Published 10 July 2022, Last updated 24 October 2022

Technology has been bringing positive and negative outcomes into people’s life. The positive aspect is when used for enhancing happiness, on the other hand, the negative is when harms are caused. Regarding negative aspect, given that aspect is inevitable to be arisen, how people could embrace it in their community. As an example, nuclear related risk is related to this respect.

Look at the Information Technology, popularization of personal computer made difference in people’s life. Importance of PC revolution is because it wasn’t proprietary network later advanced, but it had generativity in center of its revolution. Presumably the early age of the Internet had an idea that imposing too much restrictions prevents the benefits of the Internet itself. The architecture was contrary to that of proprietary network.

The Internet is network. That means cutting the network to improve security and protect privacy is difficult in fundamental sense. In terms of privacy and digitalized world, private information of people seized by common systems may be, even if whole society is unwilling, difficult to be untied as those systems and devices are networked, and that is what the Internet focuses on. Being unnetworked is opposite to its structure. Plus even if we try not to use it, since the user is now almost everyone in society, avoiding it is difficult to catch up with update of society, many have no choice but to use it.

It is indispensable to refer to the concept of “free” in the Internet’s development. The notion of free didn’t focus on its cost, but its freedom[1]. In that epoch, the word “hacker” had a different meaning. The meaning of hacker didn’t intend to claim those who penetrate into systems of governments or major companies, but those who build things[2].

Media as an outset of information faces regulation established over time. Mostly restrictions established over the history of television, for example, suffocates themselves. Also, of course mainstream broadcasting media is practical and helpful source to catch up with news in daily life, but the limit of time makes quite difficult to understand topics further, or even I would say the complete understanding of it is impossible. Surrounding environments around people affect their knowledge. Thinking of a case that medium doesn’t provide the enough information to them, that leads to the deterioration of intelligence of general people. At some point, some media has more detailed and beneficial information to its citizens than other news outlets and that balances needs among citizens.  Regulated television as media may be restricted in their contents than other media such as social media and the Internet.

Medium has been a significant tool, such as since writing began around 4000 B.C. in Egypt[3]. Ever since different types of medium were born, new platforms are continually born by different people. It is a kind of matter that how we share the wisdoms of our forebears to the next. Regarding the means of transcending information over generations, information on books has been more elaborated, the authors need to be authenticated via publishing process, compared with the websites which allows almost all people to post. Though it has benefit in the latter too.

The internet and decentralization has been in a topic many are curious about. Decentralized world is often talked with expectation. However, over the past several decades from 2020s, platforms expanded with its scaling came to have large portion of capital and been authorized. The story that even if we decentralize it would eventually be centralized[4] is because that is much easier for people to run their community or whatever other purposes including distribution of things, etc.

As for advancement of our civilization with progress of technology, environmental harms we generate by every day’s our life and whether advancement itself works for our sustainable future should be discussed. Our planet is interrelated, a tiny bit of change causes a series of effects. So-called butterfly effect is also one of these cases. Damaging our planet would endanger the species. To cope this, an idea is that while humans make progress of their civilization technologically and economically, they need to preserve their environment. Another is that we should stop the progress as its side-effects, deteriorating environment, is huge. Given these two types of ideas, SDGs seem the former as it doesn’t basically reject the idea of progress, rather presumably it is the idea that we need to decrease the harms while making progress. It seems to suppose that progress of technological advancement would decrease the negative effects of previous technology as well. It may well sound like a contradiction if we say that to make progress of our civilization while preserving environment. Provided that times passes and it is what we cannot put the currency in hold, if we can protect the environment is a challenge for human beings. From another perspective, questions arise, without technological development, whether we deteriorate the environment; whether we can prioritize the preservation of our planet? It is not necessarily true that people feel happiness only if their technology develops. Due to technological advancement, harm would be decreased if it advances further. For instance, the development of NFT costs a lot of negative effects on environment at least around the end of 2021 to 2022, their further advancement of technology would decrease the environmental cost and that is what they are trying to do.

Even though civilization is industrialized, many people don’t feel happiness, or having so many issues. Progress doesn’t necessarily make all people happy. It can be imagined that there were people feeling happier than those living in the current age. If living standards meet the higher criteria, that would satisfy people, but continuity of living in the level doesn’t continue to satisfy them because it is going to be their ordinary. People feel expectation for their future gives people hope. People with hope doesn’t depress them and allow them to have themselves motivated. Happiness doesn’t necessarily mean having larger wealth. Hope which derives from future development satisfies people. Apart from satisfying people with progress, whether social bonds could fulfil their everyday life is worth being looked upon. Without having social relationships, people would feel worry.

[1] Around 5:25 to 5:55 of Reclaim your freedom with free libre software now – Richard Stallman of Free Software Movement. Web Summit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9YDz-Iwgyw Published 19 December 2016. Accessed 31 October 2021.

[2] Hackers and Geniuses: Spring 2015 Donoho Colloquium – Steven Levy. Dartmouth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ea5gtEHy5I Published 17 June 2015 Accessed 31 October 2021. Around 9:50-.

[3] History of Western Philosophy. Bertrand Russell. pp.15-16. ISBN978-0-415-32505-9.

[4] Joichi Ito. [Q&A] 子供のweb3教育、デジタルツイン、ステープルコイン、初心者向けweb3体験など｜皆さんからのweb3とはの質問にレスします！ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHYTyvdYxUY. Published 10 June 2022. Accessed 11 June 2022.