Science And Pandora's Box


 "It may seem dangerous to tinker with nature without knowing the long-term effects, but without the threat of environmental disaster caused by the short-sighted unbalancing of natural forces, how are we to bring about positive change in the world around us?  Modern science has a long, proven track record of correcting the mistakes it inadvertently unleashes on the world. I'm confident that if the worst ever came to pass, science would find some way to fix it. That's what science does.  People shouldn't see man-made global disasters as a bad thing. They should see them as scientific breakthroughs waiting to happen."
Texas A&M Mad Scientist

Be skeptical.  Question everything.  Search for someone who's been there.  If you don’t know it to be true personally--don’t form an opinion that affects others’ lives. This is especially true in politics, war, science, technology, economics, and religion.”
Amafo

           The Internet, cloning, gene-splicing, new viruses, robotics and nano-technology--this is the brave new world of the 21st century.  But despite its glossy sheen, our world civilization, and the exported ideologies of progress, industrialization, and technology only serve to hide evidence of a deeper social deterioration.
           We have all the earmarks of a disintegrating culture.  Aldous Huxley, in his book Brave New World Revisited wrote, "Sociologists and psychologists have written at length about the price that Western civilization has had to pay, and will go on paying, for technological progress."  Our entertainment focuses on violence, sex, and death, while our society demands that we attempt to legislate safety and civility, further and further eroding personal freedoms.  Drug testing, gun control, hate crime legislation and feeble environmental protection laws are superficial attempts to regulate a culture going mad--frantically trying to legislate morals, family stability, common values and purpose.
           This is especially irritating to the descendants of those Indigenous Peoples who were assured that the Anglo Saxon Christian "replacements" for Indian culture, spirituality, and social order were superior to our own!
            It never fails to amaze us how easily we have gone from understanding our dependence on and having a relationship with the natural world, to putting all our faith and support on the superficially constructed systems of civilization.  Much of this has to do with the short historical perspective people have today, and with the arrogant pride we humans tend to have in our creative ability.  There is also the Roman-influenced Judeo-Christian belief in the superiority of the human being as a species, evidenced by a continuing martial desire to conquer and control our environment.
            It is this childish fascination with being at the center of everything that causes science to imagine our world as a plaything, to be altered and manipulated at will.  Pure scientists play with their advanced technological toys, experimenting with the building blocks of life with an enthusiastic naivete towards discovery, showing no more concern about the result of their actions than a three year-old with Tinkertoys*.  Genetic engineering is the latest game.  In September, 2001, scientists discovered genetically engineered (GE) corn at 15 locations in the state of Oaxaca, deep in southern Mexico, a country that has outlawed the commercial use of all genetically engineered crops.  No one knows how it got there.
            In the U.S., genetically engineered corn has been grown commercially since 1996 and 26 percent of all U.S. corn acreage is now genetically engineered. The remote region of Oaxaca where the illegal GE corn was discovered is considered the heartland of corn diversity in the world.  
            Scientists had hoped to keep Oaxaca's rich diversity of corn uncontaminated by GE strains because Oaxaca retains the wealth of genetic varieties developed during 5500 years of Indigenous corn cultivation. Scientists now say that aggressive forms of GE corn, let loose in Oaxaca, may drive native species to extinction, causing the loss of irreplaceable cultivars.
            It is unclear whether the GE corn was carried deep into Mexico by birds, or was intentionally spread there by corporations or governments promoting GE crops.  All genetically engineered varieties of corn are owned and patented by transnational corporations. The only legal way to acquire such seeds is to purchase them from the corporation holding the patent. Such patents are called "intellectual property" and their enforcement under international law has been a major goal of "free trade" agreements in recent years. The World Trade Organization (WTO) contains strict protections for Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), and patented forms of life, such as GE crops, are explicitly covered by TRIPs.
            Under WTO rules, national governments are required to protect the intellectual property rights of corporations. In the U.S. and Canada, farmers have complained that they have become victims of gene drift, or genetic pollution, as GE crops have drifted across property lines, contaminating non-GE crops with patented GE varieties.
             Today's GE crops can't guarantee that farmers won't save seeds. Corporations intent on preventing seed-saving must hire agents.  Such monitoring is expensive. To avoid the need for monitoring, and to gain 100 percent control over farmers, the GE corporations have developed a new technology--terminator genes. Terminator genes prevent a crop from reproducing itself unless certain "protector" chemicals are applied to the crop. Any farmer using terminator seeds must buy the "protector" chemicals each year. As terminator technology spreads around the world, it will end Indigenous agriculture and much of our biodiversity as well. An estimated 1.4 billion Indigenous people currently grow their own crops for subsistence worldwide.  In many instances, their land is being eyed for corporate "development" and GE crop technology offers a legal way to separate Indigenous people from their land.
           Hunkering outside those science laboratories, human vultures enamored of wealth and power have continually played a game of Risk* with those same Tinkertoys* at the expense of the planet and its children.  
Genetic drift of GE crops to non-GE fields has, in fact, been well documented and even the GE corporations and their regulators in government acknowledge that it is a serious problem. Now, however, Monsanto, a leading supplier of GE seeds, has cleverly turned the tables on the alleged victims of genetic pollution by suing them for stealing
Monsanto's patented genes.   The first case that came to trial, in Canada in 2001, found Monsanto suing Percy Schmeiser, an organic farmer who had complained of genetic pollution.  Monsanto said that after 40 years of growing crops organically, Mr. Schmeiser had a change of heart and decided to raise a genetically-engineered crop by stealing Monsanto's patented genes.
Monsanto won and Schmeiser must pay. With this important victory in the bank, Monsanto now has similar lawsuits pending against farmers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Indiana, and Louisiana.  Thus farmers that fall victim to genetic pollution may find themselves sued for violating the intellectual property right of a corporation and be forced to compensate the genetic polluter.
Farmers who purchase GE seeds sign contracts requiring--under penalty of law--that they not save seed from one crop to the next. Thus farmers who employ GE seeds must purchase new seed year after year, making them dependent upon whatever transnational corporation owns the patent. Farmers who can't afford to buy seed each year will simply not be allowed to grow a crop. In free-market societies, such displaced farmers are free to move to a city where they are free to be unemployed.

