> When the car began replacing the horse, pessimists didn’t treat it like a great new tool. They called it “the devil wagon,” and said its mission was to destroy the world.
They were absolutely right.
They were absolutely right.
The sections on computers includes an article matter-of-factly informing about a virus being found on 3000 computers. Calling the virus a time bomb is not hysteria - it was literally designed to be one. And surely computer viruses are an even bigger problem today?
The clipping titled "Perils of the lazy age", which predicts that people sitting down in front of the television instead of chopping firewood will make people "unable to stand on their own feet" sure is obnoxiously written, but the sentiment is not wrong: Obesity and cardiovascular disease is basically an epidemic today.
If these are some of the best examples of past hysteria, I guess we should listen more to those we consider hysterical today?
(I’m asking honestly.)
Another issue is that often GMO correlates with patentry, terminator seeds, IP lawsuits, and so on. But that's also a tangential issue.
The main issue is that, just like anything new, it puts us in the "beta testing in production" area, where the product being tested is "things which none of our ancestors have ever encountered, evolutionarily" and production environment is "our bodies".
Similarly, my understanding was that soil depletion (caused by farming methods) and crops optimized purely for high yield (via breeding or otherwise) are problems causing nutrition drop in foods. And that neither are problems solved simply by going organic or GMO free.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/epa-atrazine-herb...
There is a trove of studies showing the harm so I'm not sure you're being genuine. If you really can't find anything on Google I'll help.
Destroying the world was never the automobile's mission. Like many inventions that have benefited mankind, it has come with unintended consequences, both positive and negative.
I would not discount the negative effects the automobile has had and will continue to have. However, I would argue that the effects of the automobile's existence are so profound and far-reaching, we are incapable of arguing whether the world is, or will be, ultimately a better or worse place as a result of its existence.
I’d like to hear anyone’s thoughts to the contrary? Are there any benefits that are bigger than the cons?
The ability for people to travel to so many places and engage in the human experience in ways they otherwise never could or would. The expansion of humans' radius to get together, be together, work together, exchange ideas, make love, and make families.
Because humans were able to be with so many more humans, I would argue that knowledge, learning, and thought, took place at a level that's orders of magnitude greater than it would have been otherwise. And if you subscribe at all to the idea of the butterfly effect, it's impossible to begin comprehending what mankind wouldn't have if the car hadn't existed. Would we have the cure to as many diseases? Would the rate of poverty have declined so profoundly? Would the Internet exist?