I was Born in the Wrong Era

I admit it, the world today is fascinating.

We have reached an exciting time of progress on so many levels and progress seems to be moving at an extremely fast pace, as if yearning to reach that finish line of a Utopian society. Everything around us is smart, and millions of smart engineers are by the minute finding ways to simplify our lives and render everything even smarter. Our generation almost can’t keep up with progress and it often feels as if there is too much information out there to absorb. I sometimes worry that I am constantly missing out on something, that there’s always a better and more efficient way of doing things.

Yet, I feel uncomfortable, out of place, and alienated in today’s world and what’s worse is that there is nowhere for me to escape. We talk about progress as an infallibly positive concept that exclusively carries endless promises of betterment. Rarely do we reflect on what this progress is doing to our society, to our nature, to our children, and to our future. We rarely think of what progress means and of the sustainability of our actions, not only in the narrow meaning of the term. Clearly, a startup coming up with an awesome product will not defer from launching the product only because of the potential damage to society — there is always going to be the argument that technology is a double-edged sword. This sentence is so powerful that it immediately silences any criticism a critical thinker might have towards the consequences of a certain technology.

We talk about progress as an infallibly positive concept that exclusively carries endless promises of betterment.

The power of these technologies though is the innocence they come wrapped up in.

A simple act of uploading a profile picture, writing a biography, connecting with friends, and liking their posts on social media has changed the politics game in ways we never would have thought would be possible. We think our simple act of liking a piece of news is harmless, but we are often ignorant that this simple act will shape our economy, our jobs, and our daily lives for the years to come.

This might all sound exaggerated, but this is exactly the danger of progress today. Very few of us are willing to reflect, recognize, and admit the fallback of technologies.

The Silicon Valley has been recently called out on having a so-called empathy vacuum.

Now the Silicon Valley is a place I deeply admire, but at the same time, I can relate to the empathy vacuum argument. The Californian bubble is a fantasy world full of zealous engineers, thinkers, and entrepreneurs who aspire to change the world. Are their intentions good? You bet. But the turn that progress has taken is too risky to remain unaddressed. Can we stop this progress and tell our zealous creative bunches to take a halt on innovation? Quite obviously, that’s not a valid solution. But ignoring the problem and pretending that things are going smoothly in the world today will not make the problem go away. Having a “sustainability” section with bright green photos of a happy planet won’t either. Creators of progress must sit together from day one, even before the birth of the technology, to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This might all sound exaggerated, but this is exactly the danger of progress today.

Proactivity is inevitable — we can’t create a technology and go with the flow, humans are more needed than ever right now. Unlike machines, humans feel empathy, and only humans have the power to recognize when progress has gone out of control.