The human predilection for invention and technology has been lauded down through the ages as our greatest trait. It has been seen as our distinct advantage over other animals and our key to the kingdom of heaven on earth. Our invention of the wheel, of engines, motorised vehicles, aeroplanes, computers, modern medicine, engineering, and long-distance communication devices and networks have all contributed to easier and more sophisticated lives. Technology has enriched us with comfortable homes, leisure time and entertainment. Scientific understanding has enabled us to live longer and in better health for those of us lucky enough to live in wealthy western nations.
Refrigeration Fuels the Factory Style Massacre of Animals Every Day
However, the other side of the coin is technology the harbinger of mass deaths. Think about refrigeration and the impact that cold storage has had on the lives of animals. Animals like cows, chickens, sheep, pigs and all those animals bred for human consumption. The market for fresh meat fed by factory abattoirs has exploded since technology delivered cold storage to warehouses and supermarkets across the globe. In the ancient world human beings did not eat a lot of meat because it was costly to produce and keep. Meat could be salted but salt was expensive. It could be dried but this process was only suitable in certain climates. That is where sacrifice came in – killing animals as a sacrifice to the gods was a special occasion and the process involved sharing parts of the animal for religious rites and consuming the rest in feast mode. Death for animals was not some mass killing factory style, which it has become for the last couple of centuries in the west. George Orwell’s Animal Farm may have been about the dangers of totalitarian communism, but it, also, raises red flags about the fate of animals in the modern world.
Scientific Invention Feeds the War Machine
Technology the harbinger of mass deaths is most noticeable in the theatres of war. The industrial military behemoth was born in the lead up to the Great War just after the turn of the 20C. Science was co-opted by national governments in Europe to produce artillery, armaments, guns, tanks, and chemical weapons on a scale never seen before. The Germans, French, and British led the way in building the capability to kill around 40 million people. The military class in these European powers brought technology to bear upon their cyclical love of war to produce mass killing fields never seen in battle before. Whole generations of young men were wiped out around the world, as war infected countries and territories everywhere.
The political situation in Europe returned a Second World War shortly after the Great War. Less than 20 years later the children of those who may have fought and died in the First World War were forced to take up arms and take part in mass slaughter. Technology produced faster tanks for Hitler’s Blitzkrieg and the German forces rapidly conquered western Europe in weeks. The French were defeated by superior technology, tactics, and a more motivated German military. The British invested their technology into aircraft and radar to save their island from defeat by the Luftwaffe before the Americans came into the war a couple of years later. The Russians suffered terribly at the hands of Hitler’s armies but held the line and saved all of Europe from total capitulation in the end. Some 75 million people died as a result of WW2 with greater technology fuelling even more mass death. Think about the death camps in Germany and Poland, where chemical weapons were used to exterminate Jews and other unwanted members of society.
Think about drones blowing up targets in Afghanistan and the Middle East today. Governments and their military agents do not even have to get their hands dirty in the 21C. They can send in a weaponised drone from a safe vantage point somewhere on the other side of the planet. How scary would that be if someone started targeting your suburb or city with weapons like these.
Technology the harbinger of mass deaths with atomic bombs and first strike nuclear capabilities in the arsenals of nation states around the globe. Scientific invention is firmly in the pocket of the industrialised military sector. Every country produces or buys weapons to protect its interests and borders. Most of us ignore this side of the equation and focus on our own small worlds. We are like racehorses wearing blinkers to keep us from looking outside of our lane. Occasionally, we worry about the might of China or a madman in the White House like Donald Trump but mostly we keep our heads down.