Month: January 2017

The idea of time travel has always been fascinating to me, and in my lifetime I would like to see that technology be accessible. If I were to travel somewhere for a short period of time, it would be the Middle Ages in Europe. This part of history has always been interesting to me (as I am currently watching Game of Thrones), and I would like to see how accurate our depiction of this time period really is. I’m sure with historians and archeologists have pieced together a good idea of what it was like, but I would still like to immerse myself in the culture of the time for a short while. Our generation has grown up with technology all around us, and we certainly take that for granted. It would be a good experience for any of us to leave all technology behind for a certain period of time and truly live off of the land, which is the only way of life that the people of the middle ages knew. I think most of us would lose our minds after more than a few days not being able to have many of the commonplace things that we do not even consider technology.

In Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Hank Morgan travels back in time to the days of King Arthur (around 600AD) where there is little to no technological advancements. I wouldn’t have even thought about not having glass, and I do not think society has considered glass as “technology” for hundreds of years. Not having windows and never being able to see your own face is a shocking thought to me, and one that I will probably not take for granted again. Not only was the technology of the day primitive, but also so were the ideologies of the masses. Clarence, a boy in King Arthur’s castle, was scared beyond belief at the fact that Merlin has cast spells all over the castle that would do harm if spoken out against him. This seems silly to Hank, as it should, but it also puts things in perspective for me a little bit. As a man of science myself, I know that we are always making new discoveries, and disproving old theories. In the 600’s, they did not know any better, and believed in the idea of magic without question. This makes me think about what things we currently believe in that people hundreds of years from now will find preposterous. I would like to believe that our advancements in STEM have been sufficient enough where we don’t have any laws of nature completely backwards, and that everything I’ve learned in school so far is not a waste and we are not actually part of the matrix, but hey you never know.

Sigmund Freud discusses his opinion about the impact of technology on modern society in Civilization and Its Discontents. Freud states in the opening sentence that humans have made prominent advances in the sciences as well as technical application and this has increased control over nature tremendously. He goes on to say that these advancements may not be all optimistic. In fact, Freud believes technology leads to a sort of “cheap pleasure.” An example of cheap pleasure he offers is, “what is the good of reduction of infant mortality if it forces us to practice extreme restraint in the procreation of children.” He says by promoting this reduction, we are actually “imposing restraints on sexual life within marriage and worked against the benefits of natural selection.” Another example Freud offers is the prolonging of life. To him, this is seen as a “cheap pleasure” as well because what good is extending life if the person living is old, suffering, and joyless? Sigmund Freud and his contemporaries were overall pessimists about technological advancements due to what they experienced in WWI. The improved technology in warfare created during WWI lead to an outrageous amount of casualties compared to previous wars.

Personally, I agree but also disagree with Freud and his contemporaries on the argument involving technology. In my day and age, technology has taken over the world. Every task or activity one goes about involves some sort of technology. An example today of technology advancement is the transition of writing emails to sending texts. In the positive light, texting is much more convenient and consumes less time compared to emailing. However, by doing the simple task of texting, humans lose the personal connection of formal email interaction as well as face to face interaction with one another. The happiness humans get from saving time by texting is what I see as a positive aspect of technological advancement. The suffering of losing personal connection with each other is what creates a negative aspect of technological advancement.

The protagonist, Hank Morgan, in Mark Twain’s, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, favors technological advancements. Hank is described as a manager of a munitions factory in Connecticut. His goal is to remake England with the American model and correct all of the country’s injustices. Hank has diverse ideas of technological advancements including building factories, schools and railroads. He believes with these advancements he will be able to end slavery, raise men, and carry out truth and justice throughout the nation. Hank seems to be a supporter of technological advancements as of now. He believes they will make a positive difference in the world.

Coming into this class, I was not sure what to expect. During the crazy, cut-throat time that is the scheduling period at Bucknell, the ambiguous title of the class “Time/Machine” intrigued me. After the first couple days, the intrigue has continued to grow.
I like to think that I am a curious person. However, when it comes to technology, I tend to leave the exploration and the innovation to the experts of the field or those that have a greater interest than I do. I then wait and reap the fruits of their labor in the form of cell phones, computers, cars, etc., all the amazing gadgets that have sort of shaped how I’ve grown up. On Thursday, we discussed the passage in which Hank Morgan reflected that he feels as though there is a certain void within him as he lives without the technology that his is used to. This prompted me to attempt to place myself in his shoes, in a world without technology and the commodities that I am used to. I wondered whether our brains, those of whom, like me, have been privileged enough to constantly use and access a large amount technology, have become sort of wired to require technology in close to everything that we do. With the advancements in cell phones and texting, communication has been drastically altered. Higher education and entering high paying jobs require a certain amount of expertise in technology and introduction of technology has trickled down into the education system itself until my mom, who is a kindergarten teacher, is required to learn the ins and outs of the iPad, a device that is given to every student in her class.
Then, as was suggested on Thursday, we also tend judge those who do not have a certain threshold of expertise in technology. Hank Morgan believes the people in the sixth century have such an inferior level of knowledge that he compares them to animals many times throughout the work. However, if we are to apply this to our day to day life, then people like my Grandfather who has not dedicated time to embracing new technology would also be judged as inferior. If he, who I have always held the highest respect for due to his wealth of experience and his character, is judged as inferior due to his lack of technical knowledge, then I personally believe that this notion is extremely flawed.

During the class discussion on Thursday, I chose to travel back to the 1970’s-1980’s in order to take advantage of the technological boom that occurred between that period and present day. During class, I imagined my time travel as solely self-serving; traveling back to that time period having the knowledge I currently have, I would make millions of dollars and lay the foundation for the future of technological, and societal structures. After I left class, I continued to mull this concept over in my head, wondering how an experience like this could not only alter my life, but the history of humans on the larger scale.

As my thought process matured throughout the day, I recognized technology in a broader sense than medicine and vehicles; I began to consider phones, laptops, and the appendages of the modern man that were once a far-off concept. My voyage back through time could evaluate the correlation between the transformation in human behavior and technological progress. Further more, I could warn people of the dangers associated with the dependence on technology. I could direct an entire generation that is doomed for reliance on devices that provide instant gratification, thereby causing happiness, and also suffering. As an optimist about technology, traveling back into time could enable me to advise the next generation of humans on how to coexist in a peaceful relationship with technology, and avoid the exploitation of one or the other.

As an optimist, I value the incentives of continuing technological progress to enhance health care, transportation, etc., but I also recognize the threats posed by the increasing human dependence on technology and the resulting exploitation of humans that has occurred as a result of technological advancement. As a time traveler, i would have the opportunity of warning against the detachment that the next generation would undergo from their immediate surroundings. Via the influx of handheld, portable devices, children and adults would be constantly attached to another world, a very connected one, but neither tangible nor personal. The sense of instant gratification has created an impatient generation, one I could warn against during my voyage. Furthermore, the technological developments have created a non-social generation; hesitant to engage with others in face-to-face contact, but quick to fire off a quick text across the country.

The final goal of my time travel voyage would be to warn against the lethal combination between technological development and warfare. The development of drone warfare technology, distant missile engagement, along with many other advancements in modern warfare have endangered the corners of our globe more than ever. Therefore, despite my optimistic outlook on the potential for technology to benefit the human race, I am very aware of the negative transformations that have occurred since the 80’s as a result of technological progression. My voyage back in time would slow or halt the negative usages of technology, and at the bare minimum, inform those involved of the repercussions that they will yield on future generations.