Tương lai sốc bệnh của sự thay đổi có thể được ngăn chặn. Nhưng nó sẽ mạnh mẽ xã hội, hành động ngay cả chính trị. Không có vấn đề như thế nào, cá nhân cố gắng để tốc độ cuộc sống của họ, không có vấn đề tâm linh nạng, chúng tôi cung cấp cho họ, không có vấn đề làm thế nào chúng ta thay đổi giáo dục | Chapter 19 TAMING TECHNOLOGY Future shock the disease of change can be prevented. But it will take drastic social even political action. No matter how individuals try to pace their lives no matter what psychic crutches we offer them no matter how we alter education the society as a whole will still be caught on a runaway treadmill until we capture control of the accelerative thrust itself. The high velocity of change can be traced to many factors. Population growth urbanization the shifting proportions of young and old all play their part. Yet technological advance is clearly a critical node in the network of causes indeed it may be the node that activates the entire net. One powerful strategy in the battle to prevent mass future shock therefore involves the conscious regulation of technological advance. We cannot and must not turn off the switch of technological progress. Only romantic fools babble about returning to a state of nature. A state of nature is one in which infants shrivel and die for lack of elementary medical care in which malnutrition stultifies the brain in which as Hobbes reminded us the typical life is poor nasty brutish and short. To turn our back on technology would be not only stupid but immoral. Given that a majority of men still figuratively live in the twelfth century who are we even to contemplate throwing away the key to economic advance Those who prate anti-technological nonsense in the name of some vague human values need to be asked which humans To deliberately turn back the clock would be to condemn billions to enforced and permanent misery at precisely the moment in history when their liberation is becoming possible. We clearly need not less but more technology. At the same time it is undeniably true that we frequently apply new technology stupidly and selfishly. in our haste to milk technology for immediate economic advantage we have turned our environment into a physical and social tinderbox. The speed-up of diffusion the .
