I don’t think that one needs to be spared at the expense of the other; they have a synergistic effect. Funding medical technology, for example, leads to advances in health. Funding engineering leads to safer and better job sites, and so on.

You can see the results of technological advances far outrunning any sociological advances every day (and the horrible results thereby)...Just look around you.

The two things go hand in hand. At times, it may be critically important to focus on one over the other, but only in the short-term. Once the crisis has been addressed, a return to balance would be ideal.

Absolutely. I would say that we are too technologically advanced compared with our sociological development. The former threatens to overtake the latter and leave us the victims of our own inventions. As long as we can not rectify such basic injustices as starvation but can essentially destroy the earth through our industries and inventions, we are at risk from our ignorance.

@SeventhSense

Just so. You seem very wise.

@dalton
Thank you.

yes

I would say they are both equally important. I believe technology has done far more good than harm – just the ability to share information alone has empowered us tremendously. Now most people know where starvation or human rights abuses, etc are occurring and as such we are more likely to mobilize and do something about it. We can access information on medicines, finances, politics, ecology, and other sciences, etc, and make more informed choices. If technology had not advanced to where it is now we would not have that capability. That capabilty alone allows us to advance further on a social level.

Agreed with the sentiment that they’re are very intimately intertwined, balancing aspects within our complex modern society. The latter part of your question to me implies that logic drives technological progression but surely logic is stringently applied in sociological studies and schools of thought.

totally…I think we are somewhat sociologically behind at the moment… yesterday i saw teenage boys hitting ducks with sticks… wait that probably doesn’t count or does it?

Most definitely.

When technological progress overtakes, people reject it. A good example is the video phone. Society wasn’t ready. Now there’s the web and Skype and webcams…

@mattbrowne
When technological progress overtakes, people reject it.
Unless it’s thrust upon them through commercial or government aims and and they don’t have the capacity to understand it’s long term implications and/or risks and thus suffer. Not unlike the Native Americans who were subject to our ideas about contracts, property rights and legalities who had no reference point as to what effect it would have on them. Consider the technologically advanced corporations like Dow who were “kind enough” to introduce to the people of Bhopal how chemicals advances could serve the people. It is the responsibility of all of us to protect the innocent.

@lynne, So, are you saying it’s a shame these boys didn’t have better technology than just a plain old stick?

@Trustinglife lol…no but that would have been funny if not rather cruel if I had meant that! x

I think yes of course sociological progression needs to take precedence, especially at this point. Don’t get me wrong, I lurve technology. In fact, I’m sort of a junkie. But I do think that technology has impeded our growth, sociologically speaking, in some ways. It is becoming increasingly common to interact by using the internet (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) or text messaging and less common to actually have human interaction, whether it be in person or speaking over the phone. The image that keeps popping in my head is from the movie Wall-E. If you haven’t seen it, the movie is set waaaaay in the future and all the humans have left earth to live on the moon (or somewhere, I’m not sure). The humans have long since stopped walking and actually float around on these hovering chairs that have computer screens right in front of their faces. They talk to each other through them and never leave their chairs. All of the humans are very overweight, have lost most of their bone mass, and rarely speak to one another face to face. In the movie, it’s funny, but imagine if we got to that point! That is so scary. So, what I’m saying is, yes, technology is fun and exciting and helpful, but we can’t let it overtake our lives. We have to be able to live independent of our technological advances, or when all hell breaks loose, we’re f**cked.

In my opinion, technological progress is of little use unless the basic bones of social structures are being strengthened and improved too.

@SeventhSense – Yes, I also believe in a free market model that emphasizes on real consumer demands thinking of good offering. As you said, very often it’s the other way round when companies use a lot of money for commercials to stimulate a demand and sell stuff many don’t really need. Interestingly, when Henry Ford built his first cars, very few people demanded cars. He had to stimulate demand by pointing out the advantages of cars over horses.

@mattbrowne
So we agree that stimulating a demand and driving the creation of further technologies to serve only a commercial purpose can be shortsighted and irresponsible?

@SeventhSense – Yes, most of the time. There are very few exceptions, see my Henry Ford comment.

something to note is that the creators of the technology are very often aware and moral with their creations and that it is often the ones who don’t try to understand improve the things around them that use technology poorly @Nially_Bob

The problem is in separating the two. Social change breeds disaster just as often as technological change (holy wars and pretty much every war since WWI give blatant proof). Like opposite forces (yin and yang, left and right, not to be confused with good and bad) social change saves us from ourselves while technological change saves us from the harsh world around us. Social changes become necessary when the current social model doesn’t work with advancing technology(every religion ever shows evidence) and new technology is required when social structure isn’t enough to compete with nature (see bubonic plague and development of antibiotics).

So to answer the question fully you may look to @oneword for the answer for our current situation. When one side becomes so prevalent that it threatens the very existence of the other you will find your answer on which one needs to change.

On a personal note, I hope we can all catch up socially with technology so our grandchildren aren’t faced with the folly of the combustion engine. Sorry @SeventhSense, Henry Ford may have killed the planet along with everyone after him, that, in their social stupidity, supported the prospect of burning it all until it’s gone all in the name of monetary advancement. Heavy industry started it, Ford brought it to everyone, and now we are all a part of a society that relies on a technology that will one day make life impossible on our humble little planet. Social change FTW!!!