Replying to Are We Missing Out On The Old Times?

And how ironic is it that we all sit here on a forum, on the internet and discuss whether technology is good or bad, or if we should actually be outside doing something physical.

There is only one thing that destroys the environment, and it's not technology. It is such a broad term, but it can hardly be divided into something that is black & white. Atom bombs, cures for cancer, fraud across the internet, keeping people in touch with family overseas, the consumption of a countless amount of fossil fuel, the ability to generate renewable energy etc.

Should we be outside more? I think that is a personal choice. I think the more important point on this topic is what people do with that technology. With the more power that we wield as a society, there is ever increasing responsibility (to be badly quoted). Someone today described generation y as having grown up in an electronic world, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I see in ways that parents in the real world have let their children down in a way. Punishment (I do not mean abuse) of children is frowned upon now, and that probably has more to answer for than technology ever will.

Get outside if you want, it is a very beautiful world out there, but we should not be frowning upon the people if they wish imerse themselves ina world that is an extension of our own.

My 2c

Cheers,
Hoopa

To an extent I agree with the OP. I know many people that would rather play a game like WoW than sit down play a pen and paper RPG. Look at a place like deviant art where 95% or more of everything is some deviant of Manga, looks like crap is is void of originality. It seems to me that far too many people are losing their imaginations. They simply expect to fed everything via a screen.

HAHAHA......thats a good one the Old Times, hate break it to you but they are so gone and the outdoors is practicly ruined by pollution. Not to mention that everyone would rather be doing other things then running down a meadow chasing cute and cuddly rabbits like a certain TV show that I am not going to name because it is lame. This is just a price that was paid so progress could be made, and aside from anything major happening there is no going back only forwards.

Back to the topic on using technology to play outdoor sports, has anyone thought of technology of having an EVIL side too? OK so technology doesn't get evil by itself, it is the misuse of technology that leads it to its doom.

People cheat with technology, managing to get away from crimes they commited but left no trace, changing the ball in ball games in such a way that the opponent will lose?

These are all possible results of abusement of technology. Everyone might have read sci-fi books especially Star Wars and many other books. They all talk about war because of an evil side in some people which leads to war. How horrible is this?

On the subject of glasses; don't you think that more people wearing glasses is due to better diagnostic techniques, and opticions being much easier to access than in the past?

Personally, I don't think a sole thing, eg computers, book, can be balmed for bad eyesight.

Yeah... basically in time we will be so technology dependent in life that we probably will rot and die without it. I could not imagine myself right now without a car. There would be so many things going wrong with just one technology machine taken away from me. I think as we grow exponential as a whole, in order to keep it organized and civilized we rely on technology to store files on computer, to print out nice and clean essay papers, to drive to work (in my case), and so on....

Even though we are becoming more and more lazy now that we have technology to do all the hard work, we still seem to work hard like the old people did back in the days. I agree that its a path of no-return; for no reason that people will stop investing their time in technology because instead of having to waste my time and write this all out, all I have to do is press a couple hundred key strokes and I have this message out to everybody on the internet. Speaking of internet, it is probably the greatest technology discovery for mankind. I couldn't imagine myself without internet as much as my car. But all and all, hopefully the purpose of all these technology advancement would come to great use in saving our planet somehow from a big enormous comet...

Until that day (which I highly doubt is going to happen in our lifetime), lets just rejoice that we do have technology and that it obvious expedite our jobs and make more jobs in so many different ways...

Chin chin

has anyone thought how technology has made us so much more "intelligent" 
My point is, we are totally missing out on the old days. No more running about in the countryside, no "family" time.

We are all humans and technology has no right to stop us from being what we have been before. Many people would say because we are all evolving into more "civilised" humans than before. I know we are all changing but is it all for the better? What are the consequences? What are the effects and results?

I would like to know if any of you all can reflect on this matter and comment on what is to become of use if this continues. How much will it affect us?
I would appreciate all comments made to this topic.

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I am going to resist the nasty habit of anwering this piecemeal, and try to answer the question behind the questions. But to do this, it will seem that I am talking about something completely unrelated. Be patient.

Everyone has seen X-men 1&2 about the "next stage of evolution." One of the funny things about evolution and history is that these are things that happen in everyday life, only participants are often unaware of what is happening all around them. I believe that we are in the next of evolution already.

Only it not Darwin's theory because he had no "next stage" in his theory. But there are stages. If we look far enough back into the past, there was a time that there were only single celled organisms. And if we look carefully at our cells we see evidence that these too were once composed of smaller more primitive independent units (similar to bacterial and algae). Darwin's theory cannot explain these gaps. According to his theory the individual cells should continue struggling against each other for survival, so that only the fittest survive.

