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.