix this.

Yeah- as Eugenia said- I'm an old guy. This is my opinion. Going out to chase those pesky kids off the lawn.....

WC

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Wayne,
Did I ever mention I work for the most watched Public Television Station in the U.S.?

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Al - That would have what 20 viewers? (kidding!)

Wayne - I might disagree with you a little on the Sesame Street thing. I grew up with it and turned out fine and sane. (well, maybe not sane, but relatively ok) Unless they've change significantly since I was a kid. You have to look at the intended age group. Sesame Street is meant from kids like 4 and under. They don't have the ability yet to have a work ethic. Thier attention spans are short at those ages. Can't expect a 4 yr old to watch a documentary on the Learning Channel...

<George Walks away singing "Rubber Ducky, you're the one...">

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

Peanut butter and jelly in the same jar.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

A perpetual motion machine.

Get right on that. ;) I already have mine designed.

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson...

"in this [forum] we obey the laws of thermodynamics"

Doesn't Nuclear Fusion provide the best ratio of energy to harmful byproduct? (it produces water doesn't it?) Of course we'd need to produce in such a way that it creates more energy then it uses.

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No offense meant there but I still think SS is the root of a lot of teaching evils. The format and pretense that this is a great form of education make it a babysitter and substitute to the harder work required by small children to actually learn things from their parents and teachers. I'd rather see my little ones reading a story or doing a puzzle than having it flashed in front of them.

I love Public TV and favorite programs like Nova and Nature. PTV is certainly head and shoulders above what is being passed off as entertainment on the network channels these days in terms of quality to the mind.

But a TV program can't be a substuitute for the experiences a child needs to get and too many parents I see seem to drop a baby in from of the SS tube and assume all is OK. Few people seem to have time to really do things with their kids these days. Generally, by the time they get to my classes in HS they have little more than the basic skills, no real motivation or direction and attention spans of less than 5 minutes.

So you see my rant here....


WC :cool:

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

George- I'm ignoring that first line -way too easy!.

Obviously I don't want 4 year olds to go out and work jobs (AKA Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) but it would be nice to see kids hit HS with some sort of interests and goals and the motivation to pursue them. I believe that the roots of working towards a goal, even small things, does start when they are very small. As entertainment SS is probably great for little kids. But it doesn't substitute for experiences with their families and teachers.

Yeah we all can count - 1-2-3.....


WC :cool:

Re: What technological advance has caused more harm than good?
 

I hope you never have to experience what I had to go through at FIRST regionals this year.

In recent months, something has gone wrong with my joints. I can walk OK, but I can't do stairs very well. Many people with heart disease and other medical conditions find themselves in this situation. Elevators are often not big enough to accommodate all such people attending a large event.

It was great having escalators in Atlanta. It would have been nice to have them at the two regionals my team played in. I don't like being unable to move freely from the pits to the stands and back.

Anyway, you didn't mention one of the evils of escalators: tempting the non-lazy to run UP the down escalators. :ahh: I'll spare you the videos...

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This topic reminds me of the solar cells being created out of spinach and raspberry plants. Yummy... I can have my energy and something to eat at the same time.

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Thinking (or the lack of it) will be our downfall. It does not matter if gunpowder had not been invented or if nuclear bombs were never dreamed off, people will always find ways to kill one another, as they have been since Cain and Able. People have said in this thread that 10% of the Russian army died during world war II, this was not just because of gunpowder alone. It was do to the way Russia's army was run under Stalin and his purges. And as a side not gunpowder as invented in China is not the same as what is used now which is smokeless propellant. Also it is not an explosive, it burns increasing pressures inside the barrel propelling the bullet.