Do we rely too much on Technology?

Lately we've been hearing about oil tankers going off course and straying into Iranian waters then being detained or captured. Now it seems the reason for this is because Iran is allegedly jamming GPS signals in the region, and has been for quite a while. Okay, this brings up all sorts of questions.

First, if we know Iran or any other country is jamming GPS signals, then why are we relying on GPS for navigation in these areas?

Second, if the answer to the above is, we're now so reliant on things like GPS for navigation that we've removed more traditional navaids, things like marker buoys, navigation lights and ranging sights, etc., then perhaps we should be putting those traditional navigation aids back into service.

And lastly, if the answer is, we've lost our ability to navigate ships (aircraft and other modes of transport) without technology like GPS...then maybe we're too reliant on technology in general.

Case in point, I can't even count the number of people I know who conduct every portion of their lives with a smart phone. I often wonder what would happen if smart phones suddenly didn't work. It would be CHAOS!

And to an extent, this is more than a technology issue, it's a societal issue. We no longer teach fundamentals in school because we have things like calculators and PC's. And we can find similar examples in virtually every discipline of learning and or skills.

Is technology our demise?

Do we rely too much on technology?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Obviously the only way to resolve any issues with Iran is for the US to start dropping bombs. It's America's sole foreign policy option at this point.

The DOE is probably not interested in promoting alternate forms of energy that would compete with Big Oil's cartel control of energy consumption in the World.

Guess who is head of the DOE, Rick Perry! Now there's a suprise! "Energy Secretary Rick Perry once called for abolishing the agency he now runs — though he forgot its name. "

Is it any wonder our energy policies in this country are so messed up when the government is run by people who prefer anarchy over government.

No surpises here, "Perry also earned bipartisan rebukes in Congress for the administration's proposals to eliminate a breakthrough energy program known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and slash budgets for his department’s national labs."

RE: "Is technology our demise? Do we rely too much on technology?

As a technologist, I thought my whole life has been about creating technology so people have more power in their lives. Instead, the technology I've been creating causes the opposite to occur according to Kipnis. This quote has haunted me my whole life:

"In the words of Jose Ortega y Gasset: "Technology provides men the leisure to realize their true potential" This, then, is the promise of technology: a material world of plenty and a spiritual world in which we have the leisure to realize our highest potentials and the freedom to contemplate God.

Yet in nagging counterpoint to this optimism about the beneficent world of plenty provided by unlimited power is the suspicion that technology has another face. There is a world in which the freedom to choose and to control evens has been subtly altered so that there is less choice and less control. This is the world of "megatechnics," to use Lewis Mumford's apt phrasing, in which technology concentrates power and reduces individual choice."

Technology and Power by David Kipnis

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

Mark Twain.

Simple answer.
Yes

a reply to: sunkuong

The only real question is...what would Do n ald do?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I agree with what you believe is happening to society 100%.
I absolutely refuse to use my GPS unless huntings trips.
When driving I use a physical map or stop and ask.

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I agree with what you believe is happening to society 100%.
I absolutely refuse to use my GPS unless huntings trips.
When driving I use a physical map or stop and ask.

so google knows what you hunt but not where you refuel?

a reply to: sunkuong

GPS is not google bud.
I guess you don’t hunt often?
I am 99.9% sure FCD knows what I mean.

a reply to: sunkuong

I will tell you right now Google did not directly pay for those satellites. They may piggyback off them but no upfront pay for.
Also no I refuel at stops that I already know exist.
But I do get where you are coming from as most do utilize the whole maps thing. I just don’t man.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Using technology isn't necessarily a bad thing. Before we had the wheel, we were pretty hard pressed to move things. Before we did a lot of things, we simply missed out.

Technology is something we should embrace, even now.

But we're giving too much to the meaningless tech we're coming up with.

For instance, the ability to share information at will, is a good thing.
The ability to control what that information is, is not a good thing.

TV was always a medium for pure entertainment. not for trusted knowledge. But now it's where people go to before they head on over to twitter to twit.

