Week 2: Global Dominance & Human Developments With Technology

Thursday, August 25, 2011 | 0 Comments

Technology has helped many countries push forward economically, as well as improving life in civilization. As much as we should be grateful to it, is technology starting to bring about more harm than benefits now?
 
Brief overview of Week 2 Class

Technology, Society and Global Dominance

The class started off again with another video with food for thought, depicting the rapid changes throughout the world’s history…


This video sparked off the discussion of the occurrences of civilization and societies, and the dimensions of global dominance such as social, cultural, economic, industrial and military. This led to the introduction of the theory of “Dominant Player, Rising Stars, & Falling Stars.


It was really interesting how we have compared the actions of various companies (as compared to soccer teams as I know nuts about them), and placed them in the 3 categories. 

We then had an interesting presentation on “Globalization as a Generator of Global Hegemony”, followed by “New Technologies and Emerging Structures of Global Dominance” by our classmates.

We first discussed on the issue of America’s rapid advancement that helped push technological boundaries. This may have helped many economies grow, but have we then lost many cultures due to rampant Americanization? The 2nd speaker spoke about the emerging technologies, and how some countries could harness its advantages to push for economic growth.

Technology and Human Development
We then moved on to talk about human development, and had the analogy of the egg and the chicken paradox compared to the relation between development and world change.

Human Development Index (HDI) was then a hot topic for discussion, with much debate on the usefulness of the different indicators and their effectivess a guage of human development. We then delved deeper into the Millennium Development Goals...


Following that, we had another video that graphed human lifespan against income levels throughout history for different countries, by Hans Rosling.


The last 2 presenters then rounded us off with the topic on “Making Capitalism More Creative”, followed by “Outbreak.com: Using the Web to Track Deadly Diseases in Real-Time”.

The first presentation talked about the potential of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to give back to the society, which can be aided by the newer technologies that help improve information flow. The second presentation showed us this interesting concept of having outbreak of diseases to be put up on a website in real-time, to allow others to be more aware and take appropriate action more effectively.

Interesting Observations

I think the simple exercise of identifying actions of different companies and comparing them to rising/falling stars is very useful and interesting. We have learnt that failure is an option, but quitting is not. Having a positive attitude will ultimately help get you somewhere.

In “New Technologies and Emerging Structures of Global Dominance”, political will of a country was brought up pretty frequently in the class, and I do believe that this is the core to any country’s advancement. This is because many other factors (education, culture, economy etc.) all have a direct effect from the government’s actions. Without the correct political figures to do what is right for the nation, the country will never be able to move foward in the right direction.

In Hans Rosling’s presentation, many in the class were impressed with the graphical visualization. As much as I was impressed, I couldn’t help but wonder the reliability of all his statistics. Reading through the comments of the video, indeed I found certain discrepancies mentioned as comments of the videos....

Very keen observations!

Interesting tidbits of fact









Whether or not these comments were of any truth, it really showed how technology can be used to impress audience so much that they could well be blinded from truth/facts. It can be dangerous when technology is used as a red herring to distract us from a presentation with many mistakes. Well... it’s just a random thought, seeing how I’ve been through many presentations that were impressive in technical aspects but lacked the conviction of its content.

Key Takeaways
 
I guess the falling/rising star concept is etched really deep in my mind. It is important to be optimistic and open-minded, and being humble to have the thirst for knowledge will set you apart.

Failure is an option, quitting isn’t.

Also, this week’s lesson further reinforced my point in last week’s post about how technology has brought us so many wonderful changes and impacts around the world, yet it can harm us negatively if not used appropriately. It all boils down to how each individual makes use of it. 

Issues for Further Discussion
 
Another random thought about the human rights in Finland to have access to 1Mbps (click for link to news article, OMG it’s really true!) is how scary the situation might become, although being impressive at first sight. I thought we could have further discussed the pros and cons of it. Personally, I shudder to think  how ‘readily contactable’ we will be, and there is no excuse to say “I don’t have internet anymore!” Will such a rule have an effect on our personal lives in the long run?

Also, I think the Millennium Development Goals could have been discussed a little bit more. Issues such as the justifications behind certain goals, and the controversy  of overfunding could have been discussed. As we’re already in 2011, that means there is 4 years left to achieve the goals. Is the UN able to achieve them? If not, how else could we have done better to improve the strategies?


Conclusion

This session has help broadened our knowledge on how technology is affecting many areas and dimensions of our daily lives. As we delve deeper into each relationship with technology advancement, we are more aware of the changes around us, and what we can do to adapt in such rapid changes.

