Week Two

Overview



Today’s lesson focused on technology in accordance with society and global dominance (economic, military, and cultural) and technology with respect to human development. What I vividly remembered from the lesson was the theory of rising star, dominant player and falling star as shown in the diagram above. It enabled me to easily classify countries into such categories. So basically, the level of innovation leadership affects the operational attitudes of certain countries. As for the second part of the lesson, it talks about the dimensions of development, how technology sustains and prolongs human lifespan and the inclusion of certain measurement tools such as the HDI to account for the quantitative improvement that technology brings.

Interesting observation

I like the article “a stagnant and meaningless popular culture is a big problem for society” by Peter McMahon, which talks about increasingly global popular culture. I believe that the rise in this exchange of technology has slowly changed each of us into similar beings with no true cultural background in that we do mostly the same things such as watching relatively the same kind of “lowest-quality television”. I guess there is not much we can do to stop this cultural change but to try and preserve what’s left, since technology seem to be linked to countries of the rising star. I think this clearly explains prof’s quote of the week, “change is inevitable and often necessary; the transition process can often be difficult or painful (for some)”. In today’s globalised culture, each country is dependent on the other for some thing or another. We are interlinked and connected which means when one country improves; the other will be affected (be it good or bad).

One more interesting observation was the last presenter who touched on agriculture being the most important factor that led to technology improvement and change. He states that technology allows food to be massed produced and less people are needed in the production factor which allows the rest to focus on other issues. Humans are able to make use of their time to think about ways to improve the human life as their basic needs are all fulfilled. This theory makes full sense but I was wondering what will happen if the MDG(Millennium developmental goals) were to succeed. It is generally true that the poor are the ones providing the rich basic food and needs and if the MDG succeeds, there will be more people above the poverty level. As the poor gain more education etc, who will still want to be a farmer since everyone is now on an equal playing field and humans naturally want to improve. However, I predict that farming may become a whole new occupation where high level skills and equipment are required, making it a profession. This was just something that pops up my mind during the class.

Key takeaways

So my key takeaways is that technology is the main factor that contribute to human development but it also slowly takes away the different cultures , creating a one globalised culture.

Further discussion

I hope there will be more time for the presentation discussion and the issue about the human development in accordance to technology.

Personal rating

I will rate today’s class as 9/10 as it really sets me thinking once again and some of the presentations was really excellent.