The Question Concerning Technology

Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology” offers an unusual account of the essence of technology. Instead of focusing his attention on technological devices themselves, Heidegger decides to equate the essence of technology with a human attitude. Although the philosopher's position is unconventional, it is useful nonetheless. The utility comes from the focus on humans and the relationship they have in respect to the earth, rather than on instruments of technology. It is the human attitude that is the cause of the danger of technology and so should be highlighted. As will be discussed, the way that humans currently perceive of the world has resulted in problems and will continue to create new problems if our perception is not altered.…

of Choice, Barry Schwartz presents the pitfalls of maximizing, with one being counterfactual thinking. Schwartz also introduces the concept of hedonic adaptation, which provides reasoning to why there is little importance to the choice that maximizers spend much time and energy with. To further show why satisficing is the better option, I will argue that people can never truly have complete control or authority over their own happiness. In The Questions Concerning Technology, Martin Heidegger…

aboard the safety of his own starship. This technology, employing the use of teleportation, has saved many U.S.S. Enterprise crew members lives’ throughout countless episodes of the Sci-Fi TV series Star Trek. Teleportation being largely fictional at the time of production of the original Star Trek, is no longer fiction; Quantum teleportation has been demonstrated experimentally several times at the sub-atomic scale, with the first successful trial being carried out in 1998. The longest distance…

The Oklahoma Right to Farm Amendment, State Question 777 was on the November 8, 2016, ballot in Oklahoma as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment. It was defeated. A "yes" vote supported amending the state constitution to include the right to farm and ranch. I think that State Question should've passed, it would of allowed farmers to defend themselves against unjust laws that would harm the industry. It would of also protected all farmers and ranchers in Oklahoma, including small,…

With the evolution of technology rapidly increasing and becoming more and more advanced, in correlation, the accepted knowledge concerning film and media are also changing just as fast. Since the birth of the cinema and Hollywood style movies, many philosophers and theorists have shared their knowledge concerning film theory. However many theories are having to be updated and even ruled out due to the advancement in technology. For many years these theories were commonly accepted with minor…

Howard Rheingold’s book, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution is a commentary concerning the emerging effects wireless technology and mobile devices might have on society. This is not a new topic for Rheingold, he has written other works about trends in computing, communications, and culture, including the book, Virtual Community, a term he also coined. In Smart Mobs, Rheingold explores the groups of friends, colleagues, and/or strangers, who come together in what he calls smart mobs.…

We have been so invested in technology in the past few years, that we have begun to let technology control the way we live our life. Whether it may be just using technology to find the closest coffee shop or flying on an airplane, thousands of feet above the ground, we have been letting technology take over our everyday life. Schools, once a place to learn using textbooks and paper, has turned into a technology based learning atmosphere. The question is, should we be relying on technology, or…

Humans are always creating new pieces of modern technology that can make daily lives easier. More and more are developed that becomes necessary in the world we live in. However, some pieces of technology can cause people to be lazy and less informed about the world we live in. This makes me think of an animated film, Wall-E a Disney animated film that takes place in the “future.” In this film, the humans sent themselves into space to save them from the severely polluted earth. A small robot…

Social media, student based technology, both of these things are acceptable to modern life today, but to what extent and time do we let the children that will become the next future generation use these conveniences? That is the question and hypothesis this article has answered, concerning parents and the limits they allow. Also, the actions they take to enforce the rules they have set up in order to maintain a healthy mind and body concerning how much time is spent on technology, and the cites…

What did McLuhan mean when he said that ‘the medium is the message’? Is this idea any use in understanding contemporary mass media? When McLuhan said ‘the medium is the message’, he meant that the “message” of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs (McLuhan, 1964), insisting that when trying to understand the influence of media on human senses, people should focus on the properties of media rather than the messages they carry…