How much is too much??
By: Sarah Hammaker
Humans, like any other species, are constantly evolving. We look very different from our ancestors who
lived over 50,000 years ago, and the infamous picture set as our Cas 283
facebook cover photo visually depicts this progression. A recent
anthropological discussion aims to assess people’s evolutionary use of
technology, which introduces the question of whether technology today has risen
beyond human comprehension. Technology arguably began with tool-making used for
food preparation and hunting. A progression in the modernization of these tools
occurred as people used them and through trial and error, found what worked
best, as well as used their unique-to-human communication skills to pass their
newfound tool-making knowledge onto their children and close kin, also helping
the population proliferate (Jablonski, ANTH 040 H lecture, 9/23/14). However, today, research shows that
depression has a higher prevalence rate than it did in the 1950’s (Castonguey,
Psych 270 Lecture, 10/29/14), which may be due to the increasing release of the
stigma on mental illness, or to the rise in population, but it could also be
due to the mass amounts of information available to us through technology,
allowing people ample opportunity to foster their darkest desires. These
desires include anything from obtaining a gun with malicious intention, to
bullying, to exacerbating an eating disorder or other mental illness. I will be
concentrating on talking about the gun control issue and the concept of
pro-negative behavior groups from an anthropological standpoint. Through
addressing these topics, I will attempt to answer the question of “How much
information is too much? And what kinds of information are good for humans?”
Maybe all of this information at our disposal is too far ahead than our
evolution can handle.
The gun control debate is a huge one. As most of us have
known since at least eighth grade, the second amendment was put in place in
order to ensure every American the ability to feel safe in his or her own home,
if a life-threatening situation were ever to arise. I am sure our founding
fathers had no idea that the gun, or the use of guns would evolve so rapidly
and expansively in about two and a half years. Now, guns pose a greater danger
to ourselves than they may be to intruders. Even the invention of the gun
itself may exceed the human ability of comprehension. This item could be
manufactured by outside people, and allowed a person to kill food resources
more easily than ever before. Evolutionarily though, the food-energy exchange
was a balance between the person actually constructing the tool, and going out
to hunt with much more risk involved. However,
the gains in food would be worth the risk, and relaxation with family was one
of the greatest rewards. Over time, people taught their kids the skills to
construct these tools, and the process improved over generations. Of course,
guns were the next step up from the previous hunting tools, but now, people in
foreign places make our guns. People do not understand or respect how they are
made. In this way, there is some anonimity to them, and people may feel less
sense of responsibility surrounding them. This mindset corresponds, and even
mixes with the anonymity, as well as autonomy that accompanies modern
technology of other realms. Today, as we stated in class, people can take this
sense of anonymity and autonomy even further by constructing 3D printed guns.
In this way, they actually may understand the actual construction processes,
and interworkings of a gun, but not as a tool, and rather, as a symbol of
rebellion. With stricter gun laws, some people feel passionately in favor of
the second amendment, and feel that freedom to bear arms is a necessity. 3D
printing is amazing in that the technology allows a person to construct almost
anything themselves, but the gun control issue raises questions about whether
or not this freedom is too much for humans to handle.
Secondly, eating disorder sites promoting unhealthy and
maladaptive behaviors are a maladaptive way to provide anyone with a sense of
support and security. This website is a great example of a pro-anorexia group
that fulfills these desires and needs:
As stated before,
humans have evolved to cooperate. We ostracize people who are different or
non-cooperative from the rest of the group, which leaves a healthy, acceptable
group of people to procreate even more cooperative people. Therefore today,
people who feel different, often feel excluded and are excluded from the rest of the group, yet so critically need
social support to stay alive. The internet combined with the first amendment,
provides the perfect place for people to find the support they crave through
honesty about their vulnerabilities. However, this extremely easy access of information
provides encourages people to continue with their maladaptive practices. This
completely goes against the natural and artificial selection processes that
have governed societies since the beginning of their existence, and may be
leading to a more troubled human species.
With about 83.8 percent of households reported owning and
computer, and 74.4 percent reported using the internet regularly (http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/acs/acs-28.pdf),
people have constant access to this technology, its musings, and its dark side.
Efforts to counteract dark intentions
online include master monitoring of certain websites or content, as well as the
ability for criminal investigators to access a person’s search history. However,
at this rate of technology expansion, I am sure that people can somehow learn
to block that search history, just by typing “How to block search history” into
google.
Photo credit: https://alphabytesoup.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/evolution-of-man-and-technology/
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