| Some argue that the technosphere will be relatively more important in the future. Let us call this the technosphere-as-cause scenario. Once again, as always, the pessimists and the optimists. The optimists (for example, R. Buckminster Fuller in his book Utopia or Oblivion), argue that, through technology, each of us can live as kings lived in the last century. The pessimists (for example, Jacques Ellul in his book The Technological Society) argue that technology is not only not a solution but is part of the problem.
Within each pessimist camp, there is, of course, the no-future future. The ecosphere-as-cause doomsday scenario is that we will wipe ourselves out by using up our natural resources; the sociosphere-as-cause scenario is that we will destroy ourselves by over-populating our planet; the technosphere-as-cause scenario is that we will blow our planet up with nuclear weapons. In The Hollow Men, T. S. Eliot predicts
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Doom-sayers offer us a choice between two whimpers and a bang.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
