Destruction-Oriented Innovations that Make "Unnatural" Synonymous with "Evil"

Upon turning on the news or visiting a website like www.NYTimes.com, there is no avoiding the abundance of updates on violence and terrorism in various regions of the globe. Just look at the New York Times’ category of “World” News Stories, with at least one headline detailing the most recent bombing. Today article titles were listed: "Coordinated Bombings Strike Across Baghdad," "New Bomb Found as Greece Suspends Mail Deliveries," and "A Grim Portrait of Civilian Deaths in Iraq."

It is unsettling to see the numerous pieces of bad news with which we are constantly bombarded, all a result of our own inventions. What is more unsettling is the direct relationship between innovation and tragedy. It makes you wonder what the world is coming to. What have we done to our society by creating new technology? It seems that all we do with it is consume and destroy.

The Manhattan Project was the American undertaking to create the first atomic bomb. This took great intellect and several other innovations prior to it (ie: the technology required to extract uranium from the earth). While the bomb exists as a symbol of a compilation of wondrous discoveries, all this is negated by the fact that it is also the cause of death for entire societies. Who gave humans the right to innovate as a mechanism to destroy other humans or other parts of the natural world?

There is a dichotomy between the natural and the unnatural world. But this does not need to be respectively synonymous with good and evil. Technology exists on the unnatural end of the dichotomy, but technological innovations do not all have to be seen negatively. It is the latent function of destruction-oriented technological innovations – like the atomic bomb and others that continue to be innovated – that give other more moral innovations a bad rap. Thus, it is these destructive forms of technology that I blame for the current resistance to new technology that is expressed by many individuals. In order to change this resistance, we must remove the link between warfare and technological advancements, like that which exists through GPS and the Internet. We’re on our way to a society where technological advancement is its own institution – separate from defense and warfare. We must get there for the humanity’s sake and for the sake of technology’s reputation...because, innovation has the potential to be far more beneficial than it exists today.