Prof Shahi then showed us the video "shift happens". The video showed shocking statistics and facts that shows how rapidly our world is changing around us. China will so become the largest English speaking country, Nintendo(A gaming console company) has spent more than $140M on innovations for their games in 2002 while the US government spent less than half of that on research on education in the same year.
The class then moved on the discuss about Guns Germs And Steel (Jared Diamond,2005). The discussion namely talked about the possible reasons why some countries developed much slower than others, with the main example on New Guinea as compared to Europe. Yali asked "Why do White men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little". I believe what prof Shahi said was right. Societies that do not open up to new ideas and do not have the "hunger" to constantly improve themselves are most likely to fall behind to others in terms of technological advances. I wish we had more time to discuss the geographical effects of a country on her level of technology though. I thought it would've been an engaging topic to discuss, like the effects of being situated above an oil reserve and the impact it will have on the countries technology level. And topics like why Singapore is doing better than an oil producing country like Nigeria despite us having much less natural resources. I believe that will give us a bigger picture of how different factors interlink and stimulate the level of technology in a country.
The second last part of the lesson talked about the revolutionary development in human history.
• First Use of
Fire – about 100,000 years ago
• From
Hunter-Gatherers to Agriculture – about 11,000 years ago
• The Rise of
Urban Settlements – about 8,000 years ago
• Writing – about
4,000 years ago
• Gunpowder –
about 1,000 years ago
• Industrial
Revolution – about 150 years ago
• Agricultural
Revolution – about 50 years ago
• ICT Revolution
– started about 30 years ago, still on-going
• BioBusiness
Revolution – about 10 years ago, still relatively nascent
• GreenTech
Revolution – about 3-5 years ago, rapid innovation
From the list, we can see that after the industrial revolution, revolutionary development started happening at a much shorter interval as compared to previous years. I believe it is due to the fact that as automated machinery's were created, people could travel,cook,clean,communicate and work much faster as compared to their predecessors. Hence, people had much more time to think of better ways to improve their lives. This could be one of the possible reasons to the trend displayed above.
Lastly, Prof Shahi talked about how ape has evolved to man, and man is degrading into the fat man. The question is whether the future of the human race will continue in this direction. Research by the Health, United states have shown that 35.9% of adults in America is obese from 2009-2010. Such an occurrence has huge implications on the economy of the country, as health care expenditure will greatly increase due to the negative health effects of being fat. However, I believe that this is only a phase in human history. Modern man and women still idolises the concept of a muscular and lean body, and gyms have sprung up all the world to cater to the demands of the obese. The obese wants to slim down, as evident from the increase in gym and weight loss clinics appearing. If there is no demand for weight loss clinics and gyms, supply of such facilities will not increase. Hence, I believe that man will get through this phase and we will not ultimately become a fat race.
Finally, I would give this class a 8/10 as it really has really broadened my concept of the word technology. The class discussions were really fruitful and the readings suggested to us really increases our knowledge pertaining to the subject.
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