- 最后登录
- 2013-3-19
- 在线时间
- 138 小时
- 寄托币
- 7314
- 声望
- 16
- 注册时间
- 2005-3-7
- 阅读权限
- 35
- 帖子
- 30
- 精华
- 3
- 积分
- 6379
- UID
- 199246
- 声望
- 16
- 寄托币
- 7314
- 注册时间
- 2005-3-7
- 精华
- 3
- 帖子
- 30
|
题目:The primary goal of technological advancement should be to increase people's efficiency so that everyone has more leisure time.
有砖必回!
------------------
The speaker asserts that the primary goal of technological advancement is to increase people's efficiency so that everyone has more leisure time. I find this statement fundamentally wrong. Although technological advancement does increase people's efficiency, this is not its primary goal. Instead, the primary goal should be to improve living condition and health, both physically and mentally.
Admittedly, it might seem tempting to agree with the speaker on the basis that technological advancement has increased people's efficiency dramatically for the recent centuries. With the worldwide industry revolution, the world is changing fast.
A trip from China to USA would take six months in 1800's by sea, but now only ten hours by plane. In Ford car factory, it used to take a day to produce a car in early this century, but now it only takes 2 minutes, with even less employees. A recent report tells us that the average working efficiency is increasing by 5% every year, due to improvement in technology and renewal of factory facilities.
Yet such drastic changes do not lend more leisure time to people. Instead, we are busier than ever. The wide application of internet and mobile phone have brought more convenience in communication, while at the same time force people to work all the time, along with the more and more sever competitions. More and more people suffer from working pressure nowadays. Yahoo.com reports that around 52% of USA business man work during their summer vocation, which is unimaginable to people in the 1990's. Therefore technological advancement is making the world busier than ever.
Instead, the primary goal of technological advancement is to make the world a better place to live, while at the same time improve our physical and mental health. It is commonly accepted that technological advancement contributes a lot to the improvement of living conditions. Our cities used to be dusty and gloomy, but now it is clean and brilliant. We used to suffer from hot summer, and cold winter. But now we can enjoy the benefits of air-conditioners. The plague killed over three fourth of European population in the medieval, but now it can never beat us, with the aid of vaccine. Technological advancement makes a more comfortable world to live in.
However, we should realize that technological advancement is a two-edged sword. While bringing certain benefits to people, it is threatening us more than ever: spread of atomic bombs, global warming effect, and environmental pollution. Such problems are taking human to the edge of a cliff. Moreover, certain kinds of problems could not be solved merely by technological advancement, such as cultures conflicts, mental void, moral degradation and terrorism. Only human tolerance, empathy and retrospection can bring solution to such problems.
In the final analysis, the speaker's statement is based on a hasty generalization. Technological advancement is improving our world and making people more efficient. However, it does not bring us more leisure time. Instead, it is making the world busier than ever. We should also realize that the primary goal of technological advancement is to improve our living and health conditions. Yet it cannot bring solution to every social problem.
[ Last edited by zehua on 2005-7-30 at 13:26 ] |
|