Blown to Bits Chapter 1 - Chase's Questions

1. It is our nature as humans to expand our capabilities and advance society in ways otherwise impossible without technology. And while we were able to sustain ourselves for many centuries with little technological growth, the rush of relatively recent advancements has greatly improved the standard of living for many people, and now we are using technology to aid third-world countries, cure diseases, and do dangerous jobs that could be harmful to ourselves.
2. Computers are capable of being much faster than the mail service. E-mails are sent over the course of a few seconds, whereas mail is generally sent over the course of a few days, or week or so. To put this in perspective, there are 604,800 seconds in a week. So, theoretically, given the best circumstances, you could send that many emails in the time it takes to deliver one letter.
3. All new technologies can create good and harmful effects. There are many obvious pluses to this digital explosion - you can look up anything you would need to find, you can talk with people across the globe almost instantly, and you can use programs to perform tasks that the human mind simple cannot reproduce with such speed, among countless other things. However, all this information can also be a bad thing - keeping things private can be very difficult, hackers find their way into code and steal personal information, and, of course, we could reach the singularity and robots will take over the world. 
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