Unintended Consequences
In a Connected World, Conversations Gain Import
Sometime after my father passed away, I came across his high school yearbook. When asked about his ambitions, he had replied, “To split the atom.” Unbeknownst to him, at that time, groups of scientists were busily working to accomplish just that.
Dad graduated from high school, immediately enlisted in the Army Air Corps and served in the Pacific theater throughout the better part of World War 2. He had boarded a returning Liberty Ship when he heard the news that the United States had detonated an atomic warhead over Japan. The atom had been split.
When describing his initial ambitions, I doubt the high school version of my father ever imagined that atomic research would result in his own children spending some part of their early lives learning how to “duck and cover.” In my lifetime, the world has faced the downsides of that science. From the Cuban Missile Crisis to more recent concerns with Iran’s ability to arm a nuclear warhead, we continue to deal with the unintended consequence of a scientific advancement.
Today, the miracle of ever-faster computing technology poses its own unintended consequences. When I was a child, NASA sent men into outer space with the aid of computers so large they filled entire rooms. I understand that the laptop on which I now type has more computing power than the machines the space program used decades ago. By just tapping on a few keys, I can access previously unimagined quantities of information, and this has yielded its own consequences.
Like Boston. Writing in Sunday’s New York Times, columnist Tom Friedman notes how the to accused bombers apparently became radicalized via the Internet, which he describes as a “digital river that carries incredible sources of wisdom and hate along the same current.” Friedman calls upon all of us to consciously question what we read on-line.
That challenge is one that must be taken up by the Millennial generation—by students graduating from college, business schools, and law schools, right now, the new hires, interns and summer associates, who will join the workforce this year and soon lead it. Friedman writes:
And that’s why the faster, more accessible and ultramodern the Internet becomes, the more all the old-fashioned stuff matters: good judgment, respect for others who are different and basic values of right and wrong. Those you can’t download. They have to be uploaded, the old-fashioned way, by parents around the dinner table, by caring but demanding teachers at school and by responsible spiritual leaders in a church, synagogue, temple or mosque.
Read Friedman’s entire column, by clicking here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/opinion/sunday/friedman-judgment-not-included.html
What Do You Need to Know?
Friedman said it best: The more accessible the Internet becomes, the more the old-ashioned stuff matters.
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