Session 9!

1800’s: Do you have the machineries?

Late 1900's: Do you have the information?

2000’s: Looking into the future. Do you have the guts to do so?

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

George Bernard Shaw said, “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”

This quote seems too true. People tend to see the world as it is and judge new ideas using their current mindsets. Hence, new technologies tend to be hard to be widely accepted. This becomes one of the largest deterrence for people to aim further and become rising stars.

The situation of people wanting to move forward but are restricted by their own fixed or rigid mentalities is an irony.

For example, Ken Olsen, Found of Digital Equipment quipped that there was no need for a computer in the home in 1977. Olsen was most probably stuck to the idea that computers are for more scientific or military purposes in the past and unable to look into the future of computers to be widely used by households.

We’d expect people in the field to understand the intricacies of the industry such as where the industry is heading. However, from the case of Ken Olsen (who was part of the digital industry), it can be seen that knowledge is not all for progress to be made. People with the know-how but without foresight may miss the whole point altogether. A quote by Albert Einstein goes “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

I believe this serves to explain part of Yali’s question of “why do white men have more cargo?” Yes, the aboriginals may know how to use their natural resources well (like build make shift tents using bamboo and other resources they can find). However, with the same types of resources, if they are unable to look forward and assign better uses to the resources, they cannot progress.

Key take-away points:

Future technologies highlight to us the directions humans set for themselves. It is not just about the advancement of technology but achieving human goals.

For example, Japan has been investing and developing it’s robotics sector of the technological industry. This is to create robots to help do things to make up for the declining population of the country. There are also robots that created as companions. This is to keep lonely people company in Japan, as they have fewer children (aging population).

By analyzing the solution (the various technologies), we can identify the problems people are facing currently. We can also understand that technology is a very human tool. It is related with inequalities (technology that is exclusive like expensive medical treatments), entertainment (videos, internet), employment (using computers from home) and so on.

A new movie “In Time” suggests that people can buy time. The movie brings up more human problems from the technology of being able to sell and buy time. The rich get more time to live and the poor die young. The sin is not of wasting time but of giving it away.

As technology advances, the more humans’ lives are related to technology and the less able are humans to detach themselves from technology.

Issues for further discussion:

There was discussion about virtual reality and the blurring between the reality and the virtual world. However, I was worried about situations where people fail to make the distinction between what is real and what is not.

This worry was not unfounded; there was a case of a group of teenagers who tempted to commit suicide after they were obsessed over the idea that they had to “go to the nether world as fighters to save the world”, an idea that was hatched and developed in their young minds from a computer game (that was not simulated game).

If there will be simulated games that mimic the reality, will there be measures to ensure that children and adolescents are still able to distinguish the real from unreal? What about other equally vulnerable individuals like the weak minded or mentally unstable people?

Personal Ratings for Session: 9.5/10