My daughter is a GIS specialist. She works for a nonprofit on contract to the City of Baltimore. She creates mashup maps that plot various kinds of social data to find where they intersect, and subsequently where the best places to direct grant monies would be.
It is a vast underuse of the technology, and her skills. When she was in grad school, she showed me how she could hook into satellite views and auto-map tools and look at the earth's surface, run various imaging programs and be able to interpret what was below the surface, perhaps to find buried resources or archaeological sites. It's all jaw-dropping. But...so what? You can do it, but what can you do WITH it? There are very few peace-time uses for the technology.
Oil/mineral companies can find what they are looking for with greater assurance then ever before. But that won't resolve dependence on a dwindling resource, or political tensions in the places where the reserves happen to be. It's extraordinary that I can turn on my Blackberry and read email 24/7 -- do I want to work 24/7? Jukebox phones and i-Phones -- unbelievable to have that much power in the palm of your hand. Except for the novelty, what do I need it for?
I've read that new technology enters society as a 'toy' or a 'game' because people are more comfortable playing Space Invaders on their home computers, rather than worrying that HAL will run their lives. Intelligent uses for the technology comes later. I hope so.
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Good points on the proper uses of technology. In history, war has always been the source of need and demands and motive forces for new techs and creations , and then peaceful applications follows. That's good enough.
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