everyone in one way or another. This technological development was
produced by the accumulation of several consequent technological
innovations in different fields, resulting in a huge and global impact on
western societies with effects that are still waiting to be deciphered.
Marshall McLuhan (2001: 76-81) uses the example of the car and roads to
explain such a phenomenon: technology brought the car and the resultant
necessities created the roads. This is a useful metaphor for our current
situation: we invent new technology following our needs and the social
adaptation it requires will produce an impact that is as yet unknown,
although we certainly suspect its dimensions. The allegory of cars can be
applied to the technology of today if we consider devices like a GPS which
can, on one hand, be very useful for orienting us, but, on the other, can find
us constantly looking to the map on the small LCD screen, to the reproduction
of reality instead of through the window, where we would find the reality of
the roads surrounded by the natural and urban environment. Indeed,
technology truly fascinates us and has the potential to absorb our attention
and produce the contrary effect of what was intended: we get lost in the
world of bits by not paying attention or believing in the world of atoms
through which we are driving. We have created tools that today are re-
creating us. The paradox is that humans have to adapt and learn from
technology and not technology from humans as might be expected. In a
cyclical and feedback process we create inventions but then our own
productions shape our society and our way of understanding and perceiving
the world.
The consequence of the technological society that we have created is
that today we can intervene in our future but we will not be able to stop
technological progress. Technological development is our ‘destiny’; it is the
consequence of overcoming the precedent stages in the evolution of humans.
There is a certainty and an uncertainty about technology: it will continually
progress but the direction and intensity of this progress is unpredictable.
John Smart explains that there is a part of our future that seems
experimental and unpredictable, and another part that looks predictable and
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