The Society was delighted to welcome Richard Shakespeare and guest speaker Charles King, Chair of ECRA, to debate ‘Technology: more curse than blessing’. Proposer Richard began by noting the beneficial impact of technology on many people’s lives, then analysing the problems, starting with 1. Cars: We have to live with the curses of pollution, traffic congestion, frustration and road rage, fatal or life-changing accidents and car crime, including theft by radio jamming the locks on remote keys, leaving unsuspecting owners shocked when they return to their ‘locked’ and robbed cars. 2. Domestic appliances: There is always the risk of fires due to overheating and frustration due to incomprehensible instructions. 3. The printed media: Public circulation of ‘news’, is often too rapid to provide impartial and well-re- searched information, with misrepresentations and pre-judgements that colour our understanding of key issues. 4. Drones: A revolution certainly, but a possible boon to terrorists and a curse in terms of unauthorised photography, smuggling drugs into prisons, near-miss- es round airports, drones are poorly regulated and controlled.
5. Phones and mobiles: The personal and commercial benefits of phones are offset by nuisance calls, phone disruption in classrooms, cheating in exams and risk of driving accidents. 6. Cameras: Their misuse includes spying on neighbours, silly photos of drunken or bad behaviour, unpleasant, embarrassing photos of work colleagues. 7. IT: Computers and i-Pads: Richard spent more time outlining the many benefits (e.g. online shop- ping, Skype, rapid communication for private and business use), but noted recent problems. In schools, where tablets and i-Pads can be used to bully and harass other pupils and staff. Hacking causes serious personal as well as national and commercial security risks, for example,100,000 Post Office customers have been attacked by the malware Mirai worm. Offensive pornography, trolling and sexting have yet to be firmly - but reasonably - controlled by both the Government and by service providers; Jeremy Hunt was accused of censorship when he tried to ban teenage sexting. Richard concluded that technology cannot be a real blessing unless it is efficiently managed by law-enforced guidelines that ensure safety, honesty and decency. Guest speaker Charlie King noted that technology, through the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages and eventually to the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18th. century, has always had its problems as well as benefits. His submission had some local twists. Discussing the Industrial Revolution, with its cheap mass-produced goods and large-scale housing, (offset by slums, child labour, industrial diseases such as pneumoconiosis), poor living and working conditions
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led to the Trade Union movement. The development of more efficient transport followed; the canal system included the Croydon Canal (West Croydon to New Cross Gate); the Surrey Iron Railway, built in 1802, was the first public freight line, from Wandsworth to Croydon and with an extension to Merstham via Coulsdon in 1805. The development of the internal combustion engine resulted in 1919 in road classification – A trunk roads, B roads and C unclassified - and is celebrated every year on our Brighton Road, with the Veteran Car Run. Of course, road accidents and pollution (now 25,000 deaths per year) have followed – the first death being in Crystal Palace in 1896. Charlie then discussed the use of iron and steel in shipbuilding and the massive surge in commercial aviation from the Wright Brothers in 1911 to today’s annual 2.2 million UK flights, with noise pollution and accidents. From ether and chloroform anaesthesia, medical advances now include antibiotics, keyhole surgery, vaccination, and MRI diagnostics. The downside includes drug abuse, plus sale of diluted and unlicensed medicines. Technology has a big place in war. Guns have progressed from the first rifle in 1498, to the machine gun in 1910, to the terrorists’ favourite, the Kalashnikov. About 145 people a year are killed in the UK, in spite of Gun Control Laws in 1919. Charlie also tackled communications’ technology. Radio and radar helped us win the last war, and now saves many lives at sea and elsewhere. Television has developed from the first picture transmitted by Logie Baird and Benjamin Clapp from Coulsdon to New York! Digital technology is a must-have in our society – mobile phones, i-Pads and i-Phones, apps for everything. Like Richard, Charlie mentioned the escalating risks of fraud, trolling and post-truth. Finally, Charlie concluded that the curse of technology is the speed of change and inability to anticipate appropriate regulation. But that cannot negate the blessings.
Many thanks to everyone who helped to organise an alternative venue in Cameron Hall at very short notice. The motion was narrowly lost by 5 votes to 6, with 4 abstentions.
The Society’s debate on March 6th. will be ‘Most children stay too long at school and too few enrol in apprenticeships’ – proposed by Cécile Bradwell and opposed by Pauline Payne, at the Old Coulsdon Centre at 8 p.m.
All visitors welcome; for further details, contact Angela Applin on 020 8668 8558.
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