Of course your initial reaction would be that naturally we could live without technology. After all, the human race has been around for thousands of years without technology and it lived long enough to last up to the invention of technology.
However, there is living and there is “living”. You can live in a state where you have nothing and are just basically surviving from day to day. Always hungry, always alert and constantly dirty. You would also probably be weak from disease and deficiencies. It is much better (perhaps?) to live in a state where everything you need is only a couple of steps away. Your environment is temperature controlled and you have excellent health. You are strong and fit if you wish to be due to a good energy intake and safe way to turn that energy into muscle (or fat depending on your lifestyle).
One state of living has been this way for thousands of years while the later state of living has pretty much only been around since the technological revolution. I know I would much prefer to be running on a treadmill next to a blond haired bombshell instead of trying to run away from a sabre toothed tiger.
That was then and this is now. Our lives are intricately entwined with technology (I seem to be waxing poetic today 🙂 ) rather than being entwined with twigs and if that technology, through some sort of Bruce Willis apocalypse, were to disappear then what state would we be in?
I would have to say that some of us, the outdoor rugged grizzly Adams types, would survive in some manner however, quite a lot of us would simply perish. This is because without technology we just would not be able to look after ourselves.
Take me for instance, a fat balding computerphile who is close to the half century mark (and I’m not talking about cricket). If you were to take me and plunk me down in the middle of the Australian outback without even so much as a roll of toilet paper I would most probably, in fact would definitely, be a crispy blubbering wreck of a human being within a matter of hours. In a matter of days, provided I find some water, as soon as my fat stores run out, I would be dingo food.
Yet the native population, who didn’t have technology, lived on the exact same land for thousands of years and manage to survive, and get fat! They had a culture, arts and crafts as well as some kick ass abs!
It is technology which has made us what we are today and if that technology were to disappear then I would say that so would we. Some of us may survive but we would not be living. In the sense that we call living now. Is that a good or bad thing? I don’t know, you can tell us what we think in the comments below.