                There is an ongoing controversial debate as to whether modern techology and civilization is causing world temperatures to rise.   Scientists and politicians may argue about the cause, but not the effect.  Bruce Johansen wrote, in October 2001, that “the global climate change is severely impacting the Innuit of the Arctic.  Swallows, sandflies and robins now migrate into the Arctic.  The permafrost has begun to melt and mosquitoes and beetles, unknown a generation ago, are now a common sight.  Seals and bears are suffering noticeably.   Polar bears are 90 to 220 pounds lighter than they used to be thirty years ago.  Unpredictable storms and thinner ice make hunting conditions far more dangerous than they used to be.  Some villages are literally melting into the sea.  The University of Alaska has published data which shows recent summer mean temperatures to be five degrees warmer, and winter temperatures ten degrees higher than historical records show.
                Scientists believed, only a few years ago, that it would take hundreds or even thousands of years for pesticides to percolate into the ocean of pure water known as the Ogallala Aquifer that supplies drinking water to millions of Americans in eight states. They have already been detected.  Bill Andrews, chief of studies for the U.S. Geological Survey in Oklahoma City said, “The aquifer is more susceptible than we ever thought it was.”
How many more of these kinds of scientific errors can we afford?
                Take the basic computer chip.  Tokyo researchers have found that in order to produce each chip, 700 times its weight in waste must also be produced.  In comparison, the relationship for waste in production of an automobile is only 1 to 2.  The average computer is typically two to three years compared to the car.  Today, in the Far East, many computer manufacturers and governments contract for huge waste disposal sites for electronic wastes, dumping hazardous and non-biodegradeable materials.  Local environments have already had their health, water, and soil contaminated by those pollutants and waste products.

