Deeps Discuss: The First Post (Technology)

Our goal here at DEEPS is to inspire thought. To not simply provide information, but to ignite imagination.  We challenge you to doubt, to question, and to ponder.  As the world is revealed we fight to understand it and search for a place within it's expanse.  Here at Deeps we aim to question what we know and dream of what might next be illuminated.

This first post will be a trial run in the form of a back and forth debate. We plan to have plenty of individual posts authored by both ourselves and guest authors but this will be hopefully the first installment in a series of monthly debates between the two of us on a variety of different topics.

The topic we plan on covering in September is the future of technology and its role in society:

Brett:  Technology has become such a integral part of human life and society it is almost as though it has evolved with us and its existence is now vital for the survival of the human race.  Without the current technology the population of the world would find themselves without the resources to live and the means to survive.  Has technology become the crutch that man stands with? Has it become so integral with our society that we would cease to be human without it?  And where does its involvement in society bring us to a different future?  Man has been unique that it is able to adapt the world around it to ensure its survival and, apart from fire, there has never been a bigger leap in technology than in modern times.  My great grandmother saw over the past 100 years man go from horse and buggy, to the automobile, to walking on the moon.  We have reached a point of no return, technology is exponentially becoming more and more powerful and its reach has entered all facets of humanity.  But where do we see it go from here?  What is the new world that technology will create?

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Ryan: Love the topic. Way to kick this off. We have been given the unique opportunity to be raised right into the middle of the technology boom.  Our generation has seen changes that have never been seen before and are likely to only escalate as the next decade unravels. Think about it. We owned one of the first home video game systems ever as kids. We were the first users to adapt social media into our every day lives. We have revolutionized efficiency by allowing employees to work, get this, more efficiently by working remotely from mobile devices and tablets. Technology has now even taken over music as we see less live instruments and more insane production reliant upon the precise timing of the technologies that support it. It's safe to say we're beyond the point of "technology has changed the way we live our lives" and are quickly approaching "our lives would be irreversibly changed if these technological luxuries ceased to exist."

My question to you is, does this technology make us better off? Here's an interesting way to think of things that occurred to me while spending time with my precocious 9 year old brother, Nolan. I could make a legitimate argument to you right now that in a job that requires technological adaption or knowledge, I would hire Nolan over a 60 year old man with no experience in that area 95 times out of 100. I played a fun game the other weekend when I was back visiting my family. I asked my dad and my baby brother a question that neither of them knew the answer to. I wrote down the question, gave them each a copy and had them open it at the same exact time and told them I was taking the first one to answer the question out to lunch. The question read, "Where was President James Knox Polk born?" My father immediately walked over to his bookcase and removed a monstrous 700 page behemoth from amongst hundreds of historical databases while my brother quickly slipped over to my dad's iPhone, unlocking it with the swipe he could determine based on the fingerprint marks left on the glass. He proceeded to open the Safari app and search "James Knox Polk birthplace." My brother had given me the answer before my dad even had the book open to the appropriate chapter. Our youth are better served in that KNOWLEDGE is now instantly available. Unfortunately, I think this will have an inverse effect on the amount that these kids actively use their brain for proactive problem solving. I know I didn't answer half of your questions but I figured you got to start so I wanted to put in my 2 cents before the ball got rolling.

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Brett:   Technology does seem to be changing the way we learn.  The amount of available information even seems to at times allow for people to be experts in anything.  But does this access of information make us intelligent?  How does instantly being able to regurgitate information from a website make us more equipped for a job?  Well it can allow you to have exposure to worlds and ideas never otherwise attainable.  Yes, technology is a remarkable tool.  And for a person to remain vocationally relevant and competitive, they must stay somewhat technologically savvy.  The world once judged intelligence by the amount of information in a individuals mind, I believe we are now moving to a world where intelligence is what the the individual can do with the information in the global mind.  Can they comprehend concepts?  Can they apply trends?  Can they use what they've learned?  Yes your brother could find the answer to your trivia question but what can he do with that information?  Your father might instead be able to use the information he finds to form a strategy or comprehend a situation.  The issue is he must also stay technologically capable enough to attain the information in the first place.  Because what we do agree on is that without the ability to obtain the information, it doesn't matter what you could possibly do with it.