Anti-technologists make the point that before modern technology came along (late 1800s to present) life was

better. People did not have as long of a work day, they did not have their bosses calling them while they were traveling, and they enjoyed more festivals and holidays as they do currently. As well, they would say, current society measures their happiness in terms of possession instead of their actual state of well-being. However, those living prior to the age of technology could easily die due to a failed crop, a common cold/flu, and did not have much protection from corrupt officials. In which period of time do you think society had the most quality of life and what would you define their quality as? I was born into an above-average family. I was loved by my nuclear family and warmly embraced by my extended family. I attended a public school in my community. The teachers were virtually our second parents; they were nice and took their job seriously. After school, I played soccer with the other kids on the community soccer field, gathered with the other kids in the evenings to be tutored and listened to stories from the older folks, attended the local catholic church on Sunday (Sunday school) and visited grandparents and the rest of the extended family in the village every now and then. In my community, there were extensive social network, which bestow responsibility on the elders, not necessarily your parents to advise and instil discipline in the young ones. One of the things that made life richer for me and most of the kids I grew up with was this close social network system everyone knew everyone in the community. This system helped instil rich values into the young ones. Fast-forward to the present day, the community soccer field is now a shopping mall; the public school I attended has been pulled down and a branch of the largest telecommunication company in the country stands in its place. Phone calls, text messages and emails are the predominant means of communication with members of the extended family in the village and childhood friends. It can be argued that this form of communication saves the individual the ordeal of travelling over long distances with an inherent chance of road accidents. Additionally, with less people travelling, vehicular pollution of the environment will be on the decline a plus for the green camp. Finally, information is disseminated at an astronomical rate. As this form of
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communication or socialization takes centre stage, there is a drastic drop in the amount of time we spend together physically. The traditional socialization system is on the decline. After a careful reflection of this change in the traditional socialization system, I asked myself, is the decline in the traditional socialization system due, mainly to technology? Are we not using technology to cause a wrong change?

Mining has been with us for some time now. However, in the 1980s there was a high influx of mining consortiums into the country. The reason for this was the emphasis on privatization of state owned properties or companies. The mining companies brought with them new mining technologies. As the requirements for their activities in the community, the mining companies built boreholes to provide safe water, roads, schools, electricity, hospitals, set up educational scholarship funds for deserving local students and created jobs for the locals. These requirements were supposed to improve the livelihood of the locals. Because of these incentives, chiefs of various villages literally visited the miners into their community. Mining like many human activities create waste, and the question is where does the waste go? A common response will be the waster goes into the air, water, land, us, animals, etc. The creation of a mining site requires deforestation of a very large area. In some instances, the forest being considered by the miners houses untouched or virgin habitats. The destruction of such a forest means the disappearance of such untouched or virgin habitats. Other problems associated with mining activity include severe soil erosion and noise pollution. Most people will agree that the mining companies elevated the livelihood of the local people with the provision of high tech social amenities. However, was it at a cost as demonstrated above, right?

There is technological advancement in the agriculture sector. Gone are the days where the farmer depended mostly on the rain for the survival of his/her crops. Now, with modern irrigation systems, crops are able to grow in adverse weather. The current fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides are effective in enhancing crop production with considerably less negative impact on the environment. Additionally, with our current technology, we are able to till and harvest large fields with fewer hired hands and at a faster rate. The question that arises from this trend of reduced hired hands at a farm is what happens to the livelihood of the redundant hired hands?

Technology has changed how we do business. Back in the 1990s, bank transactions were manually done (not computerized). One major setback of this system was that the customer could only make withdrawals from the same branch of the bank where he/she was initially set up. A major implication of this was the need to carry lots of physical money around for business transactions. Confidence tricksters, armed robbers, etc. had a field day back then. With the introduction of new banking technologies, withdrawals can now be made at any branch of the bank or from an ATM. Furthermore, payment of goods and services can now be made with a card or via the internet. This system has made peoples lives convenient and has reduced the nefarious activities of confident tricksters, armed robbers, etc.