                It is a mistaken view that these scientists, or at least those who fund them, do not have a clear idea of how new technologies may be used and misused.  Governments and corporations who invest millions, or billions, in a new technology have certainly examined all the possibilities, positive and negative, thoroughly.  Yet public debate is swept aside by rhetoric and hype, always putting forth the advantages, and never thoroughly discussing the potential problems.  The ensuing public silence lends a tacit approval to their endeavors.
                John Sulston wrote in his book, "The Common Thread", about the politics that entered the race to decode the human genome. "It was not," he said, "as I fondly imagined at the beginning, simply a matter of sequencing the human genome and making the data available.  This was naive. I'd thought of the Human Genome Project as being an uncluttered and altruistic activity, but found instead that others viewed it as a stepping stone on the route to commercial profit or political power."  "I was forced to realize that in our society one can get into trouble for giving away something that can make money.  I began to notice parallel tragedies unfolding..." "The commercial and competitive pressures on academics today are alarming.  And if academics are not independent, who will be society's impartial experts?" "The big transnational corporations are now more powerful than many governments.  Their strength is apparent everywhere we turn, and especially in their collective lobbying in the capitals of rich nations."  
             "This international fellowship (of science) is threatened when people try to walk both sides of the line, mingling scientific contribution with profit-making activity.  The two do not mix well."  "The truth is that companies don't have to behave ethically... In our overly PR-conscious society there is little questioning of a smooth presentation.  Half truth that is branded with a recognized name and laminated to cover the cracks is rated more highly than unvarnished fact."
Sulston continues, "In the commercial world this is absolutely necessary to maximize their profits.  Individual selfishness is held up as the best way to advance civilization.  Through the process of globalization these beliefs are being exported to the world as a whole, making it not only less just, but less safe.  Nations, too, are unable to take sensible collective decisions when the only rules we know for bargaining are those of competitive greed."
          "What I found...was that nobody knew what was going on--or didn't believe it.  And I reflected on the power of public relations.  Those who can afford expensive PR usually get their way--or at least, exert influence beyond what is justified.  Once a point of view has taken hold in the public imagination, it's extremely hard to offset it."
           "It brought home to me forcefully that the strength of the industrial lobby in Washington means that no public servant can make statements that imply criticism of a commercial company".
         
                    It's time we got real about this world full of experts, expert panels, scientists, studies, etc.  How much of our world-view is garnered third or fourth hand?  All we really know is what we have experienced personally in our lives.  We can "adopt" facts, information, ideas, theories, and scientific evidence-(gossip)- until the cows come home.  Some of it will prove true, the rest will lie in piles in the pastures.  This "age of information" could better be called the "age of commercial and intellectual promotions".  There are multi-national promotional firms who will put together a panel of experts to prove anything you want them to. You’ll read it in the newspaper or see it on the evening news--they guarantee it!  Scientists are as susceptible to payoffs for slanted studies as these PR firms.
                 Sarah Boseley of The Guardian wrote a Feb. 2002 story exposing a scandal involving scientists taking large sums of money from pharmaceutical companies to sign their names to articles they haven’t written, endorsing new medicinal drugs.  Declines in State and Federal funding has left the scientists in a financial void which makes some of them susceptible to fraudulent offers from drug companies to fund or commission their work.  This has given the industry unprecedented control over data.  In many cases the doctors endorsing the products have not seen the raw data at all, only the compiled tables in papers drafted by employees or commercial agencies.  Two fields especially beset by this form of ghostwriting are psychiatry and cardiology.
The race to acquire a place in the limited budgets and grant processes at Universities and Foundations has eliminated the purity and impartiality of studies.  
                   Corporate science poses a theory and then attempts to prove or disprove it according to an agenda.  "Junk Science" doesn't just exist in fringe environmental groups but permeates every field and issue today.  Why?  Because many years ago it was determined that the broadcast media could shape, alter, and determine public opinion.  If you have a reason to “prove” something, you can find an expert to support your cause.  
                    That's why we all have such firm and unalterable opinions about everything.  And if your ideas don’t match mine it means your sources must be less reliable!
         
