[Bombadil]

Great points and discussion by all, and in particular the latter: Sauce and Child. My interpretation of "Good technology," though, is one of the technology itself naught but a mere response to original, and ultimately evil technology.

It was presumably from these caves that the mithril came to rebuild the gates of Gondor, yet another positive use of technology.

You are correct Child, but if you were to go back to the roots of that situation - The door of Mithril was made to replace the one previously breached by the battering ram of Sauron's Army (for the first and only time, mind you). Grond was the evil technology that brought about the need for a mithril door. Such is the theory of militarization, and a more modern example being the cold war. With this type of rise in technology, all that can result form it is mass death and eventual self-destruction.

And to expand on this point:

But he seems to take no account of the benefits that advancements in technology can bring, particularly in terms of medical advancements, standards of living and information availability.

This was stated by the saucepan man. And to connect my point with that - There would be no need for medical advances if it weren't for the advance of the diseases.

BUt then there's the case for technology being able to do things like heal a bullet wound in a leg rather than have to amputate it, or cure legal blindess. These situations contradict my point somewhat (unless you want to bring up the fact that amputation from bullet wounds is caused by the technology of bullets, and modern factors can lead to loss of vision - an example being mass consumption of meat products leading to macular degeneration) Ahhh! im straying off point a little.

Anyways, To go back to some of the very first wars of Arda, you see that an enormous war- a war to mark an age- involves and was instigated by mere jewels. (And let me say i state "mere" lightly - they were the silmarils after all) But without the silmarils, there would be no war with Melkor. It was inevitable that a confrontation would elapse, but it was started due to the crafts of Feanor.

But perhaps in the end, mother nature towers over technology. This being the case in the Ent rebellion on Saruman, but perhaps to relate this to modern living one could see nature fighting back. As we pollute the air, she (Mother nature of course ) slowly fuses her polar ice caps. As we over-populate, and spread through this earth, so does her disease. Not disease brought upon by humans, but spread. I.E. the HIV virus, believed to have started in monkeys, is spread due to our ability to travel quickly and efficiently. And as we grow to depend on this technology, she turns her back on us - to the point where human survival is critically dependent to technology.

As we persist to go against laws of nature, and lead to ideas like cloning, and continue to add to the world's population, perhaps technology will ultimately balance things out. The more this planet is inhabited by human beings, the more deadly weaponry will become, the more deadly diseases will become, and in time ttechnology may possibly balance itself out. I apologize for straying off topic form Tolkien's views to my own, but I'm done.