TWC Session 2: Technology Society and World Dominance/ Human Development

In session 2 of TWC, we discussed about how technology and world dominance are correlated, the dimensions of Global Dominance, and lastly human development. We went through some really intriguing articles on colonization and the atrocities that were left out history textbooks, and this really gave me another point of view regarding colonization that I was never exposed to.

Professor Shahi also shared his views using his self-crafted model. The rising star, dominant player and falling star model. This again reiterated one of the key messages from the first lesson: change is necessary. Reluctance to innovate will cause one's downfall. Thus being hungry for new ideas, knowledge and innovations is extremely important no matter which sector of the economy you belong to. 

Millennium Development Goals was the UN's response to human development. Human development is basically helping individuals maximize his/her full potential. The Millennium Development Goals is a set of goals established by 189 UN nations in 2000 to achieve significant human development by 2015.

There are so many aspects of Human Development, including life expectancy, education and income. I feel that the most crucial factor is life expectancy. It is the basis of human development because if someone cannot maximize their time on the earth, it is impossible to maximize their development. Having a good education and maximizing wealth can only be built on the foundation of life expectancy.

So we are left with around 1 more year to 2015, are the goals being accomplished? Are people in developing countries living longer lifes? The answer is yes, at least for the aspect of life expectancy. According to statistics by World Health Organization, the Life Expectancy at birth in the less developed continent of African increased from 50 to 56 on the average from 1998 to 2011. This clearer shows some positive effects of the MDG. Though the change may be rather small, it is nonetheless an improvement and it is definitely worth cheering for.

I felt that one extremely interesting and debatable topic was brought up towards the end of the lesson-the topic on Eugenics. I felt this is probably one of the more intriguing topics and it really has a huge potential to be discussed in much greater extent. The discussion was cut short, however due to time constrains.

One very important argument brought up was how religion may act as a barrier towards innovation. Is it right to play God? Is it ethical to choose the genes? While it may seem really lucrative to be able to choose good genes for the next generation, I feel that it will cause more problems rather than good. While one of the constant aims around the world is to close up the income disparity, the introduction of eugenics will just make the problem worse. If people were really allowed to choose genes, the rich who can afford eugenics will get more and more successful while the poor who can’t will just face a downward spiral.

Personal ratings: 9/10. I felt the session was really informative and interesting, especially when 5 of my classmates presented their individual presentation. It brought forward some insightful arguments from the class and I really learnt plenty from this experience. In fact the debates and arguments were so in depth and intense such that we actually overshot the time! Really looking forward to more of such discussions next week.

TWC Session 1: Technology & Rise of Civilisation

During the first lesson of Technlogy and World Change (TWC), Professor Shahi posted the class a question: What is this subject here about? What are you here for? I turned to look at my friend and my friend just stared right back…we were both lost for words. While the rest of the class was taking turns to answer the question, I kept looking for an answer within me. All I could think of was: “Technology and World Change is about how the World is changed by Technology”. Well I guess Captain Obvious would be really proud of me if he knew what I was thinking.

Well I always believe that it is not what you bring into a class that is important. It is what you take away from the class that is crucial. Thus I opened up my ears and listened hard.

As the lesson proceeded, Prof Shahi showed the class the first video of the lesson, “Shift Happens”. Well I initially read it as “shit happens”, not that it made no sense at all. While I was in National Service, my superiors always say, “Shit happens! Deal with it!”. In this case, it is “Shift happens! Deal with it!”. This cannot be put in a more precise manner. The speed of globalization and world change is so fast, and it will only continue increasing at an exponential rate. Therefore to survive, the only choice we have is to deal with it.

 One part of the video that really caught my attention is when the video says that what we undergraduates learn in year 1 may well be obsolete in year 3. This made me realize that as we go through university education, the primary reason is not to learn the content but rather the skills. The content we learn will not be entirely applied when we are in the workforce, but rather the thinking skills, analyzing skills and other important skills can be used for the entire lifetime. Content may become obsolete, but skills will always be useful.

I read this book “Who moved my cheese?” some time back. This book clearly further promotes the ideas presented in the video. Basically change happens all the time, we just have to deal with it, cope with it and enjoy it. Embrace change and make it change an advantage. As with rules of evolution, the fittest and the one who can adapt to changes will survive. Since changes are impossible to predict, the only way is to embrace it. In 1990s, the most commonly used storage device, the 3 ½ floppy disk can only store up to 720kb of data. Fast forward 20 years, the typical external hard disks are more than 10,000 times that capacity. Putting this into context, just imagine these data storage as a representation of knowledge in an individual. If after 20 years his knowledge is still stuck at 720kb, it is extremely difficult to compete with someone with the knowledge of a 10gb hard drive. 

The lesson then proceeded on to the video “Guns, Germs and Steel”. The video revolves around one simple question: Why you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineas have so little? After discussion, one particular possible reason caught my attention, that is geographical separation. Similar to speciation in wild life, when a species is separated geographically, the gene pool will not show signs of increasing variation, making the variations rather stagnant. This applied to the context of the issue shows that because the New Guineans are geographically separated from the rest of the world, they are not open to external innovations and ideas, which is like not getting new pools of genes. 

Prof Shahi explained that when you close your doors to the outside world, you are starting your decline. The New Guineans in a way “closed their doors”, though not by choice but rather by nature. So this is one possible reason for the difference in technological development between the Westerners and New Guineans, even though the New Guineans are just as intelligent people.

In relation to this issue, we discussed how the decline of China when they closed their doors to the western innovations. They believed that they were superior compared to the rest of the world and once they became complacent, they began their decline. This teaches us an important lesson that we can never be complacent. The pursuit of knowledge is endless. The more we know, the more we don’t know. We need to change and pick up new things along the way.

The class was really enjoyable and eye opening encounter. I am particularly interested the examples of technological innovations some of my classmates brought up during the interview, and thus really look for to further such discussions in class and also for the individual presentations.

I would give a rating of 8/10 for this session because I feel the class was very fluent and coherent and really gave me insights the the course TWC. The lesson also really made my brain think really hard, after it has been unused for 2 years of National Service.

Signing off!

Stanley Luo Xindi