                Proponents for technological civilization have lied.  It has long been an American myth that we are leading the rest of the world toward a better life.  But our interests have served us in a way the third world can never expect.  With 5% of the population we use more than 30% of the available industrial resources.  To raise the standards of the world to our level we would have to speed up the harvest of these resources six times annually, or find six new planets to plunder.  
            Americans enjoy the most comfortable and convenient living standards worldwide--but we have achieved that success through the systematic pursuit of any technological resource without regard to the cost in human life or environmental balance. Progress is an insatiable monster that can never achieve fulfillment. Technologists assert that new discoveries will save us before the finite resources of Earth are exhausted.  These are the kind of people who buy lotto tickets expecting to win.
            The truth is that we have created a world of fantasy that pretends that we can continue this lifestyle indefinitely.  That is because western civilization does not think ahead beyond a generation or two. As we sit comfortably in a world of plenty, remember that 75 percent of the rest of the world is lacking nutritious food, shelter, or a safe place to sleep.  We could help them but our system of economics and corporate profit (which controls science), will never allow it to happen.  Indigenous people of the world are looking ahead toward seventh generations on end. Count your blessings.  Some future seventh generation will face the reality. What will be our legacy to them?
           To deny the impermanence of any civilization is to deny history, and to assume that ours will be an exception is pure arrogance.  But the multi-headed monster we have created from curiosity and avarice is not easily controlled.  Our civilization, and especially those who continue to profit by its development and expansion, rationalize the immoral and destructive by-products of technology under the pretense that our mono-culture of consumerism represents the ultimate expression of evolution: the final flowering of Man.  Conversely, they continue to represent Native or Indigenous societies as being on a lower rung of the evolutionary ladder; obsolete and stubbornly in the way.  Though everyone seems to take their claims at face value, we know, through the words of our ancestors, that our "primitive" Peoples lived well, had little want and a significant amount of leisure time.
            At this point we'd like to interject a piece of humor and trivia that will, nevertheless, point out that progress is more of an organic monster than any planned one.  It has to do with the historical evolution of transportation.
 
     The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.  That's a exceedingly odd number.  Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.  Why did the English build them like that?  Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.  Why did "they" use that gauge then?  Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.  Okay!  Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?  Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
            So who built those old rutted roads?  Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions.  The roads have been used ever since.  And the ruts in the roads?  Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.  Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
           The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.  And bureaucracies live forever!
           So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
         Now the twist to the story...  There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds.  When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.  These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.  The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.  The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains.  The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.  The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
            So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.  
Courtesy of Robert B. Pickering Collier---Read Deputy Director for Collections and Education,  Buffalo Bill Historical Center  
         
