Blog Assignment #1

First and foremost, Kim Vicente's "human factor" is heavily referenced in The Human Factor because she explains a lot about how being human in a technologically advanced world is, in a sense, a flaw. This is so because we're only human, and so prone to errors. For example, if there were a perfect piece of machinery out there, which doesn't exist, and humans were the operators, it wouldn't be so perfect anymore. You'd have to take into consideration the human factor which is the idea that we're only humans and again so prone to errors. From what I've read, Vicente's verdicts are mostly arguing that technology overall is bad. Rarely does she use light words of appreciation for the technology that we have today. I'm guessing that she does so because she firmly believes that technology is in a way to blame for the faults that we have today. From the, 98,000 Americans who die annually due to preventable medical errors to the hundreds that lost their lives to the Chernobyl explosion, I believe that these errors only human based. I understand that Vicente is trying to say that technology is convenient for everyday life but humans are just not perfectly assimilated with technology to be fool proof. Now when I talk about the relationship between "the human factor" and Cat's Cradle, there is an immense similarity between the two.

Cat's Cradle focuses enough on the atomic bomb to use it as an aspect of "the human factor" because the atomic bomb was a miracle weapon that could bring peace to the world or havoc to everything that we've known to this day. Once again, "the human factor" played a part in the creation and dropping of the atomic bomb because at this time period the world was not ready for such an advanced weapon. Furthermore, like Vicente stated, the technology of the atom bomb was more than a human can handle, thus "the human factor". Not does Vonnegut explore only the atom bomb, but he also explores ice-nine. Again, another technology that the world is not ready for because it is just too advanced for humans to keep up with. Not only is this ice-nine too advanced, but it's also too mysterious to know the potential that it has. This piece of ice-nine is potentially a miniature atom bomb because it could accidentally fall into the world's water supply and that will be the end for the Earth and all the life forms that currently exist on it.

The criticism that both of these authors have towards technology is a relatively negative one. Vicente pretty much says that technology is bad. While just totally disagrees with any type of technology that dehumanizes life. Overall I'd say that both authors are very similar in their views about technology because they both don't believe in technology that minutely limits human life in any shape or form.