Session 2: Society & Global Dominance, Technology & Human Development

Into the second week of school, I have more or less adapted to university life and have now more or less understood what each of my modules expect of me for the rest of the semester. This week's TWC lesson focussed on two broad topics:

1) Society & Global Dominance
2) Technology & Human Development


Society & Global Dominance
I found it rather interesting, how the meaning of a simple phrase like 'the rest of the world' has changed over the years. In the not so distant past (when I was born), America was the global powerhouse. Thus 'the rest of the world' referred to, well, the rest of the world. Today, emerging countries like China and India has caused America's power to decline and the rest of the world are rather receptive of these emerging powerhouses. America is no longer the central nucleus of the economy. Instead, there is no longer only one powerhouse in the world. I am sure we would all agree that global dominance is indeed shifting, and in addition to economic factors, technology has a huge part to play too. With the continuous evolution of technology, the time lapse of new faces taking over the position of dominant player is becoming shorter and shorter. Just like how Microsoft was a dominant player for a considerably long period of time and Apple took a mere few years to oust them to be at the top.

There are many humorous things in the world; among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than other savages.

-Mark Twain –

The quote above by Mark Twain played with my brain a little. What was he trying to imply with such a paradoxical sentence? What did he mean by 'less savage than other savages'? Clearly, white men are counting on their dominance and power to try and prove their superiority to others even though they are all savages. But with changing global dominance, will they finally accept the fact that they are losing power and stop trying to always put themselves at the top of the pack?

The whole concept of rising star, dominant player and falling star was my greatest takeaway of the lesson. Only because of how relevant I found this concept to be. Almost any company and country in the world can be each given their own title. Prof Shahi used the football clubs in the BPL to illustrate his point. In reality, we all know that Manchester United is indeed the dominant player in the league. As such, they are the one other clubs will be trying to beat for the title. A question I have in mind is, is it always true that there will always be a dominant player? What if all clubs were equal? I can probably answer my own question by saying that the history of each club plays a significant role in identifying the dominant player. However, as we have witnessed at a point in time during the 2010/2011 BPL season, the title race was thrown completely open when top-notch clubs were underperforming, and the lower-tier clubs were winning their matches. It was relatively more exciting to watch when it was relatively unpredictable who was going to emerge as dominant players at the end of the season. So is this applicable to what we are experiencing (with America declining and China rising) in the world today?

Technology & Human Development
In Prof Shahi's introduction of the topic, he mentioned how the heights of an average North and South Korean have changed over the years. After their separation, South Korea was open to globalisation and technology, while North Korea kept their doors closed, until today. Starting with almost the same average height before the separation, the South Koreans grew significantly taller than their counterparts after being exposed to globalisation. Today, the average South Korean boy stand at 5 feet and 8 inches while the average North Korean boy stands at only 4 feet and 11 inches tall.

On the topic of human development, I strongly believe that technology has benefitted mankind. With increasing global population, countries with high levels of technology are able to engage in processing genetically-modified food, which helps to speed up the production process of food in order to feed the mouths of the world population. Countries that still suffer from malnutrition and starvation basically have insufficient technology to bring them out of the situation. Therefore, they need to count of developed countries to help them. 'Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.' I believe this sentence sums up why the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (UNMDG) were created in the first place. We are all hoping that with countries willing to cooperate and help other countries, we can all together make this world a much better place to live in. Watch the video below to learn more about the UNMDG.

With the deadline of these goals looming upon us, it seems like we will not be able to achieve these goals by 2015. But what's positive is that the world is heading in the right direction and with better technology in future, it is not impossible to achieve these goals.

I was particularly intrigued by the presentation on human cloning activities. I personally will not rule out the possibility of human clones in future, considering how many people from the past have been forced to eat their words after what they have predicted about technology today. While most arguments about human cloning tend to point towards medical purposes, we have to consider whether or not it is ethical to do so. When is a human considered a human? And is it right to create another human for solely medical reasons, for example in organ transplants. After all, human clones will have feelings too and it isn't being fair to them to cure the diseases of other humans at their disposal.

