I often get into discussions and arguments about technology, its effects on the environment and its effects on privacy, etc...

A lot of people's arguments can be boiled down to a simple fear:

"But what if a bad man uses it?"

This is hardly a problem with the technology itself. If I give a bad man an ashtray and he uses it to smash my head in, should we ban ashtrays?

I believe that the benefits of new technology tend to outweigh the cost. Usually the benefits MASSIVELY outweigh the cost. And as humanity gets more powerful, the new potential badness is usually counteractable by the same technology that made it possible in the first place.

We are living in times of rapidly accelerating change. You really have to look at things in terms of *balance* and step back from the issues themselves when you start to get scared. Game theory shows that social systems, over long timescales, tend towards co-operation, not conflict.

We're not often aware that we are choosing a particular scale on which to perceive a problem. I think your choice of the scale on which to look at things tends to be a factor of your emotional state more than anything else. If you're feeling existentially depressed it's easy to get distracted by the potential heat death of the universe. If you're in a good mood you might just be enjoying the shape of a cloud. When scale gets involved, everything gets intractably subjective. What is it about? My happiness? My future happiness? Your happiness? Your freedom? Your children's freedom? What are we all so afraid of losing?