Technology and its Social Impact

Changes in Human genes and Technological changes operate on varying timescales — time and again ripping apart our social fabric.

Pace of Genetic Changes

Usain Bolt will never outrun a healthy cheetah on track. Even after a million generations of selective breeding for speed, none of his progeny might. That’s how constrained we are by nature, biologically speaking.

If we think of evolution as sculpting: The environment is the sculptor and we, living beings, are the rock, being shaped over time by the chisel of natural selection.

Regardless of how horrified we are by the form we are taking, there is little we can do about it. Sure, that little is still a lot, but..

Pace of Agrarian Society Changes

Since the advent of farming, our genes have barely changed, yet the resulting abundance of nutrition incentivized us to live in larger and more co-operative societies.

These societies could only be sustained through new social norms which often conflict with our genetic instincts, and this was how Governments, Laws, Organized Religion, etc. emerged. And so, crimes like murder and rape (sorry Bill Cosby) perfectly normal occurrences in the wild, were identified as immoral.

Pace of Industrial Revolution’s Changes

Within the last 300 years, the world’s GDP has grown exponentially, roughly tripling every 30 years. Today, more people are NOT dying of poverty induced conditions than ever before causing unprecedented changes, too rapid for our slowly evolving agrarian society’s social apparatuses to deal with.

Coal smog and environmental degradation weren’t addressed through policy until the 1950s in Europe. Similarly, almost 30 years after internet’s arrival problems with Big Tech are barely understood. Countless lives already are threatened or lost through cyberbullying, organized cyber crime while society adapts.

The Trend is your Friend.

As a species, our track record of overcoming challenges is not too bad. But this trend of rapid technological innovation disrupting society while we scramble to adapt is not new. It might outlive us.

With advances in gene editing technology, we might just be able to speed up our pace of undergoing genetic changes to keep pace with technology. But, is that the going to do the trick?

We better watch out, since there is a lot more disruption to come.