Monday, August 18, 2008
THE WORLD IN 2025: THE REVOLUTIONARY FORCES OF INFORMATION AND COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES
This blog is for you to report your reflections from class. This week the discussion focused on the Seven Revolutions facing our world. These revolutions were defined by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. These revolutions are framed by envisioning how they will impact the world of the future - the world in 2025. The focus of this course is to envision how technology will play a part in changing the future. What revolutions will occur in technology? How can these advances address the challenges we face? Post your thoughts.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
My comment might seem a bit off hand but our class discussion was built upon today in my mind when..... I was listening to the radio. The station was collecting money to build homes for people in need. ****Please first understand that I am not against helping those in need.*****
My thought was about the problem with growing population and resource shortages.
I am confused as to why when listening to the radio I hear a woman who is talking about having no resources but yet she has 9 children and is living in a shack. I ask myself why would anyone who doesn't have a home to live in or a way to support themselves have any kids at all.
I watched a special on NatGeo about people in the continent of Africa who are moving from camp to camp with hopes that they will find food before the Warlords steal it and kill everyone in the camp. Yet these same poeple continue to have children and the children starve to death or get taken by the warlords who train them to be killers and soldiers. Why would anyone procreate in these circumstances?
Even here in the US I have acquaintences who won't get a job and have no way of taking care of themselves. They purposely have four and five children and live on welfare.
Each of these social situations are drastically different in their own way. The question I pose.. how do we change such awesome problems without first knowing where they stem from.
Not a very positive blog... I am aware of this, but it weighs heavily on my mind.
One major thing that was on my mind while in class and the Seven Revolutions were being discussed was that humans are parasitic in nature. Any other species on this planet once introduced into their habitat reach equilibrium with their ecosystem. Take for example the wolf. In the wolf’s environment the population of the wolf is dependent on their food source which fluxuates with population of wolf and their foods food. If the food becomes scarce, the wolf population decreases thus allowing the food source to stabilize. Humans though due to their intelligence have the ability to harvest their own food so overpopulation crisis’s can be delayed for long periods of time all the while needing more and more resources to sustain creating more of an imbalance in the ecosystem.
Some humans strive to solve the problems of humanity while other continually leech off those who actually strive to work. Take the example of India. They are drastically overpopulated as all of you know. Well there is one simple solution to their problem, stop reproducing at such a massive rate, yet the people of India continue to populate like rabbits. Another example of the parasites of humanity is the family that lives on welfare with a lot of children and the family has no job and does not try to get one. These people are a boon on society and shouldn’t be given the welfare they receive. Attitudes such as this rewards laziness and incompetence and punishes the people who fund the welfare programs.
The solution to all 7 of these revelations is to stop being a welfare society and stop rewarding people who do not earn the right. Don’t get me wrong, some people need help some times but they earn the right to help while most others don’t. If these leeches were discarded equilibrium would soon restore balance in the human ecosystem. Overpopulation would no long become an issue, resource distribution wouldn’t be an issue, or any of the other potential problems.
In class I learned several things that I didn't know and heard several disturbing things. One thing in particular I would like to comment on is the growing population. It is a scary thought that within several years, there will be over 9 billion people. After hearing this, I started to think about how people are always concerned with the people overseas like in the Middle East and Africa. The government and "aid" companys never seem concerned with the US. When the population of the world grows even more, there will be less and less concern for those in need here. I am also upset by how we, as in Americans, feel that it is our duty to help those in the developing countries like Africa. I get really tired of continuously hearing about the starving children in Africa. There are plenty of starving children here that need to be fed. If the government doesn't watch out, as the world population grows and more and more people immigrate to America, all those starving people will be here expecting to get food and help. But, if the government continues as is, these immigrants won't get help as Americans.
I'd have to agree that the class discussion last week was a little disturbing, but very important to know. It really puts things into reality for me and it forces me to challenge and/or question daily activities of mine. Lack of water in the future had to be the scariest idea that we discussed to me because there may not be something that we can do to conserve water and it is an essential item in everyone's life no matter how different we are or how far away we are- it's needed by everyone.
A lot of the topics we discussed made me question my future, especially because I'm planning on having kids. It's hard to think of bringing a child into this world when many necessities are going to be scarce. While technology will only be increasing is helpfulness, other things will not. Also, population problems make you wonder about land space! There will probably always be enough space, but like we said in class, everyone will be living near the coast line and what if that causes farmers and other people to stop their jobs to join in this statistic...what will happen to all of our food! Just the first class sparked so many ideas and questions in mind. I can only hope that the world as a whole can work together and try and find some better uses of our natural resources to only extend our lives on Earth while making it easier for those who will come after us!
I know I am posting this comment a little late, but I thought that the class was very interesting and eye opening. It's funny that out of the seven revolutions we seem to be the most concerned with population and resources. I agree with the other comments about not understanding why poor people who can't afford kids are having the most kids. One would think that these people would realize that they can't even take care of themselves, let alone multiple children. I would like to think that maybe educating these people to stop having babies might help, but if they already lack the common sense to stop having kids on their own due to their poor situation, then I doubt education will do much for them. I think these people can be selfish because they know and expect that other people or the govt will take care of them, especially here in the US. These people want to use our resource without giving anything back to society. This got me thinking about the animal kingdom and survival of the fittest. No where in the animal kingdom do capable individuals sit around and do nothing while others take care of them. It's quite the opposite, those individauls who do nothing die. So should it be same in the "human kingdom"? I am not saying that we should let millions die, but if capable people are going to take advantage of the system, then they should not be allowed to use the system. Maybe these people need to learn the hard way and realize that they can't sit around and do nothing. Well enough about poor people who take advantage, I think we all have an issue with this. This might sound bad, but it would be interesting if someone created a model of what would happen if we stopped supporting the poor and acted more like the animal kingdom. How much of decrease in population would we get and how much of an increase in resources would we gain?
