> Despite these challenges, the overall impact of technology on society has been overwhelmingly positive. It has empowered individuals, improved efficiency, enh

> Despite these challenges, the overall impact of technology on society has been overwhelmingly positive. It has empowered individuals, improved efficiency, enhanced communication and connectivity, and driven scientific progress. Despite working in technology, I'm going to have to disagree pretty hard with any definitive assertion of these claims. At best, I would agree that technology has been largely responsible for a lot of efficiencies that have allowed more people to live for longer. This will remain true so long as we don't have a WWIII where the efficiencies of military technology allow us to kill more humans than we ever could have imagined. But everything else here seems questionable. How exactly has technology enhanced communication? I can go on Twitter or elsewhere and read a completely moronic sentence or perhaps even view a video of something even more moronic, something so unbelievably stupid I would not have conceived of it if I tried. How has it improved connectivity? My social connections and bonds outside of family and my closest friends have only grown weaker as people replace social interactions with computer and smartphone use. Has scientific progress not also been driven in the direction of abject failure where many 'scientific' experiments have outcomes that cannot be reproduced? We could also claim that trust in science has not been worse in recent memory, and it's not just the fault of those distrustful people. I don't mean to shit all over your essay. I'm just being a little critical, but I totally appreciate the honesty and effort behind this kind of discussion. The Unabomber's manifesto was fairly impactful, IMO, as an argument against technological progress, and I'd expect a good essay to try to use that (or something similar) as a 'steel man' for the argument against technological progress, and then attempt to prove it wrong.