Assignment #1

When reading through Vicente's The Human Factor and Vonnegut's Cat's Craddle I find many similarities reguarding their views on technolgoy. I find that both authors view technology as confusing and bad to the human world. Vicente discusses how easily technology can effect the human life with being to complicated and over the top. For example, Vicente discussed the new way to check the oil in a person's car and with the steps stated are far more complicated than checking it manually. Everyday new technology is being invented to make the human life easier. I find with doing this is making the world lazy and depending on a machine to live. Technology has been part of people's every day lives that they become depenedent on it. With having people be so dependent on technology, I wonder if a person in this day in age can survive without it. If technology was stripped from the everyday use, will people know how to survive?

In Cats Craddle, I feel that the same message is being portrayed. Ice-Nine is a way to help the marines cross swamps other bodies of water. Yet, with this being a helpful tool it also causes many problems, such as all technology can cause. I feel that it sends the message that technology can be useful, but their are ways it can be dangerous if not used correctly. With the ice-nine it can freeze everything around it, such as the bigger bodies of water, causing harm to the environment.

I feel that the human factor is everything the human is capable of. Technology and the human factor go hand in hand. Yet, I go back to the question of if technology shapes humans, or humans shape technology. With inventing this new technology, it has to be put into consideration if humans have the mind power and ability to be able to work the machinary. Such as in Vicente with the power plant that exploded. The worker did not fully understand how to used the machinary until it was too late. I feel that technology is very useful, but it shouldn't run our lives. Vicente and Vonnegut's view on technology as being "bad" because technology can be too complex for the typical human and when it isn't used correctly can cause many problems.