High tech: Benefit or disaster?

Modern high technology is now transforming the way we work. In the past, if someone wanted to go from one place to another, they would spend days, even months, on their trip because they had to go by foot. Today, that is no longer the case. If someone wants to go to Sydney from Jakarta, it only takes several hours to go by plane.

Inventions in fields of technology have undeniably changed our life, since Thomas Alva Edison invented the first electric bulb. With electricity, scientists and inventors have developed thousands or even millions of new technologies, from the simplest invention to the most sophisticated one.

In the area of transportation, there has been a great deal of new technological advances. Inventions of steam, jet and rocket engines have changed the way people travel. Advanced technologies in the field of telecommunications, such as the inventions of TV, radio, telephones and facsimile machines, have contributed to the development of communication.

However, there is a good side as well as a bad side to modern technology. The invention of robots, used to replace manual labor, has resulted in a great number of unemployed people. The invention of unconventional weapons as well as nuclear weapons have caused the deaths of millions of innocent people. Hundreds of thousands were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone, by just two atomic bombs. Advanced technologies in biology, such as the development of cloning, might cost human life as well if it is used for the wrong purpose.

In conclusion, unemployment as a result of automation in factories is only a temporary setback for workers. New technology is creating more and more jobs every day. As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a tremendous price humanity had to pay for the horrible knowledge of the atomic bomb and the destruction that it could heap upon the world. This has only made nations seek more peaceful means to resolve disputes.

Cloning, moreover, will be very useful if it is used for good reasons such as reproducing endangered animals and plants. These examples show that the success of technology depends on its use, as a means of creation or as a way of destruction.

YASMON

Tangerang, West Java