Technology and Culture: Humans Inventing Themselves

Abstract

Since the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus who stole fire from the god, Zeus, humans have been befuddled by their own cleverness. We make useful tools and devices which seem to free humans for higher pursuits only to discover that the unintended consequences demand that newer and even more clever devices be invented. Sooner or later we find out that the instruments of our technologies are shaping our destiny rather than the other way around. Throughout history this struggle has gone on till the present when the consequences of technological progress seem to many to be overwhelming. If culture is the cultivation of the best in mankind, a new kind of challenge faces us