I wish I could have had more time to read up on the articles provided, as 8 were just too many. Perhaps I’ll try harder to allocate time to fully read through a few articles, so as to be able to share my views.

Rating: 7/10


Week 1: Technology and the Rise of Civilizations: Historical Timeline and Technology “Revolutions"

Saturday, August 20, 2011 | 1 Comments

Technology has always been sensitive issue throughout time, where the benefits and harm it has brought to our world has been of great debate. The first week of this course helped us to think deeper of the issues surrounding the impact of technology. Regardless of its pros and cons, I believe this module will help us be more aware of the rapid technological changes around us, and how to adapt to such a phenomenon.

Brief Overview of Week 1 class

The class started off with introductions from each classmate, as well as an introductory video on the rapid advances in technology:

 
I believe the video, despite being a pretty old one, was still a good insight of how far we have become technologically, and makes all ponder the world that we will be living in 10 to 15 years from now.
With this video that prompted us to put on our thinking hats, we delved into a deeper discussion about the history of technology, and the recent innovations we had. We then had another discussion based on this video, adapted from the book entitled “Guns, Steel and Germs”:


This video certainly sparked lots of intriguing responses within the class, especially with regards to the apparent differences of technological advancement between developed and developing countries.

Interesting Observations


Shift Happens

“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t yet been invented in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”

How very true this statement is! I’ve shared with the class of what I know of the IT industry that is it’s a very fast evolving industry, and one has to keep up with technology to be able to compete in it. This statement resonated in my mind throughout the lesson, reminding me of the need to have the determination to upgrade myself constantly. At the rate of advancement we’re going, I’m pretty psyched and curious to see how the technologies will be like in the future, and no doubt I will be embracing it. =)

”Why you white men has so much cargo?”

Just as Jared (the American in the documentary) was thrown away, I had the same reaction as well. The New Guineans  were just as capable, hardworking and intelligent as the “white men”, but why are they developing at different rates? Many in the class gave constructive opinions, many of which I agreed on:

1. Geographical Location
Something so small could actually make a huge difference for the country’s advancement. Ease of commodity & knowledge trading would be so much easier when the country is easily assessable. A good climate with fertile land is also essential for stock yield, a highly revenue generating industry. With resources and money aplenty due to the above reasons, it is no wonder the Americans were the luckier ones to be on the right side on the world map.

2. Communication Barrier
Due to the variety of dialects existing in Papua New Guinea, it is not surprising that communication is a problem, even within their community.  A non-existent written language made it worst for any documentation of great ideas. Thus, skills and knowledge were hardly shared/transferred between the different denominations and generations of New Guineans .

3. Lack of Exposure to the Outside World
Due to the aforementioned points, this led to a stagnant advancement in their development in all areas. They were not able to build better transportation to seek for more knowledge, neither were they able to share knowledge with foreigners due to lack of documentation and language barriers. Furthermore, the New Guineans seemed to be happy with their current way of living, and not pro-actively seeking improvements, unlike the “white men”.

Key Takeaways
One thing I’ve learnt from the discussions was the key to surviving in the current state of the world: adaptability. It is important to be aware of such rapid change that’s happening all around, as well as to learn to react to them effectively. We have to advance as fast as technology is, or we’ll be losing out in the corporate rat race.

Exposure to the rest of the world is equally important as well. I feel that internet is the best way of staying connected to the world, regardless of your country’s status. The huge amount of information and knowledge are only a click away and that could make a difference in your way of living, being exposed to so many alternatives to many ways of life.  However, literacy rates is also the key to ensure such exposure, as discussed in the New Guineans ‘ case. Without the skills to properly document all knowledge down, it is very hard for that civilization to move ahead and develop further, much less exchanging knowledge with the rest of the world.

Issues for further Discussion

Being exposed to SO MUCH technology in our lives, I do wonder if Singaporeans are heavily reliant on them?

Now almost everyone has a laptop, and a mobile phone. Each of us are easily accessible. Is technology causing for damage to us than doing good?

How would you strike a balance between life and technology?

I personally believe that technology is a great thing that has happened for our civilization, and that we should embrace it fully. My belief for the negative impacts of technology is that it is all up to the individual, who will be the cause of such negativity should he/she not handle the wonders of technology well. We all have to have our own balance and discipline to not allow technology to distract us from the real life.

Conclusion

TWC is starting to help me break out of my “tunnel vision” of technology being all about computers and gadgets, but to think deeper about it’s impact on a global perspective. I’m truly looking forward to gaining more insights of this wonderful and phenomenal evolution of technology and the world.

Rating: 8/10

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