Why does western society axiomatically believe that technological advancement is good?

We must go back to our pagan roots. Technology makes us weak.

Because according to Descartes, the premier modernist thinker and secret transhumanist, there is nothing intrinsically separating Man from God except the extent of our faculties.

>Because it makes it more difficult for mere circumstance to exterminate your race

But technological advancement has created weapons that makes exterminating people unprecedentedly easy.

In the 50s shit like refrigerators and most appliances were still quite new and expensive. Even someone with a McJob today has access to all sorts of shit that people in the 50s wouldn't dream of, you shouldn't measure everything by the size of your house.

Cause it actually delivers.

Yeah. So now both parents have to work, college costs are through the roof, and outsourcing took their jobs but at least you can get an iPhone!

Nuclear weapons were 100% positive according to this tard

And yet the % of deaths from violent causes has been consistently falling for thousands of years, with the 20th century actually being the LEAST bloody century in human history (going by the ratio of violent to nonviolent death, not by absolute numbers, of course).

I hate quoting /pol/, but just this once: REALLY MAKES YOU THINK.

People speak well of technological advancement because on the whole it's done great things for our quality of life as a species.

The average ford employee in the 50s lived in a shithole town, didn't have modern electronic devices, had extremely shit healthcare, probably drove a deathtrap car, very little entertainment, like 2 channels on tv, etc.

Hell, if you want to live a life that shitty, you can do it today on a blue collar salary as well. Move to texas, work at an oil rig, live in a 200k house, drive a beater to and from work, don't buy a cellphone, get the worst health coverage possible, get basic cable, etc. And to really treat yourself, go watch an IMAX movie with your family every month!

grats you're living the 50s 'dream'

>consumerism

Disgusting, and another example of what I'm referring to.

>I know your real wage stalled but this tv has 1000 channels!

I too wish for a time where I was covered in shit and lice and was hungry for most of the day and had 12 mouths to feed and had to drink vinegar water because the well was filled with shit and I only had to worry about living to the ripe old age of 30.

>I wish I lived in [PAST YEAR PRE-1990]

Top fucking jej, lads. You'd be fucked.

>No internet
How much time to spend each day doing things which require an internet connection?

>No worries, I'd find other things to do
You'd suddenly be able to cope without it? You'd suddenly be A-OK being limited entirely to what information you can gather from the place that you are and the media/people in it?

>No more sjws!!!!
Yikes, that's not good. A far less progressive society is killer to a lot of the people on this site. You're a man? I hope you work hard, know a lot about manual labour/cars/DIY. I hope you have a decent education, and if not, some sort of stable job.
You'd best be able to drive, too.

>Girls were BETTER back then
Sure, girls would cook, clean, and do all the domestic stuff. But they were also a lot pickier. You need to not only be attractive, but have prospects. The "skinny indie quiet guy" is no longer an option, nor is the "kind of overweight underachiever who's really nice."

Your arguments would have to be made in person as opposed to over the internet, your lifestyle would probably be wholly unsupported, and you'd likely go stir crazy from no longer being able to do the things you rely on so heavily.

>but silly user, if I was born then I'd be used to all that?
You'd be a different person entirely. YOU don't want to live back then, you just don't like who you are now so you wish you could have existed at a time when society molded you a little more, as opposed to today's "be whoever you want" thing, which you obviously fucked up.

>the world was shit before the 90s

t. progressive millenial

>consumerism
yeah i guess it's just consumerism to want better healthcare, a safer car, a more interesting job, air conditioning, to be able to communicate around the globe more easily,
to have more food, etc.

Just because we haven't done it doesn't mean it's "more difficult", it's easier than ever, which is why everyone's so fucking worried about scenarios where they are employed.

The biological argument for technology is flawed, especially given that advanced societies reproduce less.

Those things are diminishing returns. A 2018 Toyota Camry over any 1950s car, sure, but nowadays they push the BMW 5 series on you with all these neat sounding but worthless "improvements".

>sat nav system!
>apple play
>in car wifi
>Spotify streaming

Those things are all double edged. Communication tech just helps facilitate terrorist recruitment and propoganda

Both sexes working are actually a goodthing, women no longer are dependent on their husband.

unemployment was over 20% in the 50s

...

basically any institution/technology is double-edged. But you can weigh the pros and cons, and the answer is usually pretty clear

Good for who? Now women have the freedom to be single working moms versus housewives. What progress.

>Amish one of the fastest growing groups in America
>Europe and America literally dying off

Hmmmm

Because the Industrial revolution allowed the west to dominate the rest of the world

Haha. Dude I'm in my 40's. And yes life has improved greatly since the 1990's.

t.has medical condition that was resolved in the past 5 years

>Amish one of the fastest growing groups in America
not hard to grow fast when you have like 1000 people

>Europe and America literally dying off
*seeing higher immigration, which is a good thing

Mere circumstance I think refers to the environment. In retrospect, even though we could exterminate our race at the push of a button, nukes have only killed about 500k people since their inception. Compare that to deaths from childbirth and infant mortality in any given decade in the 1200s across the globe.

And yet we're still here. What a wonder.

>Nuclear weapons were 100% positive according to this tard

>Defining technology in its entirety with a single derivative of the application of nuclear physics in order to disprove an user's opinion.

Are you the kind of person that would rather worry about your family starving because an early frost killed your entire year's crop or the kind that would like to contract polio from lack of vaccination?