Changing Our Relationship to Technology
There are two basic approaches we can take to technology, as a society. The first is to put technology first, and continually advance technology for its own sake, as an end in itself. The second is to put humanity first, and to use technology as a means of enhancing the quality of our lives, automating tasks we’d rather not do, outsourcing tasks that technology does better than us, and indirectly raising our consciousness and helping us to grow.
In recent years we’ve been taking the first approach. If we continue on this trajectory we are likely to end up with some sort of scenario where technology ultimately overtakes us—either by outright destroying us or by making our lives shallow and miserable.
On the other hand, if we choose to grow we will wake up enough to see that our lives are about us, and we are all more valuable to one another than any machine ever could be. We’ll ultimately stop centering our economy and our lives around pointless technological innovation for its own sake, and will instead regard technology as a tool that serves our true, consciously chosen reason for being. Of course, first we have to make that choice—and we have to do it together.
I don’t mention this in the podcast, but in addition to putting ourselves before our technology, we have to put ourselves before our commerce, too. What do we care more about—material things and money, or each other? Commerce and technology go hand in hand, so as long as we continue to put either one of those things before humanity, the other thing will be prioritized above humanity as well.
Overall, I’m genuinely optimistic. I know we’re going to make the growth decision: the current events in our world are reflecting shifts in our collective consciousness. All we have to do is keep leaning into those shifts, keep choosing consciously, and graciously experience the consequences of our decisions.
The Podcast
The above is a summary of a podcast I recorded. You can listen using the player below, or you can download the podcast as an mp3.
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