UIL Technology Debate
topic
UIL Spring 2001 LD debate topic:
"Resolved: Increased reliance on technology undermines the
quality of life in America."
The following provide links to
technology articles on this site and on other sites for the
UIL debate topic on reliance on technology and the quality
of life in American:
Too Much Recreation and
Entertainment Technology?
Thoughts on the Spring 2001 UIL technology topic by Gregory
Rehmke. Click
here for article.
Technology articles on the
National Center for Policy Analysis web site:
Technology
and Economic Growth in the Information
Age
Because technology in large part drives growth, stepping up
the pace of invention and innovation increases the speed of
economic progress. ...
Downside
Of Technology In The Classroom
Education specialists contend there is no evidence that use
of computers or the Internet improves student achievement.
Nevertheless, billions of dollars are being poured annually
into the latest hardware. Is such a headlong commitment a
truly sensible course?...
The
Ethics And Technology Of Cloning
The science of cloning is moving so rapidly, according to
experts, that the ethical debate surrounding the procedures
is about to be left in the dust. Full-scale human cloning is
no longer a question of if, but when. ...
The
Age Of Technology Demands Steady
Power
...
TECHNOLOGY
IS LIFTING LIVING STANDARDS
New technologies and new applications for existing
technologies will continue raising living standards in the
United States over the next quarter century, say the authors
of a new NCPA report. And the pace of technological change
will accelerate over the next quarter
century....
Technology articles from other research organizations and
publications:
The Foundation for Economic
Education
Technology, Progress, and Freedom by Edward W. Younkins
[from Ideas on Liberty, January, 2000]
Technology represents man's attempt to make life easier.
Technological advances improve people's standard of living,
increase leisure time, help eliminate poverty, and lead to a
greater variety of products. Progress allows people more
time to spend on higher level concerns such as character
development, love, religion, and the perfection of one's
soul....[click
here for full text of article on www.fee.org web
site.]
Dynamist.com
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over
Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress by Virginia
Postrel. Click
here for more information on this book on the dynamist.com
web site. Also of
interest on influence of technology on quality of life is
Virginia Postrel's speech at Camden Technology Conference:
Dynamism, Stasis, and Popular Culture
[click here for full
text].
Cato Institute
It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the
Last 100 Years by Stephen Moore and Julian Simon
[Click
for link to information on book at Cato web
site].
Technology and Society 2000: The
New Entertainment Era
A Cato Institute/Forbes ASAP Conference.
[Click
here for conference articles and more
information.]
Reason Foundation
Technology = Freedom? by Virginia I. Postrel
Is information technology inherently liberating? Is it true,
as George Gilder proclaimed in this magazine in February,
that Moore's Law "means that all of the monopolies and
hierarchies and pyramids and power grids of industrial
society are going to dissolve"? Or, as Tom Peters said in
the same issue, that "governments are becoming irrelevant"?
... [Click
here for full text of article from Reason
Online]
WE, SPY: The ruinous effects of
outlawing technologies by Brian Doherty
The federal government's recent crackdown on "spy stores"
that sell such wares as tie tacks, smoke detectors, and
teddy bears containing video cameras, spray cans that
temporarily make enve lopes transparent, and other
surveillance paraphernalia, could be cheered as a blow for
the right to privacy. After all, many of those items'
primary use seems to be to peep in on people without their
consent or knowledge. [Click
here for full text of article from Reason
Online]
Word Wars by Charles Paul
Freund
Why was Postman's own vision so myopic? Because he committed
the original sin of the Western intelligentsia: He condemned
technology as a threat to culture. In fact, technology is a
conduit for culture, because it is a tool for expression and
self-definition. Older forms of expression are not displaced
by new ones; they are re-defined and usually amplified by
them. [Click
here for full text of article.]
Competitive Enterprise
Institute
The
Mythology of Science and Technology: Prometheus or Science
is in trouble by Fred
L. Smith
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Highly recommended is Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Economist Michael Cox book Myths of Rich and Poor. In this
book Cox and his co-author survey the results of
technological advances in recent decades. Their research
shows the astonishing gains in free-time and quality of life
that free-market policies and innovative technology have
provided to Americans of all income levels.
[Click
here for more information on Myths of Rich and Poor on
Laissez-Faire Books web site]
Review of Myths of Rich and
Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think by W. Michael
Cox and Richard Alm. Basic Books • 1999 • 256
pages
Review by Donald Boudreaux, President of FEE.
[Click
here for full review on fee.org web
site.]
Also of interest is recent research
from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:
Technology
section of Dallas Fed web site
Agriculture,
Technology and the Economy
Links to articles supporting the
position that today's technologies undermine quality of life
in America:
Is
Technology Killing Leisure Time?
Posted by JonKatz on Tuesday July 11, @10:30AM
New surveys suggest that ubiquitous technological tools are
killing off leisure time, especially for younger workers and
students -- that would be you -- who are working longer
hours, taking fewer and shorter vacations (when they do go
away, they take their cells, Palms and laptops along) and
say they are more stressed than any other segment of the
population. Opportunistic employers aren't helping, actually
encouraging employees to do personal chores on the Net --
from their desks. Wasn't technology supposed to free us from
workplace shackles? [click
here for full article on
slashdot.com]
Comlaints about reliance on
technologies (from a pro-technology advocate):
"My greatest complaint about technology... loss of
connection with the outdoors... it's effect on making
humanity more and more timid and apt to value security over
freedom (Greg Benson gave a great talk on this at a Cato
Conference a few years ago)... loss of amateur musicians,
artists, etc. so called-for and essential in Jane Austen's
area." from Solveig Singleton, Competitive Enterprise
Institute
Information
poisoning by Caleb Carr
(from salon.com)
It is my belief, for which I offer no apology, that most of
that technology is making people dumber: It is teaching them
how to assemble massive amounts of information, of arcane
minutia, without simultaneously teaching them how to
assemble those bits of information into integrated bodies of
knowledge -- such integration being the only function that
distinguishes the human brain from a mechanical computer.
[Click
here for full text of article on
Salon.com]
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