The change caused by technology is evident in the educational institutions. A typical example is the system of application to senior high school from junior high school. In the old days, students from the junior high school apply to enter senior high school using the paper base system. With this system, candidates were allowed to select three different schools in the same region. The paper application moved from one high school to another if there is a rejection from the first
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school. There were high instances of applications of qualified candidates getting lost in transit. Additionally, kids from affluent families could force their way into the few good schools in the cities irrespective of their grade point. This is because, with the old system, the school officials had more power in the admission process. Some of these school officials abused their power. The result of this abuse of power was that students from poor background in some cases were better qualified than their affluent counterpart was were deprived of the opportunity to pursue their education in the few good schools. Even if the poor kid somehow ended up in a good school, he/she was often forced to study a program he/she did not select because their preference is offered to a rich kid. In view of these problems, a new system the computerized placement system was implemented. This system firstly allows candidates to select schools from different regions of the country without issues of losing their applications in transit. Secondly, this system removed power from the school officials with respect to admission of students. This resulted in a rapid decline in the corrupt practices originally encountered in the admission process. Isnt this new system bridging the gap between the rich and the poor kid in terms of gaining admission to good schools on merit and pursuing the courses he/she applied for?

Some years back, there were no or few hospitals/clinics in the rural areas. The ones, which were in existence even in the cities, had limited technology at their disposal. Many people die from ridiculous causes such as malaria and childbirth. Generally, these diseases were attributed to witchcraft, gods, deity, etc. So many people were forcibly accused of causing others to get sick through witchcraft. The punishments for such cases were severe in certain communities. With the advent of proper health care, there is a drop in the rate of mortality from some of these
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common diseases. The creation of a computer network dedicated to our health system has made it possible for a doctor in my village to have access to the same information on studies performed in the city. Days of attributing the causes of diseases to witchcrafts, gods, deity, etc. is almost gone. The number of people reacting wrongly to vaccinations is in decline, thanks to technology!

In conclusion, I believe technology has caused a change, in this instance, improved the overall quality of life good health care, democracy/freedom, comfort/convenience, etc. in our present society however, it was at a cost.

Why was this book written? In many parts of the text, the tone is very defensive. Were engineers truly under siege by society? Or did they just feel betrayed due to the prevailing mood of the day? Perhaps, more pertinently, Florman was born in 1925 and trained as a civil engineer. He would have been at the peak of his professional career during and after WWII. He would have seen the decline of his trade in the 1960s. Thus the question: is this text relevant? Did the
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engineers educated and trained in the 60s and 70s feel the same sense of betrayal by society? Or, as part of that society, did they embrace the new order? I am of the view that Florman wrote this book with the intention of answering or having the reader ask the following questions: 1. Why should I be an engineer? 2. Why am I doing what I am doing? As to whether Florman achieved this at the end, I will let the reader decide. Can we blame him for being defensive? Clearly, he is passionate about his profession and his defensive tone in certain sections of book is to be expected especially when the very society he has dedicated his professional life to serve does not appreciate it, ridiculing his effort sometimes.

Is this text relevant? Obviously, issues have changed and the book questions issues that are rarely asked in our society today. On that note, the book might not be entirely relevant today, however, it is a good book worth reading by practising engineers and new engineers alike. They will find a large variety of historical anecdote with references. These historical anecdotes are rarely thought in schools.

Were engineers truly under siege by society? Or did the engineers educated and trained in the 60s and 70s feel the same sense of betrayal by society? Or, as part of that society, did they embrace the new order? Well, with stories of Kurt Prfer, H-bombs, radioactive fallout from testing of nuclear weapons, DDT, nuclear holocaust, fatal failings of some medical drugs, etc. taking centre stage globally, one would expect society at that era to be hostile to the very people who provided such technology in the first place. The engineers at that time felt betrayed because
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their efforts, genuine in most cases, were not rewarded. They were blamed for everything that went wrong with society. There will be engineers like Florman in that era who will feel a sense of betrayal by the very society they serve. Then, you would have other engineers who embraced the new order of the day. It would be difficult to assume every engineer accepted the new order.