Last class really opened my eyes to some major issues that we will face in the future if things don't change. It's hard to think about most of these issues because we do not face them everyday. We do not have to worry about having clean water every day, but there are a lot of people in the world that do. If we do not start becoming proactive about these issues, we may very well have to be faced with these issues in the future. Countries like India need to do something very quickly about their population problem. Spirit, I know what you mean about the people crying out for help, but yet they still keep having children. I don't understand how anyone could bring a child in such a horrible situation. It's irresponsible and there's no excuse for it.
We are destroying so many natural resources at such an extraordinary rate. There needs to be much stronger efforts to create better energy-efficient devices and clean, renewable sources of energy as well. We have made so many wonderful discoveries with the continuing advances in technology, and it is difficult for me to think that our government doesn't know ways to power our cars without the use foreign oil.
I have also thought about how much we rely on technology during our everyday lives. It is frightening to think what would happen if something happened to our computer systems in this country.
The major governments in the world must start working together and look at the world as a whole, not all the individual countries.
When first asked what would be the number one thing that will have impact on the future of the earth, I never thought it would be population. At first I thought that it might be food, because we are always hearing about how we are depleting our resources. However, if we really sit and think about how the population is growing there is no surprise that population will be a major impact on the future of the earth. After all, the growth rte is increasing by the second and the earth is not getting any bigger.
It was also said that most of this growth will occur in countries that cannot support themselves. I do agree with this statement since most women living in these countries depend solely on a male figure and therefore have little control over their life. In the US, however, this is different as there are a number of independent women living here. These women have choices and can decide whether or not to have kids; many of whom choose to limit the amount they have and the age at which they have them. Thus resulting in the low growth rate that the US has when compared to these developing countries.
Therefore, I can see why these developing or less fortunate countries will have a huge increase in population which will result in an overall growth in the human populate and finally have a huge impact on the future of the earth.
In reply to spirit, I think that there are people that do have children so that they can be on welfare, but I do not think that they are the majority. What seems obvious to you may not even come up into the minds of those you are talking about. The responsibility of children is often an after thought just as the realities of marriage is as plain as day to some. Also I do not think that it is fair to compare situations in African countries those here. The culture is completely different there. Children are the necessary vessels to the continuation of their way of life in many cases. Its not a question of if a couple will have kids, but when and how many. Children in many African lands, similar to the children of early America, are necessary for the survival of the family. They are needed to work the land, tend to the house, and do all the other chores two people could never do on their own. Additionally, contraceptives are not as readily available in those countries nor are the people as educated about it.
Technology has helped us create this system of information that travels from one country to the next in a matter of seconds. The fact that I could talk to someone in Europe on the phone, in almost “real-time” is just one of the many ways information can be passed. Because of this, we have this sense of globalization. Technology is the reason we have this sense of globalization. Here at Kennesaw State, we have different fund-raisers and outreach ministries that do good for the children in Darfur or other under developed countries. So in a sense, technology has already contributed to the helping of other people.
The question is what are we doing to help? Technology thus far has given us the information, or painted us the picture, so that we might act by doing something or donating money to charity. But when will technology directly contribute to these countries? I’m sure there are examples of this already taking place, but will the rate of which technology increases keep up just as quickly in under developed countries?
The growing population seems to be the topic here so I wanted to add my two cents worth to some of the comments posted here.
The US does not have a great welfare system and there are some that do abuse it. But, there are good people out there that do need help - especially now in our time of recession. Unemployment is rising, the housing market is a mess, big companies are going bankrupt...
Then there is the question of why people have so many children when they can't seem to afford them. Religious beliefs and culture could be a big part of this. Birth control is not an option in many countries and abortions are not available in others. Some religions believe that fertility is a gift from God.
There is no easy solution to the growing population - it is a global issue and that makes it more difficult.
I learned from another class that before Bush was elected, the US helped finance an organization that educated people in other countries about AIDS and birth control and provided condoms and pills. Bush cut the funding...
Population control seems to dominate this discussion, and for obvious reasons. For instance, the lack of fresh water, depletion of fossil fuels, and even global warming could all be addressed by curbing the planet's population. China is already trying out the "one child per family" rule, but in the rest of the free world there just aren't many socially acceptable ways to force people to stop having children. Now, of course, its a little absurd to think we will have any success actually reducing the number of people on the planet, but we could have some success at flattening out the exponential growth curve that's clearly going to cause us some problems in the near future.
Usually I'd say we need to focus on the root of the problem, but in this case, its clear we need to need to spend our energy in areas where we'll have more of a chance to make a real difference. Therefore, its going to be imperative for us to begin to focus on solutions to the problems caused by population increase as soon as possible. The various water purification technologies, such as desalination, are good areas to focus. And, while these are expensive undertakings now, if we've learned anything about any given technology, its that the more we reproduce it, the cheaper we're able to do it. This also applies to clean renewable energy sources. Even though we're already behind the ball on this one, I feel the most productive approach will come from taking innovative views on what we might be able to make possible and put enourmous amounts of energy into developing the best candidates.
While these issues can easily be defined as problems, with the right perspective, and the use of our opposable thumbs, they might easily be defined in hindsight as revolutions.
Post a Comment