Technology Saturation I

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Is it just me, or does it seem like we have too much technology these days? Not a living Gen Z’er out there is likely think so, but it appears as though humanity has reached its saturation point with “the next big thing”.

My sense of gizmo overload began when computers were being introduced as the new household appliance. It was the mid-1980s and my electric typewriter fulfilled my every need for producing the written word. Why would anyone need a computer for daily living except to create a shopping list spreadsheet or play Space Wars? I simply was not ready for such a techno-leap. But as we all know, resistance is futile.

My wife, Heather, went on the TV game show, $10,000 Pyramid, and won an Apple 2C — thank you very much, Dick Clark. When it arrived at our front door, I wanted nothing to do with it. Truth be told, I didn’t know what to do with it. The big Apple box remained unopened for weeks until we finally peeked inside. I thought I might end up like those Nazi guys in Indiana Jones when they cracked open the arc of the covenant. Nevertheless, we soon purchased a dot matrix printer for this magic machine and the rest is history. Since then, we must have gone through a dozen computers.

My next encounter with tech-sat involved, of all things, the humble razor. It never occurred to me that this little item could pose a problem in my life. My morning routine was always fast, but simple. Fast, because I needed to get to work on time, so after splashing hot water on my face and foaming up, I would grab my single blade razor and, with swashbuckling speed, whisk away the whiskers from the previous day. No problem.

Then, companies decided to come out with the double-blade model. With some apprehension, I gave it a try. Not bad. It actually provided a smoother shave. But then came the 3-blade razor to market. This is where the trouble began.

I had no reason to change my morning routine, so with my new tri-blade Samurai in hand, I commenced the shave. Almost immediately, my foamy beard was turning red. There was no time to try and stop the bleeding, but I had no choice. Desperate measures were needed. Now, I was running behind schedule. By the end of the shave, the bathroom looked like a crime scene and I had a half-dozen TP swatches hanging on my face like Post-it notes.

Then came the introduction to the 5-blade razor. At that point, I knew the industry was trying to kill me.

Throughout the ages, technology has taken humanity on a raucous journey of trial and error, with occasional tragic consequences along the way. But persistence would eventually win the day as one widget after another emerged, market ready.

It all began simply enough. The first technology involved taking raw natural material, like wood or stone, and forming a basic tool with it. Each iteration would produce a better tool for a broader range of production. At some point, someone, likely with a sore back, decided that a couple of round things with an axle through their center was better for moving large objects than lifting and carrying.

The significant takeaway from the history of technology is in its relationship to human need and outcomes. The shovel was invented to dig a hole. Edison’s lightbulb helped overcome the darkness. And Thomas Newcomen’s first commercial steam engine in 1712, was the first big step in power delivery. It all made sense. Have a need; create the technology. That’s the way it has always been. Until recently.

During the late twentieth-century, technology began to take on an entity of its own. It is hard to say exactly when this pseudo lifeform began, but it is obviously a descendant of early miniaturization.

As a junior-high student, I just had to have the latest cool (and affordable) thing. It was a portable AM transistor radio about the size of today’s cell phone, only a bit thicker. It had a shiny aluminum case, a flip-up antenna, and a small thumb dial. This battery powered gem kept me in tunes wherever I went — from surf to soul. Little did I know that these little transistors were the harbinger of a new reality that would exceed my young comic book imagination.

The new verity of technology became apparent to me in the mid-90s. After finishing four years in the Air Force, I was married, working during the day, and attending university at night and on weekends. In my Business Computers class, I did a paper about two IBM engineers who ventured into the world of nano computing. They used a scanning tunneling microscope which allowed them to not only view sub-atomic particles, but also move atoms from one location to another. With that, they created a nano-scale grid and began to place atoms in various cells while leaving other cells empty. In theory, they would use this method to create a binary language of zeros and ones at a scale of 10^-9, or one-billionth of a meter in size. The engineers theorized that nano-coding would make it possible to take all the world’s literature and store it on the head of a pin. But the need for this newborn discovery was yet to be known.

I began to realize that the time-honored model of creating new technologies in response to existing needs, had been breached. Now, technology had taken a giant leap, ahead of a defined purpose. No longer were we merely pushing development out of necessity; the applied sciences were beginning to expand ahead of us; pulling us forward.

The ramifications of this new reality are well underway and growing. Today, nearly every aspect of human activity is being influenced, directed, and monitored by forces beyond our reach. And this is only half the story.

As technology begets more technology, a virtual time-warp is experienced. Although there remain 24 hours in a day, the increased productivity, events, and outcomes, generated by technology, places ever-increasing multi-task demands on the individual. Systems that were previously confined to a single dedicated service have now become part of a growing network; creating processes of scale that affect more workers, regulators, and consumers.

A vivid example of this occurred in January 2023, when commercial air traffic was shut down, nationwide, because of a single compromised database program, according to the FAA. That one problem affected innumerable travelers, businesses, and airline personnel across the country. The full impact of that event remains unknown.

Incidents like the air industry glitch are far from unique. We are living in a day when the reality of new development is only limited by one’s own imagination.

The full scope of technology and its effect on the world can hardly be addressed in a single essay. Suffice it to say that industrial development’s legacy will ultimately be defined through the legacy of mankind. Technology’s story is directly linked to the heart of man — for better or worse. Presently, there are differing opinions on which direction that legacy will go. But one observation is clear, the next big thing has become deceptively commonplace.

In my next article, I’ll share thoughts on some of the latest developments (including A.I.), the science of propaganda, and what the Bible has to say about technology.