Lesson Rating: 8/10
Some interesting topics discussed throughout the lesson. Would have been better if we were given sufficient time to talk about human cloning and it would have been interesting, because of its controversial nature.

Session 1: "Why do white people have so much cargo, but we New Guineans have so little?"

Prior to walking into my very first Technology and World Change lesson, I was clueless about what this course has to offer. I could not fully understand the relationship between the two key ideas and was unaware of how technology brought about world change and/or vice versa. To my pleasant surprise, I walked out of the seminar room at the end of the lesson pretty impressed, and with an enlightened mind.

Connected But Disconnected
Something that got me thinking at the start of the lesson occurred during our ice-breaking session. In one of my classmate's introduction, he commented that '(technology) has made us connected but disconnected'. Immediately, the sentence struck me. Not because of how peculiarly it was phrased, but because of how true it was. Today, with the Internet, it is only common that we are so actively involved on social networking sites. For some (unfortunately, I would say), it has become our way of life. Think about it. Information nowadays is so easily accessible on the Internet. (Then again, I was wondering why we sometimes still have problems looking for the exact information we want. Is the information on the Internet too much for us to handle, so much so that we get lost in it?) We are able to communicate with friends, colleagues and family on the other end of the planet through emails, Facebook, Skype, etc. To add to that, most of these social networking sites include additional perks, for example games, which aim to attract more consumers onto their sites. And simply because we find that these sites are entertaining enough and it also helps us to stay connected with the 'world', we unknowingly find ourselves spending a significant amount of time on them. As a result, we start to neglect real relationships around us and start to underestimate the importance of holding real conversations and keeping physical contact with loved ones. In a video showed during class, it was stated that there are more Farmville farmers than real farmers in the world. Such shocking facts have definitely made me a little worried about what technology holds for the world in future.

Guns, Germs and Steel
It being the first lesson, topics discussed were mostly introductory, where we explored the history of technology and the rise of civilisations. Prof Shahi introduced the topic with a very thought-provoking video about Jared Diamond's book titled Guns, Germs and Steel. In the video, a New Guinean named Yali threw Diamond a question: "Why do white people have so much cargo, but we New Guineans have so little?" This may seem like a pretty simple question at first, but is it? I begin to question how countries have risen and fallen as power houses and what is the most important factor that has contributed to these happenings. In Diamond's work, he focussed on geographical location and plant and animal domestication as the key factors that have resulted in white people being significantly wealthier than the New Guineans. It is true, that countries can do little about their geographical location and the availability of raw materials on their land. Unfortunately, New Guinea's geographical location was not as favourable as Europe's. Therefore, despite New Guineans being as intelligent as the whites, their rate of development falls way behind their European counterparts. On the other hand, while Singapore had no raw materials to kickstart our development, we are blessed with a very favourable geographical location that is highly accessible by air, land and sea. As a result, we were still able to grow and prosper. As I thought further, I became aware that there are other factors, such as political factors, that are important, and can contribute to a country's development. I am then curious to know, if New Guinea's lack of development could be due to other reasons such as cultural identities?

As we all know, we are living in exponential times, and the interval between revolutionary developments are getting shorter and shorter. This means that things that are unthinkable and unheard of now, could jolly well be a reality in a foreseeable future. What then, does this mean for the human race?

Lesson Rating: 6/10
Generally an eye-opener. I now no longer look at things around me just at face value. Instead, I start to wonder and question about how even simple technology, like the lightbulb, has actually impacted my life. It was interesting though, to know that the theme song of The Big Bang Theory actually sums up technology and world change pretty well! I am thoroughly intrigued about the course, but topics in the first lessons were insufficiently discussed. Hopefully as the class warms up, discussions will get more intense and interesting. I am definitely curious to know what more there is to come.