I like having the ability to use my phone to guide me to an unknown destination that I'd have otherwise required a physical street map for. Yes, kids.. we used to use a book that had google maps embedded in it. A BOOK.. not an Ebook..

But it's handy..

I see around me an entire society, however, so engaged in this tech, that they are lost without it.

It's not the use of the tech, it's the ABUse of it.. rely on it, prepared to be controlled or fail.

Use it... you can dooooeeet..

*not a single mention of hey google, siri or alexa was mentioned in this post.. those are for people to lazy to even swipe, and they deserve everything they get.*

Yes,

How many people no longer carry cash because of ATM cards or Credit cards, what happens if power goes out no access to the cards cant buy water or gas (If its the old school pumps).

I always have a map and compass if I am driving way out in the sticks or if I am crossing unfamiliar territory, went to visit some of the wifes family in Arkansa if you didnt have a particular cell service you had no service so there went smart phone help.

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: sunkuong

GPS is not google bud.
I guess you don’t hunt often?
I am 99.9% sure FCD knows what I mean.

I don't hunt at all. Ever. I even feel bad when I catch a fish, coz it's gonna dislike being.. well, you know.

But I do know that google track you when you don't realise it.. Unless you're aware of their tracking and turn it off, which most people are not.. and this uses GPS.

I still have my traverse to the US on there.. well, one minute in Sydney, then 13 hours later in LAXative.

and I never even knew the gps was turned on. mind you, it doesn't need to be, if you're near public wifi ap's..

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk


Do we rely too much on technology?

Maybe.
www.chicagolawyer.com...

Thirty years ago my son and I were finding dive sites down in the keys with a chart and a sighting compass. It’s not that hard.

I’m sure a few of us older guys can still get around with a map and a magnetic compass. I teach a backcountry orienteering course to my grandchildren. We make it into a scavenger hunt ever fall. It’s a good life skill that builds confidence and self reliance.

If the Carrington Event of 1859 were to happen today, we would soon discover exactly how much we rely on technology.

a reply to: gallop


Oh ya I am aware of this. I just turn off my phones location.
Though I know they can still track. I use a map when needed and no GPS. But that google still has me. When hunting my phones battery is out and bagged up.
No distractions when on a hunt.

a reply to: gallop

But I do know that google track you when you don't realise it.. Unless you're aware of their tracking and turn it off, which most people are not.. and this uses GPS.

No, actually it doesn't use GPS.

What it does is triangulates your location from cell towers around you. This is why the "map" function works even on a non-GPS equipped phone. This was a requirement several years ago in the "E-911" upgrades mandated by the government.

ETA - Oh, and you can NOT turn off phone tracking, regardless of what anyone tells you. If your phone is on, it is being tracked (or at least its location can be pinpointed). Period. You may not be able to see the tracking, but I assure you it's being tracked. Now, no one may be looking at this tracking, but the phone's location is known at all times. So, as the phone moves, the location changes, hence "tracking". I work with these systems daily.

a reply to: Nickn3

Yes, orienteering is a lost art. Map & compass is an excellent skill to know, though few do.

I would still rather use a map and compass over any sort of GPS. Used to assist in teaching orienteering courses in Wyoming.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Technology is my living. I consult, I fix, I teach, and I use it every day. Technology is great, until it isn't. There are two glaring issues with technology.

The first is our reliance on it to the exclusion and ignorance of how to live without it. Ask any cashier to count back change without it and watch their eyes glaze over.

The second is even worse than the first. The entities behind the technology can't be trusted...at all. Reliance on tech is their goal because it's their business. And the use of tech to control and herd the masses is their specialty.

I have little choice in my profession. I am chained to a smartphone and a computer, but when I retire that's going to change.

a reply to: Klassified

Like you, I work in technology as well, some of the most sophisticated and complex aviation technology out there. I see the same, and it's frustrating.

It's one of the big reasons we raise cattle. No amount of technology can replace common sense, elbow grease and some hard work.

I tell people I work in one of the most complex and high tech environments imaginable, but I come home every day to one of the most low tech environments imaginable. It keeps me grounded in reality.