Greg Milner, author of the book Pinpoint tells a fascinating story about navigation, starting with the Polynesian navigation techniques and building up to the conception of GPS and its eventual release to the public.
Milner's Thesis: |
While GPS is a remarkable technology that increases the overall productivity of the human civilization and provides ease of transport for everyone with a phone, it comes at a risk. Humanity's increasing dependence on the technology leaves us vulnerable as we put too much trust in the system, and it rewires are brains to be less adept at navigation.
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I understand Milner's thesis and I recognize the dangers involved in the widespread use of GPS, but I do not believe there is an effective method of countering the effect that GPS has on the brain. As for humanity's overconfidence in the system, Milner provides a couple examples of people getting lost due to their GPS, which Milner calls death by GPS, but all the examples happen in extremely rural parts of the United States, and it seems like most of these instances could have been avoided by using common sense. For example, one couple gets lost after deciding they were going to take an alternate scenic route and they do not even double check the the route to make sure it goes to the right place. I do not believe that these examples are sufficient evidence for proving faults in GPS. They are more examples of faults in human cognition. Milner tries to relate human's increasing use of smartphones to GPS, and while there is no doubt that there is a relation, it is not nearly as played out as Milner proposes. Milner also states that GPS is the defining technology of the twenty-first century, and while I agree it is an important part of our society today, none of the applications would be as widespread or unique if the smartphone didn't exist. The smartphone defines the twenty-first century so far, and GPS is just one aspect of a smartphone.
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There is a second theme that I find more compelling. Milner demonstrates through his book that one of the defining technologies of our civilization came out of humanity's desire to kill. After all, GPS was originally developed for the military. He also ties in the fact that every single human of earth has the right to the basic capabilities of the GPS system, including ISIS. The United States military essentially pays for ISIS's targeting, which is both disturbing and thought provoking. The one internationally free utility in existence started out as a targeting system for nuclear missiles and a navigation system for the world's most formidable ships. This illustrates a point about humanity, that the one universally free utility started out killing people and is still used today for the same reasons.
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