The geek shall inherit the Earth

by mdr on Apr. 24th, 2008
in Life Science and Human Organism

comment

Evolved geek: Are advances in technology dooming humans to become lapdogs with laptops?
Courtesy PipeHave you ever wondered what kind of effect all the recent advances in technology along with our geeky ways of dealing with them will have on the evolution of our species?

For example, two innovations alone – search engines and the Internet – have caused tremendous change in the way we gather, store, and retrieve information. Used to be if I wanted to find a local business address, I’d have to walk to the kitchen, pull open the middle drawer, heft the ten pounds of Yellow Pages up to the counter, then spend at least a couple minutes wracking my brain while paging through it. I was using all sorts of arm and leg and back muscles – not to mention excessive brainpower going through the alphabet – just to accomplish the simple task.

Nowadays, I hardly have to move at all. I remain seated at my computer, type in a couple keywords and click the mouse a couple times. Voila! I get more company information than I’ll ever need plus detailed maps and directions to the exact location.

Or, as pointed out in a recent article, will having all our critical numbers and information stored externally in our iPhones or Blueberries free up some of our brain space for more important tasks? Or will the size and dexterity of the human thumb evolve eventually to produce a race of super text-messagers (I don’t know that this will happen since keyboarding is an old technology that I suspect will someday disappear).

But, it’s kind of an interesting subject to ponder, and a forthcoming book by William Halal, a professor of science, technology and innovation at George Washington University looks into the phenomenon.

"All of the routine things we currently preoccupy ourselves with are going to disappear and people are going to do what? We will move up another notch in the level of evolution," Halal said.

In his book, Technology’s Promise, Halal predicts that advances in new technologies over the next dozen years will relieve our species from the bounds of many of our mundane jobs, allowing us to shift our priorities to more important issues.

But at what cost?

"We are the first humans to outsource jobs to technology, to automate that which is labor intensive or mentally tedious," said Patrick Tucker, senior editor of the Futurist magazine. "In the 21st century, this may result in people that are by and large less capable than we are today. Whether or not we seize all of those opportunities depends on how we mature in the coming decades."
Will this future diminishment of our mental and physical expenditure lead us to evolve into a species of torso-less heads suspended by wires inside bell jars? As long as my jar is within viewing range of the TV, and I can change channels through telepathy, I really don’t care.

MORE INFO

Speaking of geeks, here’s an interesting video of Clifford Stoll that may add some relevance to this subject. But then again, maybe not. Stoll is an astronomer who, if nothing else, is really interesting to watch (although some may say he’s completely nuts). I saw him speak at a conference a few years ago and was really taken by his point of view regarding our reliance on computers in schools and elsewhere. He does have some good points about our dependence on technology. Not that I followed his advice much but he’s worth a listen.

Average: