For as long as I can remember, there has always been a buzzing in the back of my mind. Sometimes, a soft, sweet hum, other times, a louder, more insistent drone that pushes me across my limits. It tells me to be something, someone. It tells me to take on too much, rest too little and constantly improve.Â
Recently, the same feeling that propels me to study and achieve my goals, echoes in the news, specifically, regarding technology. It seems that, for a while now, humanity has started to run faster and faster, breaking the bounds of imagination, pushing the barriers of scientific development, and never, ever do we stop.Â
Very rarely do we pause and think about the ramifications of our constant progress. If anything, since the Industrial Revolution, we have only created more problems for ourselves with the development of technology. And of course, the solution? More scientific development. It seems that we, in a quest to top, have inadvertently dug deeper holes for ourselves elsewhere.Â
We are all Victor Frankenstein, inspired by the power and promises of scientific discoveries, putting in our all, just to abandon our creation the moment we realize what we’ve just done. The crimes we’ve committed against ourselves, and others, are something we can never take back.Â
Science has brought us weapons of mass destruction, with the threat of apocalypse at any moment, as well as cities completely abolished and people killed from its use. It’s brought us global warming, icebergs melting and animals burning. All justifiable for the betterment of humanity. The use of DDT caused the death of thousands of bald eagles. And now we see this with new animals becoming extinct every year. Thousands of resources are used to combat this. But sometimes, it’s no use.Â
Technology has hurt us all. And it’s not just in the past. Our current development is quite the same. The existence of artificial intelligence, the biggest development of the decade, has done its fair share of damage after only a few years of being mainstream. Most notably, the dire environmental impacts. Every AI-generated answer takes five times more energy than a normal web search and, according to Forbes, AI is projected to use 6.6 billion cubic meters of water by 2027. This only hurts our already dire environmental problems.Â
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Of course, scientific developments have been good. The existence of AI is beneficial in many ways, and the quality of life we have right now would not have been possible without the scientists and engineers dedicating their lives to human improvement. We can commute and travel to places further than we could’ve ever previously imagined. The world is connected in so many beautifully intricate ways. We have advanced agriculture, ensuring that if we wanted, no one would have to go to bed hungry. We have advanced plumbing systems, access to clean water and answers to any question at the tip of our fingers. Our advancement is incredible, historical even, and we get to witness it happen right now, in front of us, with articles and news of advancement after advancement, something that years ago could only be found in a science fiction novel. The life expectancy has risen from 30 years in 1870 to 71 in 2021, according to Our World in Data. And every day we find new cures and relief to diseases that had previously plagued us for centuries.Â
For all the progress we make, an equal amount of problems arise, and we are faced with the question of the necessities of these problems. And I wonder if there was a way to prevent them in the first place.Â
Maybe the way to the top doesn’t need to be this twisted. Problems that — if there were some more research or thought put into it — would not have been a problem in the first place.Â
The buzzing, the need to achieve, is an integral part of humanity, and the reason why we have gotten this far. But we are straining ourselves, stressed out, pushing ourselves so far that we have slipped up and made terrible, maybe irreversible mistakes. We need to think before we act. We need to rest before we improve, or we are destined to fail and fall into the same cycle we have before, over and over again.Â
Ellen Li is a senior at Aragon High School in San Mateo. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.
Ellen - a fine piece of prose and certainly well thought out. I take an exception to "For all the progress we make, an equal amount of problems arise". If that were true we would not have increased our life expectancy, our ability to move around when we please, and eat much better, healthier foods. Yes, there is a price to pay for progress but the life of our children growing up in the SF Bay Area is far more enjoyable and seeded with opportunity than the life in my youth growing up in a very depressing post-war Netherlands. Nostalgia is appropriate at times but humans tend to forget the negatives of the olden days. What will, or can, you do to cap progress?
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Ellen - a fine piece of prose and certainly well thought out. I take an exception to "For all the progress we make, an equal amount of problems arise". If that were true we would not have increased our life expectancy, our ability to move around when we please, and eat much better, healthier foods. Yes, there is a price to pay for progress but the life of our children growing up in the SF Bay Area is far more enjoyable and seeded with opportunity than the life in my youth growing up in a very depressing post-war Netherlands. Nostalgia is appropriate at times but humans tend to forget the negatives of the olden days. What will, or can, you do to cap progress?
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.