The Problem with Utility as a Measure of Good

I'm a reasonable fan of technological progress. I'm not completely blind to the spiritual and cultural problems technological advances have created, and will continue to accelerate. (The real problems of mankind haven't changed in thousands of years.)

These days I watch the fascination of the Internet and Web 2.0 and the Google "brain." People get excited, people get rich.

Most of the arguments for going forward are utilitarian: X technology helps people do Y better, so it must be good.

Simon Ings, a science fiction writer, said this: "When our machines overtook us, too complex and efficient for us to control, they did it so fast and so smoothly and so usefully, only a fool or a prophet would have dared complain."

May the Lord help us to be fools and prophets at the right time.