This is my digital artefact submission for the E-Learning & Digital Cultures MOOC (EDCMOOC 3 : Nov-Dec14). The quotes I have used in the presentation bring out beautifully the debate on technology vs humanity and utopia vs dystopia - a debate that is as old as recorded history itself. as mankind has evolved, so has technology. From the day and age of the wheel to the age of space travel, we certainly have come a long way. Yet, the viewpoints on technology differ. The dystopian view would be that technology tends to make slaves of us humans, rather than being masters of the technology created by us. The opposite view would perhaps be that we owe our very progress and existence to technology. Are either of the views wrong ? Not in my view. Both are equally valid. Too much of a good thing can be bad. But then, when we speak of humanity falling prey to technology, we really cannot generalise. In my view, technology is there to make life simpler and more advanced. It all depends on how we use it. Becoming a slave to technology is also a choice, as is using it judiciously. That's my view, and you, the reader, are welcome to yours. Neither of us would be wrong. The debates on Humanity vs technology have always been there and will continue to rage long after you and I are gone. These quotes, however, bring out the essence of the debate, and I will let the slides speak for themselves.

1. A DIGITAL ARTEFACT FOR
EDCMOOC 3, NOV-DEC 2014

2. Utopian vs Dystopian
Humanity vs Technology
A “Quote-Unquote” Debate

3. A Presentation
By
Rajiv Bajaj

4. Dystopian Views

5. “It has become appallingly
obvious that our
technology has exceeded
our humanity.”
Albert Einstein

6. “Soon silence will
have passed into
legend. Man has
turned his back on
silence. Day after day
he invents machines
and devices that
increase noise and
distract humanity
from the essence of
life, contemplation,
meditation.”
Jean Arp

7. “Technological
society has
succeeded in
multiplying
the
opportunities
for pleasure,
but it has
great difficulty
in generating
joy.”
Pope Paul VI

8. “Getting information off the Internet is like taking a
drink from a fire hydrant.” - Mitchell Kapor

9. “The real
problem
is not
whether
machines
think but
whether
men do.”
B. F.
Skinner

10. “The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless
that for some people it is a complete substitute for
life.” - Andrew Brown

11. “Men have become the
tools of their tools.”
Henry David Thoreau

12. “Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all
the wrong reasons.”- R. Buckminster Fuller

13. “Technological progress has merely provided us with
more efficient means for going backwards.”
Aldous Huxley

14. “If we continue to develop our technology without
wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be
our executioner.” - Omar N. Bradley

15. “The world is very different now. For man holds in
his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of
human poverty, and all forms of human life.”
John F. Kennedy

16. “The newest computer can merely compound, at
speed, the oldest problem in the relations between
human beings, and in the end the communicator will
be confronted with the old problem, of what to say
and how to say it.” - Edward R. Murrow

17. “The system of nature, of
which man is a part, tends
to be self-balancing, self-adjusting,
self-cleansing.
Not so with technology.”
E. F. Schumacher

18. “The machine does not
isolate man from the
great problems of nature
but plunges him more
deeply into them.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

19. “It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any
level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly
meaningless fragments of personal information.”
William Gibson

20. “A satellite has no
conscience.”
Edward R. Murrow

21. “What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic
technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so
many people spending huge amounts of time alone,
isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces
their face-to-face contact with other people.”
Philip Zimbardo

22. “We are in an age of technology where we sit in our
little cubicles and we IM each other and Skype each
other and never connect as human beings.”
Sarah McLachlan

23. “Technology can be our best
friend, and technology can
also be the biggest party
pooper of our lives. It
interrupts our own story,
interrupts our ability to have
a thought or a daydream, to
imagine something
wonderful, because we're
too busy bridging the walk
from the cafeteria back to
the office on the cell phone.”
Steven Spielberg

24. “We have also arranged
things so that almost no
one understands science
and technology. This is a
prescription for disaster.
We might get away with
it for a while, but sooner
or later this combustible
mixture of ignorance
and power is going to
blow up in our faces.”
Carl Sagan

25. “We already have - thanks to
technology, development, skills, the
efficiency of our work - enough
resources to satisfy all human needs.
But we don't have enough
resources, and we are unlikely ever
to have, to satisfy human greed.”
Zygmunt Bauman

26. “If you think technology can solve your security
problems, then you don't understand the problems
and you don't understand the technology.”
Bruce Schneier

27. “We're in a new world. We're in a world in which the
possibility of terrorism, married up with technology,
could make us very, very sorry that we didn't act.”
Condoleezza Rice

