the paradoxes of technology

I’ve encountered a news article in Le Monde that highlights a new partnership between the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth (http://www.ushmm.org/googleearth/) called the Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative.  It is an attempt to expose the horrors of genocide in real time in order to shame and hold accountable perpetrators and prevent death.  A very innovative and compelling idea – it is easier to construct evil when no one is looking.

I wonder how this new partnership, even this new idea will be expanded?  Over what other shoulders will we be allowed to peek?  I don’t wish to resist the ability to hold criminals accountable, but I am reminded of the “big brother” mentality showcased in futuristic novels and movies.  And I think of biblical prophecy and imagine the two witnesses in Jerusalem being watched by the world in this manner, and wonder how the pouring out of the seven bowls of wrath might be tracked…

What a conundrum.  So many “advances” on this world stage bring both benefit and harm.  And we don’t have the wisdom and foresight to plan for them, apart from your intervention on our behalf.  And so I ask for that intervention…