Does Better Technology make Better People?

Probably not.

But I should update this question, to ask about our latest technology: the Computer and its Software. But even that is not a fair question, because people had been so altered by the Industrial Revolution before the Computer came along.

I have to restrict my question to my own situation. I grew up in the Industrial Midwest, became an Electronic Engineer, and then a Tech Writer, working in Silicon Valley.

And I can ask this question for each of my life's phases.

The Industrial Midwest was no picnic. And the people in it were not the nicest. And its most important technology, was the Automobile. That did not make us better people. I thought I was a cut above average, because I had my own airplane, but that did not make me a better person either. I got into a disastrous marriage that ended badly, with the suicide of my wife. That was pretty bad!

Electronics were the result of WWII, and the technology was based on the Vacuum Tube - that was mass produced, in every size imaginable. I ended up working on some expensive, exotic Radar Systems designed to detect Soviet Nuclear Bombers - that never existed. This did not make us better persons either.

Solid State technology made the Vacuum Tube obsolete, and I was out of a job! The technology however, advanced at a rapid pace and produced the Digital Computer. And I was soon working on that. In Southern California, in Ventura county, Los Angeles county, Orange county, and San Diego county. Computer companies sprang up, and then died, like mushrooms growing on manure. This was insane, we were not better, but crazier. I left for Silicon Valley, where things were not so crazy.

/But the craziness followed me there, and got even worse. And even spread northward, to Seattle!

This was too much for me to handle, and I moved to Costa Rica, where people were still friendly.