Reading Response: As We May Think

So we had to read "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush for our latest assignment. I thought this article to be a little lengthy to explain what it was all about. What with all the examples of different technologies and science discoveries/innovations. But I guess I should explain what the article was about first. Overall, Bush pointed out the fact that technology has changed, is changing, and will forever change as we develop as human beings. From the beginning, science was at first frowned upon. Living in a religion ruled world, we blamed and acclaimed everything to Mother Nature/the Gods/God. Which ever was our own crux, it was because of that/them that Earth was flat as a pancake, that the universe revolved around us, that sneezing was the act of demons trying to enter our body. We would later find out that none of this is true from the rapid development of science.

Although this article wasn't really about religion as much as it was about just the innovations that we've created to better our lives as a society. And by saying "bettering ourselves," I really mean making things more convenient for our daily lives. And by saying "making things more convenient," I really mean making us more lazy than ever before. The things we've come up with, the things we've created/innovated/tweaked as of today has mostly just been done to keep us from actually going out, physically interacting, physically moving. So many things we have now are completely unnecessary, but it makes it easier for us. Example A: a virtual reality experience called Second Life. This video game, if you can call it that, let's you create an avatar that puts you into this virtual world, where you can meet other, actual people playing, date them, go to movies, and make actual money from selling things or services from the game. This clearly is something we can just do in reality, but doing it in reality is hard, and you can always restart in Second Life. We as a society like easy. And this can pose a problem.

However it's not all bad. As Bush explains, a great amount of innovations have truly helped us in terms of convenience. Take the camera example. Back then, a camera was so huge that it had a tripod attached to it and you needed both hands just to work the ancient device. Now, a camera is just bigger than a credit card and no thicker than your phone (phones now, of course, not those prehistoric bricks we used to keep in a bookbag). Hell, now our phones ARE our cameras. This has helped us by taking pictures and videos of say the events at Occupy Wall Street where the protesters recorded the violent acts made by some of the police officers. If we still carried around those huge, gunpowder using cameras, this wouldn't have been possible. One because it didn't take video, and two, because no one would be carrying such a contraption to a protest.