Bruce vs. Nick and the Technological War

Ok so on Monday we read the article The Tech Lab: Bruce Schneier and then we watched the Ted Talk with Nick Bostron. They were both very different but yet similar in many ways. When I first read the article by Bruce, I got both a negative and realistic feeling. Negative because it was well.. negative and realistic because I agreed with mostly all that he was saying. Although at some points he took what he was saying to the extent, he was mostly right on the ball. In the first line of the article, "Welcome to the future, where everything about you is saved," I already could tell the kind of position he was going to be taking. He talked about how technologically-obsessed our generation is and I couldn't help but to agree fully with his thoughts. He basically goes on to say that because of this obsession with technology and all of the improvements in the past couple of decades, we will soon live in a world where we will no longer have the basic freedom of privacy and how conversation will no longer be like it is now. As he says, "Privacy isn't just about having something to hide; it's a basic right that has enormous value to democracy, liberty, and our humanity,".

On the other hand, during his Ted Talk, Nick Bostron spoke about things that I would never expect a public speaker to speak about. He took a more positive approach and spoke about our 3 biggest problems. He spoke about how aging is the biggest cause of our first problem; death. The next problem was about Existential Risk and how it is a threat to human survival. The third problem he spoke about was about how life isn't as usually good as it could be and that sometimes you have a great moment and you wonder why can't life always be like that. He also said, "There are ways in which we can change thins- not by taking things away but by adding." He also spoke about how we need to think about technology and it's profound impact on human nature.

Where Bruce Schneier seemed a little scared about what the future holds, Nick Bostron had a more positive and enlightening speech. He came off as more wise and excited about what the future holds. He touched on the fact that technology is not about if it's a good or bad thing, but yet the more important thing is how we use it. This seemed to go against Bruce's position in that Bruce takes the position that technology is leading us to a future that could have many negative outcomes. Where Bruce seemed to point out all the negative effects of technology, Nick did just the opposite. He spoke about how technology can help us with such things as individual improvement, intellectual capacity, cosmetics, vaccinations, etc.

Overall, both men spoke about their views on technology and although Nick spoke about more eccentric ideas, both men gave their point of views on the topic of technology. Where Bruce seemed to take a more scared and negative approach, Nick seemed more optimistic and pointed out the benefits rather than the negative affects of this technological era.

Andddd to go along with all this technology.. I attached a trailer from the movie 'The Surrogates".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwTJ7mCcFoY