Session 2

During this week's TWC class, we talked about Technology, Society and Global Dominance as well as Technology and Human Development. In my opinion, technology definitely will affect the social and global dominance, as seen from the video last week and the answer to the question 'why does the white has so much cargo, while the New Guinean has so little?' Most of us agreed from the last lesson that it was technology that created the gap between them and hence in this case, it also affects the global dominance of China as the new rising star. Technology would also alter the way human development works as technology advances, with improving healthcare, lifestyle and life expectancy. However, there are also disadvantages of growing technology which may lead to actions such as cloning, plastic surgery and lasic surgery. 

For Technology, Society and Global Dominance, the issues that were being discussed during the class included the areas of social, cultural, economic, industrial, military and others. Further discussion were made on the colonialism and post-colonial impact and implications.

The topics that were being presented were very interesting, especially the one discussing about the possiblity of China overtaking America as the world's number one in the near future. I think it is really intriguing how the world changes as people and countries adapt to the changes of technology. China has been the rising star and dominant until the 1500s and US took over as the most dominant country, but now it seems like China is catching up very soon. If the US does not constantly improve herself and doing things the world perceived as correct, it may backfire and cause alot of commotion, putting her position at risk. As such, there has been a decrease in support for the America and increase in support for China. Moreover, China, with its large population, low cost for labour, and their immense funds available, taking over US is just a matter of time if US does not take any action to secure her position.

For Technology and Human Development, the class did not manage to discuss much due to time constraint, but the articles being posted online basically talked about the trend of human development ranging from health, life expectancy, education and literacy to economic areas. As human has access to clean food and water, sanitation and healthcare services, the life expectancy of people has been increasing over the years. The oldern way of education is beginning to be replaces by e-learning through the internet, and people are earning more money as a result of higher education. From here, we can see that changes are inevitable and technology is ever-changing. If people do not have the mindset of upgrading themselves to learn the usage of computers and internet, they would definitely be incompetitive with their peers in time to come.

The presentations were awesome for the human and development segment and i particularly like the slides of the cloning topic. Everybody has their own set of values for cloning, whether it is good or bad, ethical or unethical and whether it has more pros or cons. In my opinion, cloning is acceptable only for animals, but not applicable for human as it is very disturbing to see another person exactly like me and that even have the same personality. Worst still, some clones may just impose as me and do something bad and even the police can't find out the truth as we have the same DNA and fingerprints.

For the presentation of integration of technology into our life, it was a thought-provoking one as i couldn't derive an answer whether we should let technology overtake human capabilities or vice-versa. I agree that technology has already become one of the things that human could not live without such as mobile phones, facebook, laptops, I-Pad, PSP and MP3/4. Hence, we have subconsciously integrated technology into our everyday lives, checking our phones every now and then, emails, facebook and play games with I-Pad everyday, all these are evidences of integration of human and technology. I think integration of both would have great advantages as well as disadvantages and we should balance it at some point.

I would rate this session 8/10 as the discussion was fruitful and the presentation were interesting and kept me thinking.

A new beginning

The first lesson on Technology and World Change deeply affected me and triggered me to think further about how the world is being affected by the change in technology and vice versa. I believe it will be an interesting journey for the next 15 weeks for TWC with the fruitful discussions being held each week.

Let me start off with a video that i happened to click on when i was watching the basketball highlights of the NBA.

It is really interesting to see how voting has evolved and people can actually make voting free from the hassle of queueing for long hours and travelling far just to vote. Even if this new medium of voting  is possibly going to happen to U.S in the future. As we heard each and everyone give their views on technology and world change and whether it is good or bad, i think this one is a rather good innovation where people could save time and even vote when travelling abroad.

Bringing it back to a more localized context, as the presidential election is drawing near, maybe they could try this new system of electronic voting with biometric enabled features? Probably that would create a big scene, triggering lots of discussion among Singaporeans about how technology affects our daily lives and activities.

It has been an enriching 1st lesson with the videos of Jared Diamond and the Big Bang theory, and i am looking forward to the interesting topics coming up next week to widen my knowledge and share my thoughts!