The development of technology does not guarantee us a bright future
The development of technology does not guarantee us a bright future

Video: The development of technology does not guarantee us a bright future

Video: The development of technology does not guarantee us a bright future
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Cosmonautics Day reminded of the crisis in humanity and technological progress 58 years after the first flight into space. In Russia on April 12, they limited themselves to words about past feats and promises to revive astronautics by 2022.

IN USA Elon Muskfinally launched the Falcon Heavy super-heavy launch vehicle (cargo, without astronauts), and NASA admitted that it could not cope with the exploration of the Moon without an international coalition - and this is 50 years after the alleged landing of American astronauts there. The news about the crash of the Israeli moon rover, which, as it is especially emphasized, was launched with private money, was also symbolically mocked. The descendants of space explorers are mired in counting monetary units.

Futurologist Stanislav Lemin the mid-1960s, he even ridiculed the assumption that in 2000 people will live the same way as under him: they say, the explosive growth of technology will change human life so much that it is almost impossible to predict. Now we, the generation of the 2000s, find it funny and sad to read the words of Lem, a representative of the generation that conquered the atom and launched man into space.

From the point of view of technology, human life in the 1960s and 2000s did not fundamentally change, only the improvement of old inventions took place: cars became faster and more comfortable, high-speed trains appeared, household appliances became more diverse. The assumption of the same Lem that wheeled transport would become a rarity, being replaced by fundamentally different modes of transportation, crashed into the harsh reality of a "bright future" in which cars on wheels create terrible traffic jams and fill city courtyards.

The only breakthrough of the 2000s occurred in information technology - the creation of a personal computer, electronic and mobile communications, the connection of all communications in a smartphone. But this revolution only led to the fact that mankind, from transcendental heights, where eyes were directed, lowered its head and plunged into smartphones, a small-grained virtual world without real creation.

Semiconductors based on heterostructures, discovered by a brilliant Soviet scientist and great idealist Zhores Alferovin the same 1960s, they served to create not a new wonderful world of creators, but only devices for the accelerated exchange of information consumption products, the construction of a virtual simulacrum, where there is no place for dreams, faith and space.

The reason for this, of course, is not technology itself - it is only a tool for changing society, while the specific direction of change is set by those who use it, and depends on the values and prevailing beliefs in the society itself.

The collapse of the Soviet alternative led to the fact that all spheres of life, including culture, science, technology, and the meaning of life, are subordinated to the interests of big private capital. The triumph of postmodern hedonism, senseless enrichment and consumption reduced technological progress to the improvement of resource consumption. A symbolic example of this is the annual renewal of gadgets of the same brand, in which marketing has completely replaced real technological development. It's just as if Sergey Korolevpresented in the showroom new rockets, differing only in design, color and a couple of additional functions.

Space and the atom were conquered not by technocrats and marketers, but by idealistic dreamers - but not inactive dreamers, but responsible leaders of large production systems, who were driven not by personal gain or even competition, but by dreams of a great knowledge of the world. The dominance of personal enrichment in modern society has led to the subordination of the creators who create the product to the merchants who are only able to promote it in the market. Hence the emphasis on commercial benefits in the development of space and fundamental science, which automatically puts an end to any big undertaking, initially narrows the scientific horizon and the prospect of knowledge.

The emerging wave of new technologies - artificial intelligence, 3D printing, hypersound and others - while maintaining the dominance of the consumer worldview, will certainly be reduced to stamping consumer goods, enriching big business, entertaining the masses and improving supervisory and control capabilities. The latter is actually already happening and sooner or later will lead to the establishment of electronic fascism, when the feelings and thoughts of people will be completely reduced to consumerism and totally subordinated to corporations.

At the same time, a return to the technological romanticism of the discoverers of space and the atom is impossible. The collapse of the USSR was not accidental, it is not so much a rejection of socialism, but a collapse of faith in the possibility of scientifically building an ideal just world, an earthly Eden, with the help of technology. The idea of naked technical progress has been exhausted, the idol of infallible science is dead, the omnipotent mind (ration), capable of building a problem-free world on the basis of an ideal theory, has been debunked. Trying to get it back is pointless and unnecessary.

But it is imperative to use the main lesson of the great experiment. Even the most incredible technological breakthrough is insignificant without a spiritual foundation and moral self-improvement. Even the most beautiful social theory and just economic system is powerless without the inner work of millions of people, the active selfless devotion of each person, or at least an active minority. The question is, is this possible?

The first answer is of course not. So that at once everyone suddenly finds the strength to change, to abandon the relaxed wilting, sweet extinction, embarking on the path of struggle and labor - this is a utopia. That is why the emergence of those who will give an example, who will “blow up” this swamp is important.

To overthrow the prevailing hedonism, pioneers of the spirit are needed, living torches who, by their burning, by their example, will show everyone a tangible alternative. Those who easily cast aside personal gain and proclaim serving the ideals real success and happiness, who will challenge total commercialization and marketers. Not with beautiful words and formulas that are no longer able to inspire anyone, but with real actions, daily self-sacrifice, service and selflessness that challenge consumerism.

We need a qualitatively different relationship between people. When inventions and discoveries are replicated for everyone, and vital products that can save others are distributed free of charge. For example, prostheses and organs created using 3D printing. When shopping malls that flood cities are converted into orphanages and art galleries, and churches soaring in the sky are designed and built exclusively by parishioners. When a few scientists and engineers are throwing a cry for a solution to an acute problem, and the best minds unselfishly struggle to solve it.

When talented songs and pictures of contemporaries, which are not broadcast by cynical producers, appear on noticeable billboards and in social networks thanks to unknown well-wishers. When a group of architects and daredevils creates a garden city from scratch, using the latest technologies, not to harm a person, as in modern megacities, but for good. When ecclesiastical scientists and doctors of science, clergymen set themselves the goal of creating a new system of knowledge of the world, combining the rational and the irrational …

To wake up humanity, to get out of the state of hypnosis, we need not talkers and whiners grumbling about the dead end of humanity, but ascetics and creators, fighters and warriors of light, those who will take on themselves the cross - their own and their neighbors, who will challenge vulgarity and cynicism, by his own example, he will begin to create a new world, free from corrupting cynicism. A world in which technology will become a tool for spiritual and moral improvement, an additional source of creativity and creativity.

In conditions when the state has withdrawn from this task and does not carry out systemic changes from above, there remains only hope for a personal example, for the feat of devotees. If you want, to the new Russian intelligentsia, monks of the XXI century. The previous intelligentsia was ruined not by the fact that it was cut off from the people (the ascetics were also forced to break away, paving the way), but that it broke away, dragging the country into destruction, where it burned itself, instead of showing the way to ascent.

Meanwhile, now there is a sorely lack of those who call white white and black black, who will kindle hope in their hearts and real meanings in their minds, who will raise the banner of the fight against degradation and formulate the need for moral salvation.

If this does not happen, then the consuming person, this Ham of the XXI century, will finally triumph. And even if we manage to master new technologies, build a brilliant economy and populate the moon, at one point, as precisely put it Kholmogorov, "The degenerate will come and blink" - and everything will be destroyed. But most likely, the degenerate Ham will come earlier and will not allow to build even something that is in the least outstanding. Since real creation is impossible where consumption reigns.

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