ISBN:
0191026611
,
9780191026614
Language:
English
Pages:
1 Online-Ressource (1 online resource)
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Agar, Nicholas Sceptical optimist
DDC:
303.48/3
Keywords:
Technology Psychological aspects
;
Technology Social aspects
;
Technology Philosophy
;
SOCIAL SCIENCE ; General
;
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING ; Social Aspects
;
Technology ; Philosophy
;
Technology ; Psychological aspects
;
Technology ; Social aspects
;
Online-Publikation
Abstract:
1. Radical optimism and the technology bias -- Does technological progress increase subjective well-being? -- Radically optimistic forecasts -- How should we prioritize technological progress? -- 2. Is there a law of technological progress? -- Moore's Law, Kryder's Law, and exponential technological improvement -- Exponential technological improvement as a conditional law -- Kurzweil's evolutionary explanation of exponential technological progress -- Difference between reflexive and passive improvement -- 3. Does technological progress make us happier? -- Traditional paradox of progress -- Hedonic adaptation -- 4. The new paradox of progress -- Gibbon versus Ridley on historical happiness -- Attitudinal time travel -- Hedonic normalization -- 5. We need technological progress experiments -- Technological progress traps -- Jared Diamond on the natural experiments of traditional societies -- A nuclear power progress experiment -- Progress experiment on genetically modified crops -- 6. Why technological progress won't end poverty -- Poverty and well-being -- Ordinary and emergency circumstances of poverty -- Radically optimistic solutions to poverty -- Were there poor people in the Pleistocene? -- How poverty affects life satisfaction -- Misunderstanding the happiness of the Sun King -- Economic and technological trickledown -- 7. Choosing a tempo of technological progress -- Different tempos of progress -- Marginal contributions to well-being -- Mobile phones and cancer therapies -- Importance of subjectively positive technological progress -- Afterword : don't turn well-being technologies into Procrustean beds.
Abstract:
The rapid developments in technologies - especially computing and the advent of many 'smart' devices, as well as rapid and perpetual communication via the Internet - has led to a frequently voiced view which Nicholas Agar describes as 'radical optimism'. Radical optimists claim that accelerating technical progress will soon end poverty, disease, and ignorance, and improve our happiness and well-being. Agar disputes the claim that technological progress will automatically produce great improvements in subjective well-being. He argues that radical optimism 'assigns to technological progress an undeserved pre-eminence among all the goals pursued by our civilization'. Instead, Agar uses the most recent psychological studies about human perceptions of well-being to create a realistic model of the impact technology will have. Although he accepts that technological advance does produce benefits, he insists that these are significantly less than those proposed by the radical optimists, and aspects of such progress can also pose a threat to values such as social justice and our relationship with nature, while problems such as poverty cannot be understood in technological terms. He concludes by arguing that a more realistic assessment of the benefits that technological advance can bring will allow us to better manage its risks in future.--
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
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