A Generation that Can Live Forever

The comic book novel, The Surrogates, displays what it means to be human, and to be 'alive'. If we all lived through robots, we, of course, would not be living. There are vital everyday human interactions that make us human, but if we coop ourselves up in a room, living through something else, we cannot live. Even something as simple as a conversation is being affected today.



As Bruce Schneier discusses in his article The Tech Lab, "Computers are mediating conversation as well. Face-to-face conversations are ephemeral." From quick texting conversations, or wall posts, each conversation is short and to the point.
In my English class we discussed authors and artists would create something to, in a sense, 'live forever'. Now, through YouTube, or facebook, we can, in fact, 'live forever' through our pictures or videos. However, to actually live forever, to me, would be the worst thing. I would not to live forever - it is natural to die. The thought of death makes people want to live, and if there wasn't a fear of dying, then no one would live. Being cooped up in a room, living through a surrogate, would not matter, since we have eternity.
Even though we have not created the technology to live through surrogates, humanity as a whole needs improvement before we can accept such great technology. As Nick Bostrom expresses in his TED talk on Our Biggest Problems, he makes one specific point that I fully agree with. He says that life is not as wonderful as it could be, and that if we want it to be a wonderful life, we need to completely transform humanity. We cannot rely on other things to make us happy, such as plastic surgery, food, facebook or twitter. We need to find inner happiness and content in order to fully enjoy the other aspects of life. But as humans, as Bostrom expresses, we are naturally negative. That, in fact, needs to change.
Reading The Surrogates and reading Bruce Schneier's article, the thought of technology is a little terrifying. One point Schneier makes, which is extremely relevant, is the 'pollution' we are putting out today is equivalent to the pollution of the Industrial Revolution. "Data is the pollution of the information age ... And just as 100 years ago people ignored pollution in our rush to build the Industrial Age, today we're ignoring data in our rush to build the Information Age."
Technology is extremely beneficial, but the after effects and other aspects of it can be detrimental.