28. “Technology is, of course, a double edged sword. Fire
can cook our food but also burn.”
Jason Silva

29. Utopian Views

30. “Technology is nothing. What's important is that you
have a faith in people, that they're basically good
and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do
wonderful things with them.” - Steve Jobs

31. “I have an
almost religious
zeal... not for
technology per
se, but for the
Internet which is
for me, the
nervous system
of mother Earth,
which I see as a
living creature,
linking up.” -
Dan Millman

32. “The number one benefit
of information
technology is that it
empowers people to do
what they want to do. It
lets people be creative. It
lets people be
productive. It lets people
learn things they didn't
think they could learn
before, and so in a sense
it is all about potential.”
Steve Ballmer

33. “What new technology does is create
new opportunities to do a job that
customers want done.” - Tim O'Reilly

34. “The most important thing we can do is inspire
young minds and to advance the kind of science,
math and technology education that will help
youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.”
John Glenn

35. “There is a huge need
and a huge opportunity
to get everyone in the
world connected, to
give everyone a voice
and to help transform
society for the future.”
Mark Zuckerberg

36. “We humans have a
love-hate relationship
with our technology.
We love each new
advance and we hate
how fast our world is
changing... The
robots really embody
that love-hate
relationship we have
with technology.”
Daniel H. Wilson

37. “In education,
technology can be a
life-changer, a game
changer, for kids who
are both in school and
out of school.
Technology can bring
textbooks to life. The
Internet can connect
students to their peers
in other parts of the
world. It can bridge the
quality gaps.”
Queen Rania of Jordan

38. “Modern
technology has
become a total
phenomenon for
civilization, the
defining force of
a new social
order in which
efficiency is no
longer an option
but a necessity
imposed on all
human activity.”
Jacques Ellul

39. “There are no morals
about technology at all.
Technology expands our
ways of thinking about
things, expands our
ways of doing things. If
we're bad people we
use technology for bad
purposes and if we're
good people we use it
for good purposes.”
Herbert Simon

40. “Good, bad or indifferent, if you are not investing in
new technology, you are going to be left behind.”
Philip Green

41. “Civilization advances by extending the number of
important operations which we can perform without
thinking of them.” - Alfred North Whitehead

42. “Stone Age. Bronze Age. Iron Age. We define entire
epics of humanity by the technology they use.”
Reed Hastings

43. “Our technology, our machines, is part of our
humanity. We created them to extend ourselves, and
that is what is unique about human beings.”
Ray Kurzweil

44. “There's no question that as science, knowledge and
technology advance, that we will attempt to do more
significant things. And there's no question that we
will always have to temper those things with ethics.”
Benjamin Carson

45. “If you look at the various strategies available for
dealing with a new technology, sticking your head
in the sand is not the most plausible strategy.”
Ralph Merkle

46. “Everyone seems to
think that digital
technology devoids the
medium of content, but
that is not true at all. If
anything, it broadens
the content.”
George Lucas

47. “People use technology only to mean digital
technology. Technology is actually everything we
make.” - Margaret Atwood

48. “All art is
dependent on
technology
because it's a
human
endeavour, so
even when
you're using
charcoal on a
wall or designed
the proscenium
arch, that's
technology.” -
George Lucas

49. “I really believe that we don't have to make a trade-off
between security and privacy. I think technology
gives us the ability to have both.”
John Poindexter

50. “Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing
is easy.” - Richard Stallman

51. “Like all technology, social media is neutral but is
best put to work in the service of building a better
world.” - Simon Mainwaring

52. “Everybody has to be able to participate in a future
that they want to live for. That's what technology
can do.” - Dean Kamen

53. “You have to learn how to harness technology so you
can use it for positive stuff without being
disconnected from nature.”
Talib Kweli

54. And My Take
On This Debate
?
Best summed
up in words of
Steve Martin…

55. “I love technology, and
I love science. It's just
always all in the way
you use it.
You can't really blame
anything on the
technology.
It's just the way people
use it, and it always
has been.”
Steve Martin

56. And The Debate Goes On....

58. Acknowledgements
Brainy Quotes – www.brainyquotes.com
Image Sources:
Morgue File – www.morguefile.com
Google Images
Wikimedia Commons Images
Audio:
Path To Follow by Jingle Punks
(From YouTube Free Library, Shared under creative commons license)
Presentation for non-commercial, educational purpose only. No
copyright infringements intended. All rights of the images used are
vested with their respective owners.