Script for Debate
[Rebuttal]
Now, I'm an IT student and although I make use of technology, the importance of Information Technology and Science is arguable. In the past, we were able to live without our little technology toys and our science, now when the power goes out - Oh no! It's the end of the world! What will I do tame my Facebook addiction??
Is it really that important?
Think about it. Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Without it, there would be boundaries between people, languages - lack of communication! And don't sit there and tell me that communication isn't important. Take the Tenerife Airport Disaster - it was a technical fault that caused the death of 583 people. Think about that. 583. Look at the size of the HLT - that alone seats 500. The whole room; gone. Is that excusable? Where was the system administrator? Who was the system tester to actually check to make sure there were no communication errors for clearance with take off? Two incoming messages came in simultaneously and the pilots got a whistle. A whistle. Hey, congratulations - you just crashed because technology turned your command into a whistle.
How many other times has technology killed, injured or even cripple businesses and organisations? 1995 - the dot com crash. $5 TRILLION in market value - lost - with only half of the businesses barely surviving the crash.
Now, looking at the way we are now. Let's take a lecturer for an example. Look at the Cairns campus - yes, you may say without technology this video link lecture is possible, but it's already a step towards replacing people and their jobs. What happens when the lecture is recorded? How would you, as a student, like to watch a video of a lecture without any interaction? Or the actual lecturer? Being replaced by a video? Did you know that online there are bots, AI systems which you can interact with, ask questions of and get answers? How long will it take before we are replaced by a machine? Sure it can increase business profit, but really, what would you prefer? Talking to technology or humanity?
Now something else to think about.
Games? Addiction? Re-enactments? 2004 - Chinese boy dies after playing World of Warcraft - dies after jumping from a 24 storey building trying to re-enact a scene. 2005, Korean Man dies after playing StarCraft straight for 49 hours. 2008 - Swedish boy collapses after playing World of Warcraft for 24 hours. And just how many acts of violence have been recorded from people 're-enacting' actions they see in games? School shootings, theft, violence. The solution here isn't "more technology" - it's educating our people. Using the work of humanities and social sciences.
Now, I've talked a lot about technology, but what about science? Isn't it wonderful how we now have all these immunisations to protect against diseases? Isn't it wonderful to know that science is progressing and that it doesn't stop in the pursuit of knowledge for anything? Not even humanity?
2008. Physicists wanted to replicate the the conditions that existed a fraction after the big bang by using a Large Hadron Collider to collide particles at speeds just shy of the speed of light. Scientists, Chemists, Physicists all argued with each other about the LHC and whether it should have been used, claims that there was a chance of creating a black hole that could destroy the Earth. Despite the debates and protests, the project went ahead. Science doesn't stop for anything, even if there is a 'chance' of something going wrong, they persist anyway. Who is science to toy around with the fate of humanity?
During World War II. 1942 t 1945 - The Nazi's used people. Human beings. Normal, every day people, like you and I, in human experimentations. Do you agree to that? Where are the ethics of that?
And continuing with the war, 1945. 6th of August. An atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima killing 90'000 people. 9th of August. Nagasaki. 60'000 people.
Tell me. How is does the death of all those people signify importance?
Science may have caused Japan to surrender, but it's not like America didn't try to communicate. They gave them an ultimatum. America attempted to communicate, but it fell upon deaf ears and their people paid the price.
Just why does science create these weapons to kill people? It seems with the growth of technology and science we are now able to kill in mass amounts, faster times and greater distances. Remember when I mentioned that humanities allows for communication? Negotiations, communication and social sciences are essential. Without it, we simply loose our humanity as we fail to communicate to each other and in the end lash out and attack.
Science and technology has both the power to create and destroy, but a single operation could wipe out humanity. Only through communication and learning can we prevent it.
In the words of R. Buckminster Fuller; "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons."
