Technology and Our Future

There’s almost no one in today’s world that is not affected by advances in technology. To most people advancement seems like a great thing, but if it’s looked at more closely it becomes easy to see how technology and the decisions of humans can be very dangerous. This topic is discussed in Kim Vicente’s The Human Factor and also in Kurt Vonnegut’s The Cat’s Cradle. Kim Vicente focuses on the idea that if technology continues to grow at such a rapid rate it may become the cause of the end of humanity. She explains how events like Chernobyl are a great example of how even the smartest humans who are in control of the most advanced technology can make catastrophic errors that affect millions of people around the world. So if even the smartest people in world make errors that could cause deaths all over the world then what hope does the average person have of keeping up with the pace of technology? Questions like this are important to the ideas Vicente is trying to convey to readers because the lives most have become accustomed to could be destroyed by The Human Factor.
The idea of select humans being extremely smart and creating incredible technology is where The Human Factor and The Cat’s Cradle begin to show similarities. John, the main character of The Cat’s Cradle, is a writer who is trying to compile a story about the first atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. One of the main people John is researching is the deceased Dr. Hoenikker and he finds that interviewing the Dr.’s children teaches him a lot about who he was. Dr. Hoenikker was a bizarre man who even seemed crazy to John, but he was still the genius behind the atomic bomb. I felt that Dr. Hoenikker was a perfect example of how one man can be extremely smart and can invent something amazing, but the drawback is that less intelligent people with too much power can use an invention to inflict death and destruction. While reading both stories it made perfect since what each author was trying to express, humans have the potential to create amazing things that can make our lives luxurious and even seem better. However even our greatest creations and most intelligent humans can not always prevent disasters. Whether it’s a scientist at Chernobyl who doesn’t recognize the warning a control panel is signaling or a man like Dr. Hoenikker creating an amazing invention for the sake of science; at this point technology has grown to fast to control. There’s no way for an average person to know what a nuclear control panel is signaling or drive to a military base and stop our worlds leaders from killing other humans and destroying our planet. Even though these two authors wrote very different stories, the concepts are very similar, either something needs to be done to control the spread of technology or it could result in the end of humanity as we know it.
While reading both of these stories I enjoyed Vonnegut’s, The Cat’s Cradle the best. The Human Factor was very interesting, but it seemed to use lots of facts, where as The Cat’s Cradle was an interesting story about the journey of a writer. I felt that this story had many ideas that could be drawn from John’s journey and focused more on the nature of humans and questioned many of the contentious things we’ve grown accustomed to. During the story John comes across another writer on a plane that is going to be the ambassador of San Lorenzo, the island their flying to. Once they reach the island Horlick Minton, the ambassador, gives a speech about how humans are vicious and stupid and soldiers would never have to die if we weren’t so hostile towards one another. The word stupid is an important part of his speech because it doesn’t necessarily mean someone smart can not be stupid. Dr. Hoenikker for example was a genius, but naively created one of the most devastating weapons ever. After he created this weapon it allowed other humans to use it to kill thousands of Japanese soldiers, but also innocent women and children. This disregard for human life is the catalyst that causes technology to be used as a weapon to end life. However even more daunting than the use of technology is the people who are in control of it.
The most important thing I took away from The Cat’s Cradle was the fraud behind the Bokononist Religion. The people of the island only took part in the religious activities and supported Bokonon because it was illegal. When John figures out that the Bokononist religion is fake was when I really started to connect the story into my own life. I felt that Vonnegut was trying to compare the island of San Lorenzo to the United States. The island was supposed to be a democracy yet it was ruled by a dictator who had all the people on the island convinced they were free. I believe that Vonnegut uses the Bokononist religion to make readers question what they believe in. Is the United States really a democracy? How would a soldier know if he were dieing for democracy when he gave his life for The United States? These questions could seem controversial to some people, but really how much do we honestly know about what’s happening in our government? The United States is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but how does someone know when they are really free? “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” This quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe helps show the point Vonnegut is trying to get across with governments and their beliefs. People don’t have to be free or have a democracy as long as they can be convinced they are free. The quote is both scary and also seems realistic. How do Americans know they are not getting the wool pulled over their eyes when a president says they are free or tells soldiers they’re fighting for democracy and freedom?
The two authors show what seems to be a very anti-technology outlook, but perhaps the most important thought from both readings is that we have no control over the spread of technology or the leaders of the world who use it. There’s no way to know what’s happening in our own government and the only thing we can do is hope that technology doesn’t stretch so far that it’s beyond our control. It may seem like I took a negative view on the stories, but as technology and diversity in the world continue to grow, it’s hard to be very optimistic about our future.