            Every new discovery and advancement is publicized as evidence of the superiority of the present civilization.   The media have become complicit in the struggle to convince everyone that technology is always good and that each new discovery that aids healing, decreases labor, improves safety, or drives the engine of economic growth is simply another step toward a world of complete safety, comfort, ease, luxury, and eventual immortality.  Just as the world at the beginning of the previous century prophesized a technological and scientific utopia without hunger, sickness, or want--today's corporate or governmental giants will everyone to believe that science will solve every problem, especially those it creates along the way.  The final myth put forward regarding technology is that it is the Switzerland of progress, where the agenda is apolitical and in-service to mankind.  In reality, those who pay for the research and development of technological advances (and this includes many of the research scientists themselves) do have personal or corporate agendas-social, political, economic, and otherwise.  They know exactly which direction their "developments" will push society at large, and individuals in particular.
           The complexities of greater technological advancement will demand that society and civilization contract and centralize.  To "protect" public safety and potentially harmful use of new technologies (and investments), police and military control must become more invasive and nationally, or internationally, controlled.
            Indigenous People never talked a lot about freedom but our inherently democratic forms of government, centered around community controlled economics and environmental harmony, supported, without reservation, individual freedoms.   By contrast, those that speak for progress and technology propagandize about freedoms while actually promoting a consumer driven mono-cultural sterility.  That sterility will eventually allow those who direct the consumer culture to require an autocratic centralization of every aspect of culture, society, and politics.
            Until the mistakes and miscalculations of our culture of waste and irresponsible technological growth compound to take new and horrendous tolls on our species or our world, science will continue to delve recklessly into projects civilization is ill-prepared to utilize or control.  And those who live for no other reason than to horde wealth and power will continue to take those projects and loose them upon us.   
            Here is an all-too-real example.  In July of 2000, scientists tinkering with a newly developed soy hybrid found that they had created a by-product fungus which had the potential to wipe out ninety-eight percent of the world's soybean crop and potentially devastate the entire world's plant life and ecological balance. Then, only ten months later, they created a solution.  Zovirex-10 kills the fungus dead!  Unfortunately some scientists claim that if Zovirex-10 were to seep into the groundwater, it would kill off seventy percent of fish and aquatic plant life, poison thirty-five percent of the human population, and raise the temperature of the sea by seven degrees.  That’s some solution!
Dr. Nathan Oberst, Texas A&M Mad Scientist responsible for the cure, made these enlightening comments.  "It may seem dangerous to tinker with nature without knowing the long-term effects, but without the threat of environmental disaster caused by the short-sighted unbalancing of natural forces, how are we to bring about positive change in the world around us?"
Oberst downplayed the dangers of Zovirex-10 saying, "If this is true, it shouldn't be thought of as a disaster," he said. "Modern science has a long, proven track record of correcting the mistakes it inadvertently unleashes on the world. I'm confident that if the worst ever came to pass, science would find some way to fix it. That's what science does."
According to Oberst, flawed and dangerous technological advances have helped broaden understanding in all fields of science.  "Just think about the hydrogen bomb, not only was it a tremendous breakthrough in physics, it broadened our knowledge of everything from radiation containment to bomb-shelter construction to hair loss. Science has been coming up with breakthrough after breakthrough to fix the problems that the H-bomb has created. (Except for radioactive waste by-products) Without the H-bomb, we would know significantly less about the potential problems associated with the H-bomb."  
He finished with this bolt of lightning.
 "People shouldn't see man-made global disasters as a bad thing. They should see them as scientific breakthroughs waiting to happen."
We have to find a way to make our objections public, and to challenge the belief that technology is a roller-coaster that cannot be stopped.  We know there are alternatives to the insanity of the point of view expressed above.  The average human being has a better grasp of reality than many of our most creative scientists.  But the average man-on-the-street, and certainly the average Indian, does not believe that voicing their opinion will do much good.  It will require a significant amount of political power to restrain science from its headlong rush toward oblivion, as it might also require a significant amount of individual sacrifice and discomfort for us to learn to live again in a world shifting gears toward a more natural way of life.   
           




















Ranting/ Two                                                                 BlueWolf & Lupe'/ Shirts N Skins


