【Flyer杀G】小组-7.10 Issue88, by Sean

柏拉图的世界UID: 2581296

88. "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."

It is blessing from Athena, it is the box of Pandora, and it is technology. Technology brings such convenience of life as well as deformation of nature, which our ancestors have never foreseen even in dreams. Technology itself is neutral, yet it puts too much radical impact on our society, good and evil.

We human beings, who just have 200 thousand years history and several thousands of years of civilization, totally change the more than 4 billion years old earth. What we fragile creatures rely on is technology. While we’re enjoying the high-speed motion by Air-bus, the high-speed information on internet, the high-speed diet in KFC, we probably overlook that technologies are dominating our society. In our daily lives, the impressions of technologies on customs and ethics are effortless to found. For instance, our grandfather would like to read newspaper, our father with television, and ourselves with the internet. And it would go beyond the ethical boundaries in the old days while is acceptable today that a couple have their baby in another woman’s stomach, due to External Fertilization. As Karl Marx claimed, the windmill gives you society with the feudal lord, while the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist. Innovation of production tools influences the production relations, and further broader social relations. Since customs account for the routines to handle interpersonal relations, while ethics account for principles in that to some extents, technologies act on them somehow.

Moreover, technologies affect our society, sometimes in form of invisibly transforming our most fundamental concepts. Thousands of years ago, sages in ancient Greece demonstrate their thoughts in city-state. Decades ago, airlines and telephone lines connected the global village. Not long ago, the term of “flat world’ was presented in view of power of media technologies eliminates built-in obstacles among different mental areas or territories. Besides, the technology of clone applied on human, and the artificial intelligence challenged the dignity and value of human beings. Are bodies and minds of human beings can be mass-produced as cars? If yes, then are we still the most special and eminent creature in the Universe so far? What is the meaning of our existing social relationship like relatives? And how about the ideological system we’re proud of? Moreover, Quantum Mechanics, a contemporary peak of science and technologies, shakes the basic concept about technology itself: since God plays dice, our observation is intrinsically fallacious, what is the significance of technology on earth? It needs no argue that since these very fundamental ideas are profoundly transformed by technologies, our customs and ethics would standing on these ideas are to be changed radically.

Not until the “Fat Man” and “Little boy” created tremendous casualties, did most people introspect whether technologies were beyond our control. In spite of the great impression from technologies to our lives, I insist that we must and we can harness them, using our ethics and virtues. After all, technologies themselves are inanimate. Although they provide us fresh perspectives to observe and think, the substantial influence from them can be directed by human will, as it is human who decided to drop atom bombs. For example, the internet offers us unprecedentedly openness through the planet. It has being drastically changing many people’s concepts in the era we are sharing, by bringing out information surplus to one’s cognition. If decent censorship and guidance can be conducted by governments, media and educational institution, negative impact on customs and ethics, like pornography and violence, would be attenuated.

To conclude, the technologies have being changing our customs and ethics radically. Trails of influence can be found in our daily lives as well as our fundamental understandings. However, it would be a risk to negatively set technologies free to manipulate us. We are the creator of technologies and we are supposed to apply them with virtue and ethics in minds.

selinashenUID: 2736030

1# 柏拉图的世界

我帮你改好了，在附件里

1.我该写了你的很多句子
2，希望你下次改我的文章的时候，也可以这样该写

江雪UID: 2790520

赞selina仔细。看到胃和子宫那里，实在笑喷了。

江雪UID: 2790520

PS：那个典故叫Pandora's Box，为了保持结构上的一致用the Box of Pandora也算ok吧。

江雪UID: 2790520

What we fragile creatures rely on is technology：
我想应该是We are fragile creatures and we rely on technology的意思。。。。

the fast food in KFC and ever increading life pace：
ever increasing pace of life

read newspaper as the way to get information：
read newspapers to get information/read newspapers for information

what was considered as violation to traditonal ethics now has been accepted as common thing, such as the external fertilization, a term coined to describe that a traditonal way to fertilize during an sexual intercourse was replaced by medical procedure in substituted women’s womb：
what was considered as a violation of traditional ethics …the traditional way to fertilize…

Are bodies and minds of human beings can be mass-produced as cars?：
Can … be…?

are we still the most special and eminent creature in the Universe：
are we still the most special and eminent creature in the universe

It needs no argue that：
There is no need to argue that

our customs and ethics would standing on these ideas are to be changed radically.
our customs and ethics on the bases of these ideas are to be changed radically.

其余部分楼主自行修改吧。

selinashenUID: 2736030

5# 江雪

大赞，
小女功力还要继续修炼。。

江雪UID: 2790520

其实selina你做得很好:-)

selinashenUID: 2736030

5# 江雪

江姐，还是有些地方想和你探讨：


what was considered as violation to traditonal ethics now has been accepted as common thing, such as the external fertilization, a term coined to describe that a traditonal way to fertilize during an sexual intercourse was replaced by medical procedure in substituted women’s womb：
what was considered as a violation of traditional ethics …the traditional way to fertilize…


这个地方你换成了" a term coined to describe the traditional way to... " 我刚刚一开始也是用 the 的，毕竟顺畅，但是 写着 写着 ，发现后面有一个 “was replaces by "  这样一来， 一个分句中就出现了 describe, 和 was repalced by  两个谓语动词了，

哎呀呀，我越写越糊涂了，按照我原来的自觉，这里应该是 describe the traditional way to ...... was repalced by....
但是，我突然模糊想起本来就想不起的语法。。。 但是我也不敢保证，毕竟很多年没有碰语法了。。

这个地方我是卡在哪里了。。。
帮帮我。。。

柏拉图的世界UID: 2581296

5# 江雪
谢谢斑竹...
这把错大发了，我严肃地面壁，好好反省

江雪UID: 2790520

selina：明天早上回你帖 手机网速太慢。

maraschino1985UID: 2846549

这篇文的例子和比喻都很不错

上帝投骰子这个例子看的我笑死了

江雪UID: 2790520

5# 江雪

江姐，还是有些地方想和你探讨：

what was considered as violation to traditional ethics now has been accepted as common thing, such as the external fertilization, a term coined to descri ...
selinashen 发表于 2010-7-13 20:09

理了一下，你看看这么改是不是清楚一点：
what was considered as a violation of traditional ethics …now has been accepted as common thing, such as external fertilization, a term coined to describe the replacement of the traditional way to fertilize during a sexual intercourse with medical procedures in substituted women’s wombs