Governments and religions should fear “air pumps and electrical machines” because of what theses scientific advancements and others like it entail. In The Invention Of Air, Priestly states that “The only method of attaining to a truly valuable agreement is to promote the most perfect freedom of thinking and acting…in order that every point of difference may have an opportunity of being fully canvassed…..Truth will prevail and that then a rational, firm, and truly valuable union will take place.” What Priestly is talking about here that relates to the subject of governments and religions fearing air pumps and electrical machines is that if we explore a multitude of ideas and different technological advancements, then as a public we will find the ultimate truth. The reason governments and religions should fear this is because the rely on the ‘metaphorical’ ideas to keep people in line, and if people start realizing that the way we live might not be the most ideal or efficient way, then the people in government and in high positions in religion would lose their power. Another effect of this could be that the people will no longer look the governments and religious leaders for answers and leadership, making them obsolete.
The work done by Johnson in this book can be related to the new age technological advances we are starting to experiment in, such as genetic modifications and exploring subject we have absolutely no idea what the repercussions could be, such as bringing back dinosaurs, or advanced learning AI. These advancements are widening our knowledge as a species, however it doesn’t have the same kind of effect as it did during the time of Priestly, due to there not being too many advancements of the calibur coming out now a days. However, the ability to look into the past from present day allow us to see the caliber of the advancements that happened, so perhaps in 100 years we will be able to look back on today and see the true scale of all of our advancements and their unforeseen consequences.
2 thoughts on “Advance to Go (oh no)”
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Great post. I especially appreciate the perspective that in addition to losing support for their “metaphorical” ideas, people will simply stop looking to them for answers. The idea of governments and religions in their current state becoming obsolete would obviously have huge impacts on our way of life, but I agree that this is the direction we are heading.
Fantastic blog, your quote in the beginning is extremely powerful and gives lots of strength to your argument on why the fear of air pumps. The idea of people looking to themselves instead of those that are in leadership positions is a big scare for their society and a good effect to add in. Your ending paragraph is broad and very good at asking the reader a question and cause some introspection.