Something I'm much more hopeful about is the possibility of growing organs in laboratories, which will have massive implications for health aswell as industrial production of food.
Though, putting aside pessism I can see these technologies being synergistic, potentially benefitting all of humanity. One can dream
Agreed. Yet the preventive solution seems obvious: we need to set aside our differences and work together bending the economies of the super powers towards the miraculous development of smaller rice.
Every technology leads to problems because we as humans who use the technology are flawed.
After all someone thought nitrate fertilizer was going be the biggest boon to world peace.
Before we build something, we usually have a pretty good idea of what problems it may cause. We can only have no idea if we don't know any property of it, and creating something that you didn't predict in any way is extremely rare.
For example, smart dust is one thing guaranteed to create both great ecological problems and solutions.