Pathology of A Diseased Civilization


We could start our discussion examining controversial topics: global warming, political tyranny, religious fanaticism, etc., but there are more pressing issues at hand. The current industrial civilization considers itself an elegant experiment in progress and stability.  In reality, it is a lunatic who defecates in its bed and demands the obedience of its subjects in a headlong rush toward global suicide.
Let's begin with water.
Much of the world is already experiencing a crisis obtaining potable water.  Human beings are essentially animalized water.  If we pour water into ourselves it immediately becomes us.  It moves, it thinks, and it forgets that it is water.  98.25 percent of the world's water is saline.  Of the remaining 1.75 %, eighty percent is frozen.  That means that less than 1/3 of 1 percent of all the drinking water in the world is available to all the life that needs fresh water to survive.  No new water is being produced.  Supplies are finite.  Currently, human toxins and practices have poisoned a significant amount of that available water.  In the U.S., 50 % of our drinking water is from underground aquifers that are being pumped dry or poisoned from waste seepage.  Those aquifers took 100,000 years to create.  They cannot be replaced.     
Technocrats insist that science will find a way to de-salinize the oceans for our use, meanwhile local governments can't afford to fill the potholes in our streets, let alone balance the federal, state and local budgets.  It's estimated that by 2015 many countries will face severe water shortages and in fifty years whole countries may be completely depopulated by the total absence of drinkable water. The glacier that provides all of the drinking water to Peru has shrunk by one quarter in the last decade.  When it is gone, there will be no water for that Nation.   
In response to this crisis, what are the clearly defined goals of the technological leaders, their governments and financial institutions?  There are none.  While global corporations move to privatize water in the poorest nations of the earth to profit from the crisis, there is a purposeful turning away from the shared responsibility of insuring adequate basic resources for humanity.
How about soil?
It has taken about 100,000 years to build the world's topsoil.  Due to the giant shift in agriculture and population growth over the last 5000 years, fifty percent of the world's topsoil is gone.  In twenty years, 30% more will have blown away.  That's eighty percent of the world's arable soil, gone forever.  There have been positive discoveries that could redevelop soils.  Pre-Columbian Indigenous Americans in Boliva have been found to have engineered a soil composite that may accelerate the development of arable soil and regenerate overused or abused soil.  But, so far, no one has come forward showing the slightest interest in actually paying for it, and usable results are not to be gained overnight..
North and South America have been devastated.  Six billion tons of soil is lost per year in the U.S.  During the Cold War, a Soviet scientist once recommended that the Soviets stop the arms race because he estimated that in 100 years the U.S. could no longer grow enough food to survive.  In Asia, 20 billion tons are now being lost annually.  Millions of children starve to death annually in reach of this great and modern industrial civilization.  Third world countries are encouraged to grow cash crops, harvest resources, or develop industrially so as to pay back their international debts rather than grow food to feed their peoples.  In the face of deforestation, development, progress and lack of necessities (like water), 10,000 distinct and irreplaceable species are lost every year.  The loss is permanent.   What could be a better indicator of the sanity of a civilization than its desire and commitment to protect the very resources essential to its survival?
Still not convinced?  Let's talk DNA.
The architectural elegance of DNA, the genetic material of the planet, is evidence of the vulnerable quality of creation.  All of the DNA molecules of all the humans who have ever lived would fit into one teardrop. That is, 80 billion molecules in a teardrop.  Everything that will happen to the future of human beings on this planet depends on the quality and protection of that teardrop.
War on Terror?  Here is the real Terror!
           There are 264 million tons of hazardous waste spread liberally around the U.S. each year in the form of 70,000 (mostly untested) chemicals and their by-products. To these, add 1000 more untested chemicals each year.
             DNA contains the information and intelligence at the root of an Organism.  It is known that chemicals can enter the body, and go straight to the cells, attaching themselves and disrupting, modifying, mutating or destroying that information and intelligence.  This is damage that cannot be altered and will be part of the human species forever.  Some defects can be carried, only to show up in later generations. Serious birth defects in humans alone have doubled in the last 25 years.  The worst effects are not expected to appear for another 10 to 20 years.  We will spend billions to fight a war on terror yet to come, and only pennies to fight the daily poisoning of our children and the chemical threat to the DNA of our species. Where is the responsibility to be found in the freedoms that guarantee the capitalistic fervor that drives these companies to gamble with the future of our species?
The economic systems developed on the principle of an endless compulsion to growth are obsolete and must be abandoned immediately for systems which demand society be outfitted with artifacts that last centuries not days or months. Systems that judge their success by GNP must be outlawed and replaced with systems that operate on renewable resources; recycling non-renewables at 100%, and producing no more waste than a local region can dispose of naturally.  The U.S., in order to survive, must cut production and use of resources at a minimum of 50%.
 Third world debt must be forgiven outright or traded for the establishment of wilderness systems. The present economic structures are based on a process that begins with the depletion of finite resources, proceeds to the manufacturing of disposable products which immediately begin to depreciate in value and quality, ending with their disposal as non-renewable wastes which are beyond the natural capacity of the earth to dissipate.  Sanity?  No.  Common sense?  Negative.
Each instant, one million new faces appear on the earth--representing many species and forms. The vanity and arrogance of human beings in creating and expanding the role of potentially deadly toxins and weapons points not to a healthy society, culture, or civilization but to a scorched psyche that has become resistant and maladaptive, even sinister.  Primary human bonds, which connect families and provide roles that incorporate citizens of all ages into familial relationships, have been replaced with the secondary commercial bonds of consumerism.  
The new revelations of quantum science and universal cosmologies demand that those who believe in technology commit to a new understanding of the Universe as one entity; inter-connected, inter-reliant, and inter-related in every way.  To separate humanity from this cosmology will result in a continued insanity that will bring about nothing less than the suicide of our species.
Scholars have long lamented the destruction of the library at Alexandria at the hands of barbarians who burned the manuscripts to heat their bath water because they were unable to grasp the beauty they cast into the flame. Those who discount these warnings have only to examine themselves in a mirror to see the faces of those same barbarians.    

(Much of this material was gathered from a book by Dr. Brian Swimme.  See bibliography.)