The Difference Between “Can” and “Should”
Technology has made many amazing things possible. In fact, there are even some things that were science fiction a couple of decades ago which have become relatively commonplace now — such as realistic computer generated imagery in movies, or watching a television show on a handheld computing device. But there are a lot of things that we can do that we have chosen to leave alone. Why is that?
Forbes is currently running a series of articles on the future – what we say about it, how accurately we predict it, and so forth. Among these is an interesting piece by Neil Steinberg that considers some answers to this question:
Futurism has a tendency to take the products of today and merely extrapolate them. Thus TV becomes 3-D TV, cars become flying cars and telephones become video telephones. Sometimes it takes the sanity of the marketplace to dash cold water on those technological projections. We were all going to take our nutrition in pills until someone realized that preparing and consuming food was one of the primary joys of life, and no one wants to swallow food pills.
While it seems that Mr Steinberg’s choice of a technology to critique (video phones) is a little weak (webcams have taken off, and grandparents love them), I generally agree with the principle: just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.
Too often it seems that technologists get caught up with what is possible without considering what is valuable. Then it seems that there is a race to see who can come out with said technology first. Perhaps the saddest thing is that often there are less cutting edge technologies that are also possible, many times ore valuable, and tragically overlooked. The important thing is to examine what people want to do with their lives and figure out how technology can enable or simplify those things. Too often we seem to find ourselves looking at technology and trying to figure out how we can change our lives to match. Perhaps with a little perspective change our rate of progress would increase.