<p>Can knowledge be a burden rather than a benefit? (25 minutes)</p>
<p>Knowledge is power said the scholars of the late 19th and early 20th century; but I argue, do we have too much power that it has grown out of our control as to how we use it? Stan Lees fictional character, Spiderman, once said, With great power comes great responsibility, but as we look around our world today ridden with scandals from secret intelligence agencies, like the NSA, and constant bioterrorist and nuclear threats that we have this power, but are not using it responsibly. The word can is a forgiving one as it lacks certainty and indeed I believe knowledge can be a burden rather than a benefit.</p>
<p>Let us first examine the example of the NSA. Over the course of the last eight years, since the departure of the republicans from power in the United States, spy equipment and infrastructure has spread from the hands of the military to those of civilians and indeed caused a mass proliferation in the knowledge that the USA about other countries leaders and indeed civilians. With the discovery of wire tapping of politicians and civilians alike the NSA had to deal with a public relations nightmare about how this knowledge was being used and whether it was indeed constitutional. The NSA has essentially been disabled over the last few months - dealing with this scandal as opposed to focusing on its main mission of using this secret intelligence to target enemies and eliminate them with the hope of preventing future terrorism. Although the NSA has all of this knowledge, which they probably are not using for very much on the civilian level, it has created a burden that has permanently damaged its reputation.</p>
<p>Another key example would be in the field of nuclear and biomedical technologies. The amount of knowledge scientists across the world have about constructing the nuclear bomb and utilizing a technology once used solely for energy has had a long-lasting impact on global peace. We witness the implications that the knowledge of this technology has had: the numerous bombings on Japan in World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early 1960s and the recent debacle between the USA and North Korea in April over nuclear arms. The technology has achieved nothing beyond creating a persistent tension and the potential end of the world as we know it. In the field of medicine, we have come leaps and bounds in our knowledge and applications of medicine to find vaccines etc. but this knowledge could very easily be misused now that it is clear that to make a disease that is virtually incurable you expose the antibodies generally used to make a vaccine to the bacteria or virus deeming the vaccine useless a key example of bioterrorism. </p>
<p>To conclude, it is very much clear all the good that knowledge has achieved. We are able to communicate like never before via the Internet and unbelievable mobile technology. We can travel over 6000 miles in less than 10 hours. And, of course, we can educate ourselves and develop further via the plethora of information now available on the world wide web. But, as I previously said, the term can implies that it is possible for knowledge to be misused and create a burden as it has showing that indeed knowledge can be a burden rather than a benefit.</p>