Final thoughts by Jeremy W.

Jeremy wrote a very thoughtful reaction to JUA...

JUA Conclusion

I think that the sites we visited didn’t help answer our questions. While I learned a lot visiting with the pharmacoepidemioligist, the environmentally friendly Epicenter, the Museum of Science, and at the Children’s Hospital, I didn’t gather enough information to accurately answer any of our focus questions. I feel that the sites we visited were bias in that they only argued in favor of science “Saving Us.” It’s hard to get any views at a hospital or environmentally sound building of how technology hurts us when these places are examples of technology saving us. I would like to have talked to a pollution specialist or a war analysis. I would like to have learned just how bad cars hurt the environment and other problems with modern technology. If JUA 2008 chooses to do this trip, they need to learn from our mistake and visit a more wide variety of sites. Additionally, the places we visited talked about subjects a little stray from our driving questions. To learn whether environmentally friendly buildings will save the planet, we need to learn more numbers and talk to experts. It was interesting seeing how one building incorporated green technologies, but I didn’t know to what extent. I didn’t know how much it cost them, if they were saving money, if they were saving that much energy. I didn’t know how they put the system in place and the benefits and consequences of the building for its artists and for the community. I learned a lot at the MOS, but there wasn’t enough specific information about renewable energy. I liked the solar-wind power exhibit, but all I learned was how a wind mill works, not how it can change the world. I really enjoyed my time at the Children’s Hospital, but the only really helpful information was that of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Otherwise, the slideshow and the tour of the microbiology and virology labs didn’t help me answer our questions. I can see how technology helps the hospital prevent infections, analyze bacteria, and even show good slideshows, but I couldn’t get a good perspective on whether these technologies will ultimately save us. Sure they seem to help now, but the doctors/scientists didn’t say to what extent and the problems that they endure. If I don’t know about their successes and failures, then I can’t truly say whether this technology is saving us or not. However, I learned a lot at all the exhibits, and regardless if I answered our focus questions or not, I answered a thousand others. I learned a lot about technology, medicine, and renewable resources and it will help me with my life. Most importantly, at least more so than the specific facts that I learned which I will probably forget soon, I learned to be a better thinker. I analyzed everything I head, saw, smelt, touched, and tasted. I took in knowledge and came out with ideas. I brought a notebook along the trip, and by the end, I came out with designs for utopian communities, subways, skyscrapers, restaurants, and youth hostels. This experience allowed me to see what the quality of life is in Boston. For the most part, people seemed happy. However, the traffic jams, high cost of food, pollution, dirt, coldness, and other little things made me realize that there is so much that needs improvement. We may have clean technology, new highways, cheaper food, green buildings, warm clothes and spaces, but the majority of Boston doesn’t enjoy these luxuries. We still have problems that reduce the quality of life. Until these problems are solved, or at least minimized, we are dying. We may have the technology that can save us, but until we put in place, we are losing. Many people believe that seeing evil and doing nothing is almost as bad as doing that evil oneself. The same applies to technology. Learning the technology that can increase the quality of our lives, but doing nothing, is just as bad as not trying to gain new technologies. Why can’t these revolutionary sciences be put in place? If they aren’t in place, there must be an answer. If there is an answer, then science is not winning. It may not be slaying us, but it just as well may be. Unless we use science to save us, we will die. People are dying. People around the world die every day from starvation, disease, and lack of shelter, among others. Many people think that global warming will result in ruin and that we don’t have the safe measures to protect people from war and nuclear holocaust. Innocent people do die in war and countries do have nuclear weapons. Science must act to save us, because by not acting, it is indirectly slaying us. For it was this science that allowed for so many people to be alive and get sick and develop guns and machines to contribute to global warming. I am not suggesting that we take away all of our technologies because that would be wrong. They have increased our quality of life. More people can be alive. Each person can have enough food and shelter and medicine to live happily. We have the means to travel to experience more in the world. We have the institutions to let people learn, play, and have fun. People can live an entire life in happiness- with school, friends, a fun job, and a happy retirement. It is possible for every person to be happy. We must not get rid of our technologies. However, we need to recognize that we are past the point of improving our quality of life and onto hurting it. We must recognize this error, fix our mistakes, and step forward with caution so that technology adds to happiness and doesn’t take away from it. In our experience here in Boston, experiencing the life of students, employees, the rich, the poor, we have found that for the most part, technology is a good thing and can save us. Most importantly, we have found out what it will save us from. Before we left on JUA, I asked my peers what science is going to save us from and they had no answers. A few people said global warming, but there was no general consensus. But on this trip, we discovered that science is going to save us from living unhappy. It’s going to save us from living happily while others live unhappily. Science causes many evils, but we are evil if we don’t use science. Science causes much happiness, but we are unhappy with the results of science. Science will save us. But we must change our ways now. Otherwise, science is as guilty for causing all the bad in the world as every bad person. It is time for America to step up and take action. It is not too late to build a better place to live. It is not too late to late to realize our mistakes and revitalize the planet. It is not too late to acknowledge the problems with the world and to take action. It is not too late to act based on what we now know. We will not know until we are too late.