weaponising technology

Every development in technology produces a new weapon. And history shows that if man gets a weapon he WILL use it.

Cars are wonderful but cars beget armoured vehicles.

Aeroplanes are like magic but planes drop bombs.

Nuclear power is marvellous but nuclear missiles are not.

Travel to the moon using a rocket that will threaten a country in another continent.

Even GM foods are used to threaten countries to get in line over their seed buying policies.

As Paul Virilio pointed out: invent a ship and you invent a shipwreck. Technology is not neutral; it not only leverages our ability to do harm it changes our behaviour. People in cars behave differently to people walking. But then people who run behave differently too. Perhaps it is just the speeding up that changes our behaviour; we weren't designed to go so fast.

Try and think of a technology that only benefits? Only basic ones surely; tables, cheese, making fire...but fire causes more destruction than almost anything. You can't get away from the double edges sword of technology.

Since this is very obvious we should be careful about technologies that are slow to reverse. 

Since we invent new technologies to fix errant old ones we should be aware that some damage is irreversable. Surely it makes sense to pursue only that tech which produces zero waste, or zero non-recyclable waste. At some point this should become a new convention of human activity.