THBT we have become slaves to technology - rebuttal speeches

Second proposing speech
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second proposing speech and thank you for reading us today. The first speeches have settled the ground of our debate and we shall now develop why we have become slaves to technology.

First of all, we have to make things clear. It seems that the opposition is going sometimes off-subject when they think that we consider technology as “the one-eyed monster”. We are not here to discuss whether technology is good or bad, it’s another debate. 
Moreover, we thank the opposition for at least admitting that our society is dependent on science and technology. Dependent means that you rely on technology and that you have abandoned a part of your freedom, it’s the first step to slavery. […]
 

by AC
 

Second opposing speech
Dear readers, thank you for following this debate. Well, it seems so far that the only idea given in favor of the motion is still the over and over stated fact that technology has spread everywhere. I will not deny that. But how in the world is this proof that we have become slaves to technology? Throughout history slaves were always the ones surrounding their master, ready to comply with all his wishes and not the other way around. Therefore I cannot see any argument in the idea of quantity. |…]
 

by PV

Second proposing speech
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second proposing speech and thank you for reading us today. The first speeches have settled the ground of our debate and we shall now develop why we have become slaves to technology.
First of all, we have to make things clear. It seems that the opposition is going sometimes off-subject when they think that we consider technology as “the one-eyed monster”. We are not here to discuss whether technology is good or bad, it’s another debate. 
 

Moreover, we thank the opposition for at least admitting that our society is dependent on science and technology. Dependent means that you rely on technology and that you have abandoned a part of your freedom, it’s the first step to slavery.
 

In fact, we are more than dependent on technology for two major reasons, we don’t master it and we don’t control it. It’s a fact that can’t be denied when you look at recent technological disasters. As a first example, we have the catastrophe of Fukushima which shows that we still don’t master nuclear energy, but even if it is risky we still build a lot of new nuclear plants because we can’t produce massive energy otherwise. Once you have created a technology, you don’t know how to live without it, you don’t have the freedom of choice, and you become the slave of your creation. The illustrations of our limits on technology mastery are numerous. Pharmaceutical companies have produced a lot of lethal medicines without knowing it (at least at first) like cerivastatin which was supposed to cure heavy cholesterol cases and finally killed 7577 people in the world. Another example is the loss of control on information: since the creation of Internet, it has become really easy to spread wrong information because you don’t know who is sending it. For example, you don’t know who Anonymous is on Friday debate blog when he posts a comment.  But the strongest illustration of our limit of control on technology is probably global warming: we have produced tons of gases during years and we haven’t measured the risks. Because of that many species have disappeared and it is going to continue. When technology goes on a rampage, it is a catastrophe and humanity cannot withstand it. Like a slave who is afraid of its master, we are afraid of the technology we have created.
 

Technology is even going further; it creates needs that aren’t real ones. Technology has invaded many fields and people try to use it for anything. There was a study published in 2009 in The Guardian which showed that a quarter of some American universities students were using “smart drugs” to enhance their intellectual capacities. In the same study, it was said that these pills had no real effects but students couldn’t stop using it because they became addicted to it. This is even more than being slave to technology because it’s a need that wasn’t a real one but that was created by technology. Another illustration of that is probably the smartphones phenomenon, this intelligent phone that is able to do anything and many people have become addicted to it. The capacity of smartphones to do everything and not only communicate has created a lot of fanatics. When it comes to devotion, you become slave of technology without even knowing it. There is a new illness called cyber addiction and these people cannot live without technology, these are extreme cases that are quite numerous contrary to what could be thought but again these people are more than slaves to technology. A medical high school in Geneva has written that it concerned more than 600 000 people in France.
 

As a conclusion, I would say that like the master that offers a home and food to his slave, technology gives us comfort but in fact it deprives us of our freedom and sometimes we are not aware of it.
 

Thank you for reading us and vote for us.
 

AC
 

Second opposing speech
Dear readers, thank you for following this debate. Well, it seems so far that the only idea given in favor of the motion is still the over and over stated fact that technology has spread everywhere. I will not deny that. But how in the world is this proof that we have become slaves to technology? Throughout history slaves were always the ones surrounding their master, ready to comply with all his wishes and not the other way around. Therefore I cannot see any argument in the idea of quantity.
 

I cannot either deny that we tend to use technology a lot in our everyday lives. Why would not we? It is very convenient and as ALe said it saves a great amount of time. At best, it only demonstrates we have created some extraordinary tools. At worse, it could show some people have become ADDICTS to technology because they don’t have a proper control over themselves. But as the first opposer explained, addicts and slaves are two different kinds of people and should not be put under the same label.
 

Now, I may have some questions to ask. How do you think technology is generated? Is technology able to think by itself? Could technology participate in this debate? These might seem stupid questions but they are in fact essential when you start thinking the technology/man relationship as a master/slave one. I will answer these questions in this article to show you that we definitely have not become slaves to technology.
 

Technology has completely changed different aspects of our everyday lives, such as communication, health care, transport or more simply spare-time activities, at an amazing pace over the last centuries. And there is one thing in common with all these changes: they were created by us, humans, and for us. Technology does not generate itself. It is only a means people created to satisfy their expectations. The proof is that men have a real power over technology. The kind of power a slave could never have upon its (yeah “its” because according to Aristotle, a slave is nothing but an “animated tool”, certainly not a person) master: men can decide if a technology should exist or just disappear because technology is diffused across the world on the basis of its popularity.
 

Plus, we all know situations where men really have become slaves to technology. These are told in movies such as I-Robot or Matrix. In fact, these SCIENCE-FICTION TALES predict that in some future technology will take the lead of the world. Then maybe, maybe in this future this debate could legitimately take place but have a look at today’s technology: cars and bikes certainly cannot drive on their own, computers cannot compute themselves, and so on... Technology does not have the one thing that could allow it to be our master: a conscience. On the contrary, we still possess the free-will, the conscience necessary to be able to drive cars and bikes wherever and whenever WE WANT, to make computers compute whatever WE want… and if necessary to shut it down. Where do you see even the shadow of us being slaves to technology in all that?
 

It is not that technology is all white. As my fellow said in the first opposing article, some people are indeed addicts or better said are very dependants of technology. But let’s not make generalities out of nothing tangible. There are and will always be leaks, people who cannot control technology because they are not totally aware of its dangers. It just means they lack a proper education in that matter.
 

I can positively conclude that we have not become slaves to technology. We hold in our hands the power to control it and we should remember we are lucky to have so many different tools that we can choose how to make technology work for us. Thank you for reading and vote for us!
PV