Technophobia

Today many people are technophobic.  They are surrounded by things they have little knowledge of.  They describe people who do understand things as 'geeks' or 'nerds'.  For them the chemistry, physics or biology on which their TV, computer, phone or medicines depend might just as well be magic.  

I find that many reasonably intelligent people have simply not taken the time to find out how things work. 

Simple things familiar to many teenagers of yesteryear like: the operation of an internal combustion engine and the difference between a four stroke, two stroke and diesel engine; or even more primitively: how the valving of a steam engine works, seem to have eluded them in their youth.

No one person can grasp the whole of technology. Specialists are required.  So I'm not suggesting that everyone should know how to tap a blast furnace; build a TV transmitter; or design a mobile phone.  But when it comes to common knowledge, like the physics of an aircraft wing or the operation of a gas turbine; or how a cellular phone; GPS; computer (CPU,  I/O, BIOS, memory etc); their TV; or even their old radio works, many seem to be 'completely in the dark'. 

Technical ability, spatial perception and mechanical aptitude are not universal.  Half the population has (by definition) less than 'average' ability to comprehend or implement technology.  Not everyone has the ability to change a tap washer let alone make simple repairs to their car or their computer.

So there is a risk that those with abilities that lie elsewhere may come to think that technical and scientific knowledge is akin to magic or the dark arts. 

To counter this the remainder has an intellectual duty to apply their higher ability to make themselves aware of the basics of how our contemporary technology works and to reassure the less competent. 

For more discussion of 'science, magic and religion' follow this link.

As a matter of personal prejudice I abhor the Luddite sentiment.  I detect this today in some Greens (stereotypically in 'alternative societal' dropouts) and in some European postmodernists and their Australian acolytes. 

Postmodernists were among the people who inspired the ultimate Luddite: Pol Pot, to embrace agrarian socialism, with the consequent torture and murder of engineers, scientists and other 'intellectuals'.  This ultimately led to societal collapse and the death of 20% of the entire Cambodian population (see Cambodia on this website) through murder and starvation. 

Agrarian Socialist outcomes

As we saw in an exhibition in the infamous S21 torture prison, delegations of admiring European 'alternative lifestyle' advocates actually visited Cambodia and applauded his initiatives as the country declined into chaos.

This website strongly embraces the expansion of human knowledge and its associated technological capabilities and achievements.  I believe that these will be the achievements that distinguish the brief presence of humanity in this universe. 

In this context the harnessing of nuclear fission is but an additional step on the path to comprehending the universe and mastering our environment.  These steps include our earlier harnessing of fire in furnaces for pottery and metals manufacture; then replacing beasts of burden, slavery, serfdom and indentured labour with external combustion energy based on steam; followed by internal combustion and the harnessing of electricity.  

With commercial electricity came the development of new materials, electronic communications and computing.  Many of these advanced and novel materials are less than fifty years old but have become ubiquitous to the everyday consumer like: the ceramic magnets that are that basis of our motors and microwave ovens; the piezoelectric ceramics that light out gas fire; the liquid crystals that provide our screens; the electret plastics we talk to; or the semiconductors that provide us with logic and light.

In less than my lifetime computing, together with our other advances, has provided a massive increase in our ability to process and analyse our universe.  Technological advance has extended into new abilities in biology and medicine and to every aspect of our lives.

Without our knowledge of nuclear physics and the part played by nuclear fission in the history of science and technology none of this would have been possible. 

This is a step by step process. Nuclear fission may soon be joined by further steps along the technological path.  Nuclear fusion powers the Sun and has already been demonstrated on Earth in weapons (devastatingly) and in laboratories (more like a whimper than a bang) but is yet to be commercialised for peaceful commerce.  Commercial fission has been a necessary step along our path.  Let's continue forward.