Throughout history, people have invented tools and techniques to resolve their problems. The earliest problem was access to food, and first people created hunting tools, and then developed agriculture, with techniques for land clearance and irrigation and farming. This caused an unprecedented growth in human populations. There was the problem of access to raw materials besides food, so people developed trade, with its accompanying currencies and modes of transport. These raw materials were made into finished goods by builders and craftsmen. As techniques for fabricating things improved, people were able to do it on mass scale, and developed industry. This allowed the average individual to own or have access to far more material goods. The progress of society and the progress of technology, if not synonymous, became inextricably intertwined.
Today, there are over 6 billion humans in the world, a truly staggering number compared to any other large animal that has ever lived. It occurs to me that every advance we make simply allows people to extract more from their surroundings, meaning there can be more people who have more stuff. Advances in technology allow their to be more people at the same standard of living, and since all of those people demand a better standard of living, they advance technology further, in a cycle that must culminate with all of the earth鈥檚 resources being fully utilized.
It seems then, that unless we come up with a means to get off this rock and colonize other star systems, the only truly relevant technologies will be those that allow us to limit either our own numbers, or our individual desire for resources. Everything else doesn鈥檛 address the real problem. We haven鈥檛 got any means to reliably change human nature to want less stuff, so birth control is our only escape from the war and famine that would accompany overpopulation, especially keeping in mind that at higher levels of technology, war can destroy our entire planet.
We see that in industrialized societies today, the birth rate is declining, correlating increased technological development and material wealth to decreased population growth. Thus I might ask, is there any other technology that will have as extensive an impact on the long-term well-being of humanity?
Is birth control the most important human technology?
Yes, but then the Ford Mustang just leads to more Birth Control problems!
Is birth control the most important human technology?
By George, I think he's got it. Very good. Just convince the rest of the world. Some people think the most important invention is the Ford %26quot;Mustang%26quot;. lol
Hello,
Only my opinion.
It may very well be that birth control is an amazing discovery. Not even as modern and last minute news as it may seem to us modern people. In the Dark Ages they had a lot of contraceptive means. But then again then, they had the religious zealots and physical persecution and now, we have a lot of laziness and disinterest and stupidity.
It is of no consequence to have the means to limit the population size, but no means to implement this technology.
We have more control of our breeding patters nowadays, but we do not seem to take other measures (globally), that they took in medieval times (for example).
And then you also have the imbalance between were and who does indeed uses active birth control. Birth control is more frequent in more developed societies, fact that leads in the end to a vicious loop. Developed societies increase their comforts more and more, whereas declining, poor societies deepen their burden (from population density's perspective).
What I started to say in what I wanted to be a very short answer (which obviously is not the case anymore) is that:
1. I do not think that we could identify only one feature that is the best technology invented by man over time. We developed to many technologies, to fast, sometimes without regard or knowledge of the repercussions.
2. It is quite arrogant to presume that if pushed to far (of afore mentioned human arrogance) nature does not have the means to regain its balance (with dire consequences for our species, I fear).
Again,
This is my personal opinion, not scientific undisputed conclusions.
Kind regards,
Bea
PS. I agree with the previous answerers, the Mustang seems to gain more and more importance on birth control as what technologies go, and usualy represents a very good technology that circumvents birth control itself. :)
There are too many of us. Why anyone would want to bring a child into this troubled, overcrowded world is beyond my understanding. Most relationships decline when children arrive. The economy is too uncertain to be adding dependents. I say MANDATORY birth control, should be imposed.
