Forbidden Donut

1. What do you think of when you hear the word "technology?"
Anything man-made that allows him to do something that he can not do by himself.

2. Do you consider technology good or bad?
Technology is not inherently good or bad. A hammer is not good or bad. Building a library with the hammer, good. Hitting people with the hammer, bad. Technology has the potential to be either, it's up to us to decide how we use it.

3. Were things better when you were a kid?
Depends on what things you're talking about. Without you defining "things" then I'm going to say that things were not better when I was a kid.

4. Will technology make the future better or worse?
Better

5. What should be our greatest concern for technology's impact upon the future?
Not realizing its full potential due to human laziness and ignorance.

6. What is your prediction for future technolgy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

7. Do you think people understand technology? If not, why not?
Not most. Ray Kurzweil does. Technology as a whole is a multi-headed beast that not many people can fully grasp. A person can know technology, but not Technology.

8. What technology do you find the most important?
See number 6.

9. What technology do you find the most troubling?
What I find most troubling about technology is how people fail to realize the full potential it possesses. Take the internet for example. It is an almost unlimited supply of information, connections to people from different cultures, and an opportunity to express oneself in countless ways. People from just a couple decades ago would have called what we have magic, not technology. And what does the average user do with it? Stares at pictures of his friends on myspace and watches pointless youtube videos all day. What a waste.

What is this paper for?

1. What do you think of when you hear the word "technology?"

New and innovative inventions that help discover the undiscovered, advance productivity, and simplify the once difficult.

2. Do you consider technology good or bad?

I think technology is great, but its the ideas, and uses people use technology for can be bad.

3. Were things better when you were a kid?

Some were, some weren't

4. Will technology make the future better or worse?

Could go either way....depends what people use the technology for.

5. What should be our greatest concern for technology's impact upon the future?

How can people use the technology to do evil....for example, the idea of laser guided missles. The idea is great and has alot of potential...but they chose to use that technology to guide missles to blow shit up.

6. What is your prediction for future technolgy?

Mind Blowing.

7. Do you think people understand technology? If not, why not?

Some do, some don't and this is the way it will be forever im sure.

8. What technology do you find the most important?

iPods.

9. What technology do you find the most troubling?

As i said before, anything that can be used for evil and malicious acts.

Thanks for the reply very good answers.
This paper is for a class I'm taking "Cultural Dynamics of Technology." Our assignment is to interview 3 different age groups / not all of the same sex and write a paper including their thoughts about technology.

You hit the nail on the head though, both of the other interviews described technology as "computers." That is not it at all, that is just an extension of tech.

The class itself is rather interesting. The professor has taught for 40 years and loves the topic he teaches. He's a knowledge bank of useful facts and useless trivia questions. Our other papers so far were to write about some kind of historical technology so I wrote about weaponry before gunpowder. Our most recent was diversity in technology, so I chose to write about how the Amish live and what tech some of the orders do allow.

I don't know, its a nice change from all of my technical flight courses thats for sure.

That does sound really interesting. Cartoon brought up a thought that I had but didn't know where to put in the survey:

What would happen if we took all of the resources we have invested in using technology as a weapon (military research, materials, and processing) and instead invested it in technology that immediately improves the standard of life (medical research, better food manufacturing, the environment)? Would the terrorists still hate us if we helped them improve their hospitals and overall happiness?

I don't know. Just an incomplete thought that came to mind.

1. What do you think of when you hear the word "technology?"

A tool used to accomplish a goal or do a job.

2. Do you consider technology good or bad?

good.

3. Were things better when you were a kid?

no.

4. Will technology make the future better or worse?

Better. In general, as technology advances so does the quality of life.

5. What should be our greatest concern for technology's impact upon the future?

The ones we don't foresee.

6. What is your prediction for future technology?

More intelligent, more integrated with human activity.

7. Do you think people understand technology? If not, why not?

No, but that won't stop anyone from using it.

8. What technology do you find the most important?

The computer. It's sweet.

9. What technology do you find the most troubling?

Nuclear weapons. No purpose other than mass destruction.