Technological Progress

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses technological progress and scarcity. The paper contends that, while some hope that eventually technology will be so advanced it will be able to provide everyone on earth with everything needed, it is unlikely that will happen. The paper assesses that the current technological advances are quantum leaps over those older varieties and should, therefore, end scarcity. The facts, however, indicate otherwise. The paper explains that it is not, in fact, technology, either lack or abundance thereof, that creates scarcity, but rather the behaviors of people and their institutions.

From the Paper:

"Hantke takes his analogies to the edges of the galaxy. He compares the habit of early humankind of bludgeoning his enemies to death with a length of bone to raining down deadly particles from a space ship. In short, technology notwithstanding, there is nothing new on earth. Not a turning away from aggression, and arguably not a turning away from the politics and economics of scarcity. They are possibly as ingrained in the human psyche as the need to be bigger, better or faster than someone else (as all that bludgeoning with bones and raining of particles attests), and therefore, always with us. However, there are some recent bona fide economic/political/cultural investigations that point in the same direction as this dissection of the culture's major recent contribution to world fiction, the space saga."

More papers on Technological Progress:

• Research Paper # 112414 : "China as a Technological Superpower"
• Term Paper # 103055 : "Technological Advancement and Erosion of Intelligence"
• Book Review # 113735 : "The Technological Society"

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