But this is not what happened. If we look at our bodies we will find that most of our cells no longer have the ability to survive on their own. By working together and sheilding each other, protecting weaker members they have changed all the rules of evolution. For them it is no longer survival of the fittest, it is survival of the community.

The driving force of evolution is always variation. Leaps of evolution occur when something happens that make a whole new range of variation possible. The beginning of sexual reproduction was one of those leaps. But think now about the inherent limitation that Darwin's evolution imposes upon variation. When it is all about individual survival, then there is not much room for variation is there? We should all be farmers or hunters in that case, don't you think.

Isn't it clear that human beings have also taken a step into the next stage of evolution. Don't we now protect the weaker members of the community? Look at what liberation it has brought us. Look at the variety of man. Have we not changed the rules of evolution ourselves? The use of glasses is a perfect example of how we are in the next stage of evolution. Just as individual cells have overcome their limitations with the technology of its community (think of the human eye), we have overcome the limitations of our biology and individual evolution with the technology of the community of man. And just like the cells in our body, the community has become our greatest concern and our encompassing environment.

I do not mean to declare that all is well or that there should be no concern over what we are becoming nor that we should completely abandon the natual world. But if you think about it, this concern itself is evidence of an increasing awareness of ourselves and higher consciousness that we are now a part of. The increasing freadom, choices and awareness that have come with this new stage of evolution, natually brings a whole new set of danger and responsibilities. But if we can avoid destroying ourselves by new technological weapons or the depletion of our resources, then to me at least the future looks pretty good. As for the proper balance of technology in the healthy human life, well now we have the chance find out the answer to that question, and the right to make that choice for ourselves.

I agree with you but i dont. I think the internet is a good reserch tool. This is the information age. I want a picture, i can find one. Also having moved away from alot of my friends, i am able to continue to talk to them though aim and continue knowing them. I probly never would have called or written them for a long amount of tme

a really bad turn was when we decided we wanted realistic graphics. bad idea in my book, lots of fun games that ahve really un realistic graphics, and if i want realism, i'd go play out side.

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But you wouldn't be able to do things like in Vice City, Hitman, Halo, etc. in real life, or if you did, you'd have to suffer the consequences. I find video games to be a great stress reliever haha. Video game realism doesn't have anything to do with why most video games aren't as much fun as they used to be. It's like Hollywood movies, they're running out of original ideas, so they make crappy movies with recycled plots and crappy endings. . . they make crappy video games with recycled plots and crappy gameplay

know that your car is being stolen...

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I thought that's what car alarms were supposed to do

where's the fun in playing a sport with technology? sports are supposed to be natural. we have to learn to use our brain to instead of letting a computer do the work for us. look at what technology has done, all the chemical weapons now. I think theres more bad to technology than good. Technology is messing up the world.. nature,,earth. Soon, probbaby technology is going to end the world!

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That's a bit extreme. Humans were killing each other quite effectively for thousands of years before any sort of technology came about... unless, of course, you consider bronze metallurgy as a "technology," then it wouldn't have taken as long for them to kill one another. And the atomic bomb was made long before Xbox

Don't get me wrong, I think technology has changed humanity but I don't think we've gone in either a bad or a good way. Technology has many medical benefits, but on the other hand, we're finding more ways to kill ourselves. We have awesome new technology for heart surgury, but we're needing it due to all the fast food crap we eat (sans vegitarians).

Technology is a double edged sword, and I doubt it's going away anytime soon. Best thing you can do is just hope for the best and see what happens.

We all take technology seriously, but has anyone thought how technology has made us so much more "intelligent" in a way that we feel that we should not "waste" time or others like "computer screens will spoil your eyesight if you look at it for too long".
These are the results of increasing technology. My point is, we are totally missing out on the old days. No more running about in the countryside, no "family" time. These are usually dead spent on work/play/sleep/food.

We are all humans and technology has no right to stop us from being what we have been before. Many people would say because we are all evolving into more "civilised" humans than before. I know we are all changing but is it all for the better? What are the consequences? What are the effects and results? Most of the population of urban towns wear glasses (Which you know the reason why). I myself wear glasses (I read too much...) and my whole family will too soon.

I would like to know if any of you all can reflect on this matter and comment on what is to become of use if this continues. How much will it affect us?
I would appreciate all comments made to this topic.

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I belive it is a path of no-return, one can only hope that technology will one day help man to live closer to nature.