Describe three ways that computers have made the world safer and less safe.
Like everything in the world, there is a yin and a yang, a balance. You can’t have good without the bad. Well computers adhere to this code as well, even if they aren’t actual living beings. Computers have allowed us to reach our highest potential as human beings in a lot of cases, but computers also allow us to reach new levels of darkness.
To start with the bright side, computers have let us become closer as a species than ever before seen. We share pictures, react to memes, and donate to those in need, and without computers these people would be complete and utter strangers to us. Even me personally, I have friends that live hundreds of miles away, but we play video games together from time to time. Secondly, the speed at which information can be spread instantly anywhere in the world. For example, we can instantly learn that there was an earthquake that just hit off the coast of Hawaii and there’s warnings for a tsunami. This can be shared instantly, and people can evacuate or prepare, in turn saving lives. The sharing of information in hospitals and between law enforcement agencies is another example of how computers have saved countless lives.
However, computers did not bring just sunshine and rainbows to the human race, they introduced some atrocities to us as well. For starters, cyberbullying is an unfortunate reality in the cyber space today. It has caused depression, anxiety, and in the worst cases suicide. This continues to happen as well thanks to the anonymity computers offer. There’s virtually no way to tell who somebody is online. There’s also the glooming fact that computers can be used to harm or even kill other people very easily. Like an attack on a country’s infrastructure can be catastrophic and result in the loss of human lives. Computers also ruin lives too. Your information can be taken instantly and with ease. Money can be stolen from savings accounts, people can steal your credit card information and put you in debt, and all the scams that you run into online like fake clothes or charities.
In the end, computers are machines that do what humans tell them to do. If the world was a perfect place, computers would be at the forefront to everything good, but the world isn’t perfect. There are evil people out there that take advantage of the capabilities that computers offer. It’s like Star Wars, the light-side versus the dark-side.