Moving Towards Sustainability

Week 3 lesson started of by discussing on the problems and opportunities of industrialization. The industrial revolution sparked the beginning of humans develop at a massive rate. Machines and automation helped to achieve speed and efficiency which were just dreams of the past. It also allows for new inventions and innovation. However, we begin to realize that our enjoyment resulted to many negative externalities, especially damaging is the degradation of our environment due the vast amount of pollutant being emitted. Industrialization is often driven by access to fossil fuel. Those who have greater access are able to generate more electricity to power the machines required, produce more goods and earn more income, which they can subsequently re-invest for further research and development. Raw material became the deciding factor for the progression of industrialization. However, we have to understand that Earth’s natural resources are finite and if we continue to extract raw materials at the rate faster than they can be replaced, soon we will be left with nothing. In the past, industries work on a linear function whereby the extract material, process them to produce goods and sell them to consumers. This linear function failed to recognize the various environmental impacts during the entire process. Firstly, during extraction of resources, we are removing away raw material that require years to renew, deforestation result to destruction of natural habitat and mining damages the land rendering them unsuitable for agriculture. During processing, it is inevitable to produce carbon soot and other pollutants. Furthermore, only a certain percentage of the raw material extracted actually end up as finished goods. When they are sold to consumers, they will enjoy using them. Once consumers no longer require those goods, the disposal may end up in landfill sites or incinerated, both of which are damaging to the environment. Therefore there is an urge to not only allocate resources more efficiently but also internalizing those externalities, creating a cyclical function, which will be sustainable. Carbon taxes may help to create a cyclical function by inflating the final price of goods, hence consumers’ bear the cost of certain externalities. Other initiatives include consumer education to let them know how much effort is require to produce goods and to persuade them to cut down on excessive consumptions. Reducing, reusing and recycling definitely help to close the loop and pave the way to a cyclical function. Producer should consider the entire lifecycle of the product. They should innovate to maximize the value of raw material. During processing, they should look for new methods, which are more efficient and produce less pollutant. Instead of limiting their responsibilities to end with the sales to consumers, they should consider recollection of those unwanted goods from consumer and recycle them. For example, companies producing printer cartridges can request consumers to return empty cartridges for recycling. The importance of moving towards sustainability will not just benefit us, but the future generations as well. We should try to minimize the burden bear by future generations, from our mistakes of today. Being sustainable will enable us to use resources today but as the same time, allowing future generations to be able to use them as well. Therefore, I feel that future technology and innovation may shift towards focusing on sustainability.

After the discussion on sustainable technology, we realized the need for more innovation and improved technology to achieve that goal. Hence, there is a need to understand how such innovation come about and the management of innovation development. It started off with an introduction of the landscape model for technology, whereby we identify the various opportunities (Valley, Summit, Cloud). The main concept is that where your opportunities stand today, may not be the same as tomorrow. Innovation and improvement is the only way to remain competitive and moving towards a cloud opportunity. To get a better picture of how these opportunities are created, the RDA translation process allows us to understand the difficulties. Every innovation starts from a dream, intensive research has to be done to accumulate the knowledge require. However, the nightmare comes when we have to develop the dream. We will gain a lot of knowledge after researching, but only a minimal percentage of that knowledge will be applicable and often, it is not a simple process. After years of hard work, we will finally be able to see the reality of our dreams. Those innovations will be applied for commercial use and distribution to consumers. The RDA translation process is not a straightforward, easy process, but require determination and intensive research often incurring a very high cost. Therefore, researches have to be able to value the long-term benefits they can gain from the immediate cost involved.

Innovation can be classified into two broad categories, technology or market driven. Market driven is often the easier way, as the demand for such innovation already exists, once it is created, people will adopt the benefits of those innovations. Technology driven innovations requires greater consideration. In order to determine if a market huge enough will be developed, researches have to consider the practicability, feasibility and acceptance of such innovation. Management of innovation is often not an easy process and it requires the overlap of researchers and managers of the business. They have to ensure that such innovation increases values and execution risk is being minimized as development proceeds.

In the race to achieve sustainable technology, I feel that both researches and consumers have to work together. Consumers have to cut down on excessive consumption and face the fact that when sustainable technology has just been developed, initial cost will be high. Cost is often the limiting factor for researches to even have the incentive to start thinking of a sustainable innovation. Ultimately, sustainable innovation is not just for our own benefit but because we are concern about our future generations and want the best for them. Therefore, both researches and consumer have to start this initiative soon before it is too late.

 

Global Dominance and Human Development

Technology and global dominance was the subject for the first half of the lesson.  History has taught us a lot about military dominance of the past. Europeans being more technological advance tried to expand their colonies. They travelled around the world and conquered many lands. As the Americans and Chinese developed, they begin to compete on the chase of global dominance. However, there was a period of time where China felt it was more superior den the other countries and possess all the knowledge. They did not want to share their knowledge and looked down on the others, therefore they decided to shut themselves in from the rest of the world. From then, the Europeans and Americans hunger for knowledge and improvement brought them to greater heights, with better technology and military power, they where able to maintain as dominant players in the world. This thought me that knowledge is ever growing and we should not be arrogant but constantly seek to improve ourselves. We may not seek dominance but once we stop learning and stop developing better technology, we will be increasingly prone to being dominated by others, which is something nobody wants.

