00100	INTRODUCTION
00200	
00300		These essays are concerned with how the quality of human life
00400	can  be  improved.   Most  of  my  ideas for improvement are based on
00500	application of present technology  and  improvements  in  it.   Where
00600	improvements in technology are proposed, they are almost all based on
00700	present scientific knowledge with the exception of  computer  science
00800	where I feel secure in predicting some specific advances. The purpose
00900	of these essays is not  to  predict  the  technological  future,  but
01000	rather  to  invent  it.   Therefore,  the  essays advocate particular
01100	useful projects and show the benefits, the problems, and methods  for
01200	overcoming  the difficulties insofar as my present knowledge and time
01300	permit.
01400	
01500		Of  course,  any  attempt  advocate  a   future   course   of
01600	technological  development must take a position on whether technology
01700	has been good for humanity so far, on the relative magnitude  of  the
01800	benefits  and  harmful effects, and on whether technological progress
01900	should continue as it has, whether some controls  should  be  put  on
02000	technological   development   or   its   application,   and  on  what
02100	developments should be emphasized.  My view is that
02200	
02300		1.  Human  life  has  improved  enormously  since  1700,  and
02400	technology has been the main source of this improvement.
02500	
02600		2.  The  harmful  side  effects of technology have been small
02700	compared to the  benefits.   Very  few  of  the  major  technological
02800	developments  or  their  industrial use have been harmful on balance,
02900	and most have been overwhelmingly beneficial.
03000	
03100		3. We can  now  afford  much  higher  standards  in  avoiding
03200	harmful side effects both environmental and social of new technology,
03300	but the decision must still be based on  weighing  the  expected  net
03400	gains  of  alternative  policies.   Thus  a  policy of forbidding any
03500	change that has any chance of being harmful to some people  would  be
03600	harmful compared even to past rather careless policies.
03650	The balance differs for rich and poor countries.
03700	
03800		4.  The  various human societies in the world have sufficient
03900	flexibility to adjust to technological changes so these changes  will
04000	be  beneficial.   However,  improvements  in  social mechanisms would
04100	produce large benefits by themselves and would hasten the realization
04200	of the benefits coming from technology.
04300	
04400		Arguments for these views will be presented.
04500	
04600		Some  of  the essays propose social rather than technological
04700	improvements. I have felt free to do this  for  two  reasons:  First,
04800	social  science  has not yet advanced so far that only people trained
04900	in the field can hope to make useful suggestions.   Second,  some  of
05000	the  treatments of the social role of technology by social scientists
05100	are technologically naive in that they do not consider  the  specific
05200	features of the different areas of technology.
05300	
05400	QUALITY OF LIFE
05500	
05600		Our goal of improving the quality of human life would be well-defined
05700	if we could give a single numerical measure of its overall quality.  Then
05800	we could choose the course of action that gave the largest value to this
05900	measure.  Unfortunately, we cannot give such a measure.  All we can do
06000	Instead we have a number of measures each of which we would like to
06100	improve.  One state of affairs is clearly better than another if it
06200	is better in some of the indicators and worse in none, but two states of
06300	affairs may not be comparable.