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Modern know-how has at all times been geared towards the manufacturing of more effective weaponry. This progress has not all the time been acknowledged on the time it was occurring; indeed, as Beniger further notes, ‘human society seems quite to evolve largely through modifications so gradual as to be all however imperceptible, a minimum of in comparison with the generational cycles of the individuals by means of whose lives they unfold’ (1989, p. 2). Maybe because of this ‘historic myopia’, the value of the change might not be evaluated till the modifications has already passed (Beniger, 1989, p. 2). Critics resembling Henry David Thoreau, as an illustration, suggested that improvements in society’s technical means are not any guarantee of improved ends, and that they might instead lead to a mechanistic and fatalistic outlook, positing that ‘we don’t journey upon the railroad; it rides upon us’ (1845, p. 308).
Add that to the huge quantity of private data now stored on the internet – births, marriages, phone numbers, credit score scores, holiday pictures – and it’s generally tough to know the place the boundaries of our individuality really lie. On the medical stage, know-how can assist deal with extra sick individuals …