Dominance is not limited to the military aspect but economical, social, political, cultural and many more.  With the advancement in communication technology, Internet, skype and blogs, it helps connect people from different countries, races and religions. Being exposed more to culture of certain countries will inevitably influence us to adopt their culture. In the past it was the western culture where many non-westerners will try to dress them like, listen to their music and watch movies they produced. There was a strong dominance of the western culture. These days, Korean drama and music seem to be in trend and many non-Koreans are crazy other K-pop and their drama. It questions if this Korean fever will last and result in the convergence of culture and ultimately being the dominant culture. In my opinion, I feel that culture is a matter of choice and strive to fit in. It is also subjected to popularity and therefore tough to be controlled. Therefore, it is not up to “culture” to dominate us but people’s wiliness to adopt.

Economic dominance will be something more controllable whereby structure and organizational behavior of an entity will enable them to achieve greater market share and be the dominant player.  Organizations with the characteristic of being open, interested and keen to invest in new ideas and eventually gain market share are know was rising stars on the way up to being dominant. In contrast, if a dominant company is complacent and not interested in new ideas they will be moving towards stagnation, which is waiting for an end. Over time, they will start to lose market share and when they continue to misallocate resources and remain a closed mindset, they will be termed falling stars. Therefore it is always important to stay with an open mindset and continuously seek for self-improvement.

With the advancement in technology, human development will increase as well. Human development index (HDI) is the measure of development in a country. It measures level of education, life expectancy, infant mortality rate and GDP. The higher the index the more developed the country. However, the world is facing greater inequity in HDI between different countries. Being lower developed leads to many other problems such as insufficient fund for healthcare, access to clean water and poverty. The issue of poverty is heart wrenching, why do people have to suffer, not having enough food and water each day, but on the other hand in the more developed countries, food is going to waste and water consumption is excessively high. In my opinion, many countries have developed to a sufficient extent such they try are able to provide some funding and do some charity to help those underdeveloped countries. This is one of the goals in the millennium development goals initiative. It is also promoting global partnership, gender equality and environmental sustainability. All humans should be given the opportunity to work toward their goal to achieve contentment and happiness. However, people in those underdeveloped countries are denied their opportunity, where is contentment and happiness when they cannot even afford their basic necessity. Therefore as we seek for further development and enjoyment, we should not forget those who are slightly lagging behind, when we are able to, we should provide them with a helping hand. We might come from different countries, race and religion but we are all humans and deserve the right to live well.

Technology and Human

Post readings thoughts.

Technology, society and global dominance

Those with the knowledge and most advance technology will have the advantage over others and possible dominate them.  In the past, Europeans dominated many countries because they had more advance equipment and transportation tools. They invaded other countries, bought they land or pretended as though they are willing to share their knowledge with them, helping them develop their country but in actual fact it was for their own benefit. As a result, those once indigenous people were taken advantage of, enslaved and even massacred. For example, Columbus commented that the South American ‘Indian’ were the best people in the world. Because they are gentle and willing to share what they had, the Europeans exploited them. As years go by, the disparity between the more developed and technologically advanced countries and the less grew wider. Probably greed and selfishness are to be blamed. Technology does improve the lives of many however commonly at the expense of others.

Technology and human development

Technological advancement and its impact on human development grow exponentially. There may even be a possibility that humans can play god by genetically modifying genes to choose baby’s personality and traits. Technology indeed created greater possibilities and solved problems that we face. However, it may lead to other problems as well. With this ability to modify genes, it may lead to the development of homogenous characteristics of people. Every parent will definitely want the best for their children. There may not even be a need to nurture their kids anymore since they will be born with all the good traits, where will be responsibility of a parent go if they no longer have to nurture them? Therefore, I am not in favor of this technology although it brings us convenience.

It is important to weigh the benefits and the costs of technology. Because we are the one who seeks greater advancement in technology with the hope of improving our livelihood. However if any problem arises, we are to be blamed.

Looking forward to Session 2 and finding out more about how others view the relationship between technology and human. 

Session 1

We started off with ice breaking by giving a brief introduction of ourselves. This made us feel more comfortable presenting our views during the session, as for most of us, this is the first seminar for the new term! We moved on to administration briefing and I realized something different about TWC from the other modules I have taken. TWC is keeping up with technology too! Having us to write a blog compared to writing a learning journal, holding discussion on facebook compared to emailing questions. The structure of this course makes it informative and entertaining at the same time.

The key topics discussed for the first session was the evolution in civilizations. We watched a short video clip of the introduction of Guns, Germs and Steel. The question on ‘Why White Man have so much cargo but New Guineans have so little?’ set me thinking. The disparity between them is astronomical. White colonialists were technologically more advanced the New Guineans, this led to the Whites despising the New Guineans and appear to be the superior race in front of them. The New Guineans worshipped their technology yet the Whites treated them like slaves.

Probably those who possess greater technology will gain dominance over those who are less advanced. With technology comes efficiency, people will be able to produce more at a much faster rate. Being able to produce basic necessity efficiently will enable one to have more time developing new technology to solve problems such as transportation and security. Advance tools and weaponry will be invented, not limited to security but also to show aggression and fear to achieve dominance over others. This could be why the Whites appear as the superior race among the New Guineans.

However, we have to ask ourselves why is it the Whites who posses the technological advances instead of the New Guineans? This question sparked off some discussion in class. There were various different views such as the availability of resources that the Whites are able to utilize, however those resources are unavailable to the New Guineans. Evolution and natural selection leading to survival of the strongest, this provided an explanation as to why the Whites are more intelligent. The difference in climate could have spur the Whites to develop and innovate in order to survive. Another possible reason could be due to nurture and not nature. Probably the New Guineans were brought up to be contented with what they have. Since they lived in a forested area where food and water is readily available. Therefore, they do not strive to improve their livelihood. In contrary, the Whites were brought up to be more ambitious hence striving to improve their living condition.

There are many possibilities to such question. I had an enjoyable lesson at the same time learnt more about the development of civilization. I would rate this session 8 out of 10.