He's not saying cars, in absolute terms, have smaller bad effect than bombs. He's saying that the positives vs negatives ratio for cars is more favorable than one for bombs. Considering the entire world economy will essentially stand still if all cars vanish tomorrow, I'd agree with him.
JacksonGariety|11 years ago
For instance, if McDonalds disappeared overnight, people would starve. Doesn't mean the McChicken is a "good" thing we should let incept our culture, like the Internet of Things, which is what this article is arguing is actually "bad."
Just because we can become dependent upon something easily doesn't mean it really makes the world a better place.
ChuckMcM|11 years ago
When debating the SF ordinance about the relative health benefits of "Happy Meals" questions came up like "Does Ronald McDonald house help more people with cancer than Big Macs make fat?" or "Do jobs provided by McDonalds to an otherwise unskilled population lower the crime rate?"
Debating the philosophical aspects of things can be enlightening but in this particular case, and in this particular article, that really wasn't the case. "Experts are worried" is just about as non-useful a statement as can be made about anything.
The observation I make is that *in totality of changes caused" by a technology, those that were created to do 'good' and or 'useful' [1] things generally have more good and useful uses than evil and/or threatening uses. I expect that to be true of the emerging IoT technology as well (more useful things than bad things).
Another interesting side effect is that if the balance shifts things can be made less useful, the case of decongestants comes to mind.
[1] In quotes because they are subjective measures.