0910G[North America Flying] Issue88 by haunteagle

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TOPIC: ISSUE88 - "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."

The invention of gun powder disrupts of the traditional feudalism and the capitalism comes. The widely use of the Internet breaks lots of long-held ideas and the globalization comes. Every breakthrough in technology is followed by radical social changes.

Technology is a system of philosophy concerning understanding the world. The discovery of the nature determine on how we consider the world. In primitive ages, when the technology is in its early age, we conceive the world is created by the Lord and we can know the world by pleasing him. Thus humility and obedience gradually become the main tune of the society. And then the church become the largest entity in the society and rule people's mind according to religious regulations.

With the development of technology, however, we become self-confident and assert we can know the world on our own. This ethos achieves the climax when Newton published his masterpiece of Philosphia of Nature. In those days, people were optimistic. They travelled around the world to pursue fortune and they believed they could fulfill anything we wanted. Therefore the Renaissance is carried out to accentuate the importance of individuals and society calls for humanity. Eventually, the control of the church is abandoned. During this long period, technology is so powerful because it determines the way in which we comprehends the world and influence the polity.

Moreover, technology also determines the behavior of people. Unlike our father or grandfather, we live in a outlandish world which is full or innovations and inventions. Our behavior is greatly changed by these new machines and gradually our thought is changed as well. For instance, the invention of the transportation tools such as car, train and aero plane and of the communication tools such as telegraph, telephone and radio make travel much easier than before and we now tend to leave our hometown because we can return to there faster and easier. This trend causes a series of social problems like nucleus family and at the same time accelerate the exchange of global resources and intellects. It is not uncommon to study or work in a place thousands miles away from your parents which is unimaginable two hundred years ago. We have no a clear idea whether this is good or not. Yet we have to say this trend change our idea radically.

Nevertheless, to some extent the social ideas have a sense of independent, which I mean the technology cannot control the development of it directly. A prompt example is the prediction of Hegel, the greatest German philosopher in history. In Hegel's book of logic, he describe that motion determine the existence and deny the space and time are absolute. His talented assertion, in fact, shed light into the flaw of the long-existed idea that motion and matter have nothing to do the space and time. His work actually provided a philosophical fundamental to Albert Einstein's discovery of the Theory of Relativity. He fully proved that social ideas have its comparative independence toward technology, though technology determines it ultimately.

In conclusion, technology is the ultimate determinant of the social ideas because it can not only affect the way we think but also the way we act, which determines the social ideas. Yet the technology cannot directly control people's mind. Thus to form a good social morality, education is the fastest way and propel the development of technology is the radical means.