Technology “For Good or Bad”
You might wonder why an old chap like me would want to write about technology. Well, I have been an electronics engineer involved in the consumer, industrial, medical and military fields, with both design and production, throughout all of my working life, and continue to this day to keep acquainted with technology’s latest trends.
I could bore you stiff with the intricacies of design and innovation, but I think you would soon be reaching for your mouse button to find something more interesting to read. Instead, to continue my trend of looking back across the span of a lifetime, I will consider some striking examples of then and now, regarding how the advancement of technology is perceived by the young, in comparison to the old.
Consumer electronics.
My first example spans some eighty five years when our first radio was a primitive crystal set. No amplifier, speakers, or the rest of the paraphernalia, just a pair of headphones, which we used to put inside an open tin can so that more than one person could listen to the hollow sound, with some difficulty, I might add. It was housed in an oak cabinet with two small doors which opened to display a huge tuning control. There was a rigid no touch rule in effect. If it malfunctioned, which it did for most of the time, someone was always to blame during the delicate re-adjustment of the control to hopefully find the station again. I say “the station” because there was only one.
Yours truly was invariably named the culprit, because even at that tender age the family recognized that I was avidly interested in the way electronics worked, and therefore prone to tinker. I was usually taken to one side by my father and told in no uncertain terms to “leave things alone in the future”. They say that the wheel of life turns and in later years when valve radio came along, it too would intermittently fault and Dad used to ask me “can you fix it Will” and I would remind him “ I thought you always told me to leave things alone”.
In today’s world which is inundated with electronic devices, the youngsters take everything very much for granted, discarding them with abandon should they fault, fail to serve their needs, or worse still, for a newer model. In recent times, after a friend of mine had finished talking to his grandson about his laptop computer, the boy closed the lid and literally threw it down on to a couch. “What did you do that for, did you know that you could damage it. What would you do if it faulted?” The reply was spontaneous. “No problem, I’d get dad to buy me a new one.”
So there is the stark contrast. In my own case a device so basic, but to us a wonderful asset providing a pleasure that was considered priceless, to some one not even giving a second thought to destroying a complicated one.
There is no doubt that today’s proliferation of consumer devices has created such an ambivalence to values that would have been unthinkable during my growing up years, and still remains unthinkable to me today.
Technology has brought some welcomed changes to our lives, but also the downside I have just mentioned. As the value of technology in the area of personal possessions becomes more prevalent, I fear that the phenomenon tends to carry over into the social aspect of life and its interactions, especially amongst the younger generation which seems to have totally embraced a throw away behavior and its resultant effect on society without giving it a second thought.
Industrial electronics
My experience over the years involving industrial electronics and the development of computer-controlled machines etc: to produce things faster and cheaper has to a large extent aided and abetted the throwaway society that I have just mentioned. There are some exceptions of course. The elimination for the most part of manual labor, for one, is a welcome advancement, after growing up as a youngster in a labor-intensive world, where everything had to be dug, moved, cut, or assembled by hand. Most of it a back breaking experience, prior to the arrival of mechanical diggers, forklift trucks etc:
Medical electronics “A good part of my article”
This is where I saw technology come into its own. In the 1960’s for a few years I was with a company that designed and manufactured medical equipment. From very sophisticated apparatus, which I still see in hospitals today, down to the rudimentary tools used in surgical operations.
Since those days the advancement has been phenomenal, with the likes of M.R.I machines and other diagnostic devices such as the development of miniature camera technology allowing items inside the body, to be observed on a monitor screen and photographed for the records.
Where will it all end? Fortunately for us all, we can look forward to many more advancements in the medical field.
Military electronics “A bad part of my article”
The advancement of technology in this particular field is a frightening thought. As a veteran of World War 2, I can clearly equate the difference between now and then, from personal experience. Looking back, and thinking in today’s technology, one could only describe World War 2 in comparative terms by using the phrase “brute force and ignorance.” Hundreds of airplanes flying daily, dropping thousands of bombs, and thousands of men advancing into a hail of bullets and explosions. Devastation on a large scale, perpetrated with minimal technology. The war finally ended with one piece of shocking technology; the atom bomb dropped on Japan.
The world today seems to have split itself up into many mini wars that require the military to adopt up-to-date technology to play its part. The delivery of a 500 lb bomb from a great height guided by satellite positioning equipment with pin point accuracy, has appeared on the scene in recent times. They are called surgical strikes. Devastation just the same, but employing technology in line with all the other guided missiles, surface to surface, surface to air, air to air, and so on. In my last section on medical electronics I posed the question “where will it all end?. Unfortunately for us all, the future of military technology is too painful to contemplate.
During my time in World War 2 there were moments which epitomized the difference between then and now. I was in a convoy of ships outward bound to the far east, when we were attacked by enemy aircraft. The barrage of anti aircraft fire from the destroyers protecting the convoy prevented all but one plane from getting through the perimeter. It proceeded through the lines of ships flying very low at masthead height dropping bombs as it went, all finding their way into the sea creating large water spouts as they exploded and not finding a target. I saw the pilot clearly in his cockpit as he passed my ship. Seconds later, a crescendo of gunfire from one of the destroyers rendered the plane into a cascading shower of confetti falling into the sea. Now that is an example of “brute force and ignorance” no technology employed.
With all the contradictions that technology brings to our lives, it is sometimes difficult to find a balance between good and bad. I suppose one could sum it all up as a love hate relationship, with one’s mind oscillating between the two as a new particular technology surfaces.
My best wishes to you all.