Mechanical Components Blog

GA, couldn't agree more.

'several freshly graduated designers' is the key, experience is retiring or has simply given up fighting the ever growing ranks of non-engineering staff who vale the $ ahaead of innovation. Sad state we find ourselves in.

Well, on the bright side technology has made the black boxes very small, so after a few too many crash and burn disasters legislatures will eventually realize that it would be fairly simple to just require engineers to design machines with two of each black box for safety. Then the machine's computer will be able to tell the operator that one of the black boxes is not working before the other one quits.

I can't comment about all the technologies you mention, however, there is another side to being overwhelmed today. The pace at which most ordinary people live is almost frantic now. I routinely see two or three cars run red. This wasn't true 40 years ago and is a dangerous trend. Remember the "I Love Lucy" episode in the chocolate factory. Add to this the great concern over the economy and you have a scary psychological mix.

Most of the young parents I know use the internet to their advantage with their school children. I don't think our primary schools are using computers as well as they should. There is an idea among many educators that such tools as calculators and computers are best left alone until the student is quiet advanced. That troubles me. My six year G'son has his own pc with no internet access but he frequently asks me to access the internet for information. He has benefited from technology.

I recently heard on a radio program, that a large number of people surveyed stated that they would without hesitation give up their spouse and car before their cell phones and internet connections. I think that this is an issue that is getting exponentially worse. We are becomming more and more dependent on technology every day and most younger people can't even imagine a time when you were not "accessable" at any given moment.

I, for one sometimes prefer to leave my cell phone at home when I go out. I enjoy the peace.

Amen. There are still a few of us who don't have cell phones for that very reason.

Actually, the issue is not whether technology will overwhelm us it's the fact that WE can't be controlled. All tools are pretty inert until a human hand picks it up and uses it...

... BUT there is the perspective that if the tool doesn't exist it can't be used or misused. The oft cited, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is correct. But the task is made so much easier by a gun than a knife or a stone -- or bare hands. How has the devlopment of nuclear weapons influenced the world? A good deterrent? VERY bad in the wrong hands!

Some say there is a spiritual side of life that few care to seek out or investigate. If there is any key to keeping Man safe from himself, I feel this is the only way. Mere reading of religious books, etc. and agreeing that this or that tenet should be followed has gotten us where? -- To the exact situation posed by the topic of this thread. Very few have considered "who" am I. If we are ultimately spirit, then seeking out a practical way to discover and experience it (i.e., mystical experience) will make living up to religious tenets possible. There is SO MUCH to this subject. Control the mind and THEN all or our inventions and technology will serve us instead of us becoming the slaves of our technology.

I think the person who is successful in this line will have the right perspective on developing technology and using it.

My main fear is that we are implementing technologies that we have no idea how they work and therefore don't know all of the potential ramifications of the implementation. i.e. asbestos was a great insulator. What are the long term effects of implementing nano. Are lawyers formulating class action suits as we speak? We have entered the realm of the extremely small where classic physics no longer apply and we don't clearly understand the rules that do apply. Does this mean that we shouldn't do anything until we totally understand it? I would contend that humanity has advanced and prosperred by utilizing technologies before they know how/why they work. Fire has significant benefit but also must be carefully applied. This was probably learned through trial and error and the ramifications were isolated to a few that got burnt. Unfortunately technology implementations today are much farther reaching and therefore have a potential for much larger impact if the unknowns manifest themselves negatively. Let's hope that we "ALL" don't get burnt

I was in high school when Future Shock entered its first publication. The book had a profound effect on my thinking.

I doubt we are any better off than the date of Future Shock's first publication. We (meaning the world) have absolutely no control over technolical and/or medical change. The major nations have poured billions upon billions into the tech race just in the area of military expenditures yet we are still pretty much as we were vis a vis

Russia. Anyone who reads Pravda and The Moscow Times can grasp this reality.

Mostly it is still a "they have it so we must have it" mentality on all sides for the past 40 years. The internet and faster personal communication just moves this along faster.

If I sound rather like a cynic it is simply because I have become on over the decades.

Yes, I believe we are past the tipping point; technology and our desire to seek ever more ingenious ways of using the new gizmos are frightening if you do a bit of mental extrapolation. Leaving the mobile at home is the very least you can do to recreate a little personal 'breathing space'.

Picture this true life situation. Its the year 1904 and your single screw freighter of 2800 tonnes drops its prop in the middle of the Indian Ocean. What do you do next!

You don't have the benefit of Marconi's communication kit and your course was off the beaten track, so no one is likely to come to your rescue and the monsoon season is due!

You do have a spare prop; its bolted to the forrard bulkhead in No1 Hold. Over the next 4 weeks the ship is trimmed,by move 00's of tons of cargo from 'back to front' to raise the stern tube just above water level and then the 'spare' is transferred from derrick to derrick along the side until it arrives at the stern. By sitting on a jury rigged platform at the stern the engigineers were able to extract the damaged shaft and then a repair is fashioned in a forge. Ultimately the work was sucessfully completed and having got the stern back into the water they set off again and completeted their voyage. A member of my family was Second Engineer.

I give that crew and their Engineers top marks for resourcefulness and tenacity, of course their very lives were at stake and that really helps focus the mind and everything else.However life was simpler and there were no black boxes to confound common sense.

I am sufficient of a realist to know that we can't go back to a 1904 life style or even that of the 1950s; but we should be aware that in our ever increasing level of dependence upon the technology we crave that we are running the risk of compromising our very survival.

I find it hard to use the words sustainability and human activity in the same paragraph.

Think of this: are we (homo sapiens) now at pestilential levels on planet Earth? If so will nature intervene and curtail this plague?