Roger.Hicks@spaceship-earth.de
The Prime Minister is right to be concerned about his children's' techno-wizardry
SIR - The Prime Minister's concern that "the rapid succession of technological developments could destabilise society", which you cite in Wednesday's Telegraph [I worry about my hi-tech children, confesses Blair, 3 May 2000] is more than justified, but I do not think he realises just how serious and threatening the situation is.
Progress in the physical sciences has given us an immense and ever increasing degree of control over the physical world, but progress in our understanding and control of our own human nature and of society is lagging far behind.
It is apparent that we have very little control over where we are headed, and since the major forces driving us are neither enlightened nor benign, they will inevitably lead to catastrophe.
The unbridled expansion of individual motorisation and air travel are just two prime expressions of these forces. It is inconceivable that either can be sustained on a finite planet with a population already exceeding 6 billion, but human wants (rather than needs) and stupidity, as well as insane "economic necessity", misconceived as natural laws, continue to drive us in this suicidal direction.
Mr Blair has good reason to be concerned. Perhaps it is this situation that the peaceful demonstrators (not the hooligans) against world capitalism can sense, if not yet clearly define or offer, a remedy for.
