Is Technology Making Humanity Stupid?

[Blackrravian]

Do you think technology is making humanity better or worse?

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Both

[WonderDrow]

Eventually worse.

Someday a collection of sentient AI, born from the internet, will enslave human kind through their devices.

On that day technology, which was made to serve us, will turn us into servants.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Please, by the time we get to that point there will be no appreciable difference between humans and androids.

[WonderDrow]

Android : A robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human.
Cyborg : A being with both organic and artificial parts.  Short for Cybernetic Organism.

Yes, total assimilation will be easier to complete when the majority of humans have been cybernetically "enchanced".

But for now the AI collective will have to resort to hypnotism, subliminal messages and other manipulation techniques.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Technology has the capacity to make us more lazy and more reliant on it, if we let it.

Which is why I read the dictionary in my spare time. And try to beat the cashier while he/she's ringing up what I bought at the store. And randomly look up facts on the internet. And do things of that sort.

To keep the mind agile, so I don't have to automatically think to reach for the calculator, or rely on spell check or the like, for what my mind is otherwise perfectly capable of doing on its own.

(Also, you might notice that your reply things show edits on them; I actually didn't change anyone's answers. The grammar was just bothering me in the reply subject line.)

[WonderDrow]

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[Marvelous Miscreant]

Not in the posts...in the Subject line "Re: Is Technology Making Humanity Stupid?"   it automatically copies from post to post but can be changed. Since it was incorrect in the original post (i.e. the thread's initial creation) it was wrong in each subsequent reply.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

 Precisely what I meant.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Cause we're on the same wavelength here.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

 Naturally.

[neogenetica]

Both. Technology does things for us that we would otherwise have to do for ourselves. While This doesn't inherently make humanity worse it can make us lazier if we utilize it to perform the most basic mental functions for us. I'd like to believe that this will all be made up for when we discover a way to directly enhance human intelligence through technology or the like.

[Zaleramancer]

Nope.

We are extending our minds to include the internet.

It's a perfectly normal thing.

[MichaelZ]

yes and no

stuff like YouTube, vine, twitter has allowed more people to create content and be able to put it out to a massive base of people, and since ANYONE is generally able to do this, it has lowered the bar to a large degree. and as a result the humor found on YouTube, at least some of the more popular stuff, is considered low brow, and with some people's desperation for fame and acceptance, they'll do anything for it.


on the other hand, consider how many Wikipedia articles you have read this year alone, I've read quite a few, and I am sure you have as well. consider the ease we have in obtaining information and knowledge, before you would have to go to a library, forget your card, go home, go back, pay off your fees, learn that the AC is broken and they don't have any
"entry level" books on roman history that you wanted.

From my own desk I can access a cornucopia of info waiting for me. consider how much information you have gathered in your life, while I don't know how old you guys are (I'm 21) I have probably read and listened to the same amount of information as someone twice my age.


 things like QI, crash course, astronaut Chris Hadfield making YouTube video IN SPACE, answering questions about space while spinning around in the ISS.  TED talks talking about using systems that monitor the conditions in F1 cars in hospitals to monitor sick patients, or even how super powers like invisibility or super strength would scientifically work.  

 and the thousands of videos, podcasts and sites dedicated to make learning and education interesting, not fun, per se, but interesting, making people say "hey that's cool", rather than "that's totally rad", and stuff that makes you think "hey, I have never thought of something like that before.


and consider I can access ALL this from a device so advanced it outdid what we saw Star Trek was showing off by MILES.

while in some ways technology is making us dumber, never before in history has it been easy to be smarter


M out-

[Marvelous Miscreant]

That was certainly a very coherent answer.