t does not take genius to see that there is a very straightforward sense in which societies are becoming more violent places in which to live.  There is a kind of indifference towards others that seems beyond the pale.  It is an indifference that thrives notwithstanding the fact that there is no end to talk about mutual respect.  Trips down memory lane can be boring and tiring and utterly pointless.  Yet, there is the simple truth that there was more basic decency decades ago than there is now although the rhetoric of decency did not exist back then.  This contrast cries out for an explanation.  And I have one to offer.

My view quite simply is that technology has contributed mightily to the decline of basic decency and thus to the rise of violence.  This is because precisely technology has made it possible each person to be almost entirely into his or her world. 

Back in the day, people actually went from one place to another without things in their ears.  For example, people would get on and off public transportation with an enormous awareness of what was going on around them.  In general, being aware of one’s surrounding was—back in the day—simply a part of being a reflective person.  Life itself nurtured such awareness, which is to say that people essentially had to work at not being aware of their surroundings.  In a public setting, we were all pretty much understood that unless our behavior was extremely subtle people around us would pick up on it. 

That is so very much not true these days.  Watch a person on the subway nowadays listening to portable music player.  There is a very good chance that everybody riding in very same car could drop dead and the person would not notice.  Why?  Because the individual would be into the music to which she or he is listening.  Being into the music and fiddling with the portable music device would occupy just about every ounce of the person’s attention.  Or if not that, there would be that cell phone conversation, where the person talks loud enough for all the world to hear.  And if that were not enough, the person talks about something utterly personal. 

So as a result of technology, people go about the day "in their world"; and God forbid if anyone should dare disturb such individuals—except perhaps to save that individual’s life. 

Please notice how afraid we have all become of interrupting individuals in their world.  We step around them or go out the other door.  We are, in any case, reluctant to say “Excuse me.  May I get by” unless that is absolutely necessary because there is no other way to proceed.  Not to do so could very well result in an eruption of violence for disturbing the person in his world.  And this everyone knows. 

Now a society of people "into their world" is absolutely ripe for violence.  I was riding the metro the other day and the guy standing across from me was so into his music and his portable player that I am not sure that he ever noticed that I was there.  A person standing in my place could have stripped naked and then put her or his clothes back on; and I do not that think the guy would ever have noticed. 

And if the person standing in my place had robbed or killed someone would the guy so into his music and music device have noticed then?  There is no reason to think so. 

So notice what has happened.  Notwithstanding all the rhetoric about mutual respect, the simple truth of the matter is that indifference has skyrocketed.  As we plunge into our world in one way or the other with this or that portable device, we do not much care about what happens to others just so long as we can continue in our world with our portable device. 

Or to put the point another way: we have become increasingly numb to others as we plunge in the “my-world” that is increasingly and ever more ingeniously made possible by technology.  This is no doubt part of the explanation for why it is that parents can leave an infant child in a car in the middle of the summer.  Moral sensibilities have been deadened in the most commonsensical areas of life.

Moral numbness is the handmaiden of evil.  And technology has done something rather striking: it has given rise to a form of de-evolution.  Far from becoming more heightened as a result of technology, our moral senses are becoming increasingly numb—so much so that the kind of basic decency that we once took for granted may very well disappear. 

This is not mere hyperbole.  It is a simple fact that the senses must be used in order to retain their sharpness.  We know that experience makes a profound difference.  So it stands to reason that if we minimize significantly the social experiences in which people engage, then a significant sharpness is lost in terms of what people observe with their senses. 

Aristotle put it very nicely: We become just by being just—by forging the habit of justice.  If this is right, then a habit once in place can be severely weakened if it is not reinforced or radically undermined.  This is obviously true of justice.  Well, considerateness is no different from justice in this regard.  And when considerateness goes by the wayside, justice will surely follow. 

Routines configure our lives.  And the routine of being into “my-world”, with all of the portable technological devices now available, is bringing about a transformation that radically favors evil—not because anyone has the thought of becoming an evil person but simply because being morally numb makes us a conduit for evil simply because we do not care about what is going on around us and simply because we become hostile if anyone should disturb us in “our-world”. 

This is why I know that Raymond Kurzweil’s optimism is more than a bit premature.  The difference between the past and the present in term of technology can be put as follows: In the past, technology essentially contributed to none other than means-end successes.  The airplane, for instance, made it possible to get from point A to point B much, much faster.  Airplanes did not transform the nature of their human passengers.

Presently, technology is doing something quite unlike anything that we have heretofore seen: it is transforming the very nature of those who use it.  And I have given reason to believe that it is a mistake to be simply optimistic about the nature of that transformation; for there is nothing good about moral numbness precisely because from a game theoretic point of view moral numbness is unbelievably fertile ground for evil. That is, one can give a formal argument to show that in a society where the vast majority of its members are numb, then it is also the case that evil will abound in that society. 

The issue, of course, is not to get rid of technology.  Rather, we must make sure that technology does not get rid of what is it is to be morally us. And we can do the latter only if we acknowledge the problem in the first place.  And my concern with the genius of Ray Kurzweil is that he is so besotted with technological successes that, for instance, the reality of moral numbness coming about in the wake of such successes, and so evil itself, has simply not occurred to his extraordinary brain. Slightly paraphrasing parents back in the day.  Is this a case of being: "Too smart for the moral good of humanity"?