Technological impact on social and global dominance and human development

The lesson began with a youtube video shared on our facebook group and some discussions based on the video. The video is about whether China is already the biggest economy. Although base on statistic, Germany might seems that it is the biggest exporter, it might not be true. China could consider as the biggest exporter as it has the highest GDP. US on the other hand is considered as a contract economy as it is starting to decline. Prof shared this sentence with us; Changes is inevitable and often necessary. The transition can be often difficult or painful (for some). Sometime a choice, sometimes it has to happen. If you guys did not manage to find the video, here is the link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb5pbFykn5M

The lesson went on to touch on issues on global dominance and it can be simply termed as global player, rising and falling star. After introducing those terms to us, we had our guest speakers, clement and lydia presenting their slides on the topic they have chosen. The 2nd half of the lesson was about human development and the factors that affect human development. We also had 2 guest speakers Sherman and Aaron presenting their topic. In addition, a video on MDGs were shown to us to ponder about. The lesson ended off with some discussion about the video.

One of the issues that has intrigued me is around the 1960s, countries in Asia and The African nations stand the same ground. However, after colonization, Asia actually got better and the African nations got worst off. The reason is simply because Africa is too near to Europe. I am impressed and grateful in a way that how colonization has actually made Asia a better place to live in.  The other issue that has trigger my attention is prof's definition of equality; Think of 2 person. Child of the poorest and the riches in a certain country and judge whether have an equal chance of standing at a university. I would say this test will actually be a better way of judging equality. The reason is simply statistic might not be accurate. The richest person might be earning a lot of money and hence pulling up the average income. Another interesting fact that i have learnt is actually that equality is far more not equal now compared to the 1960s n 1970s.

This week's lesson l had 2 major takeaways for me. The first takeaway i would want to touch on is innovation. The only way to ensure growth in country is to innovate. Rising star refers to country for knowledge and invest oriented. A rising stat requires innovation. One example of rising star will be in the case of China. The Chinese are constantly sending it's best talent to the western society to learn what has they installed in their talents and they will then bring the knowledge back to China to improve on it. US is not able to achieve this because they are better off at value-added products rather than innovation of products. The next key takeaway for me would be the need to invest on women's education. It is tested and proven that education on women is often doubled and men's education tend to be wasted. Aaron's presentation on women in power too reinforce the need to invest in women education. Perhaps thats the reason why empowering women is one of the MDG goals

Coming to MDGs, we didn't really touch a lot of this issue. We did not really delve into each goal and how we can do to make sure we can achieve these goals by 2015. As we know, the global recession that happened 2 years ago had hindered the progress of the goals but we did not touch further on how countries can bounce back from this recession to achieve the goals. The most important factor to achieve the goals is to actually gather support and we need to know what those countries need to do to get themselves back on track so that they are able to contribute they way they used to. One of our classmates bring out the issue that she is surprised that fighting against corruption is not in one of the goals. I agree to her suggestion as a country can receive as much aids from the global community but if the funds are allocated in the wrong hands, the citizens might suffer as they will not be able to receive as much aid as it initially allocated to. This can be further touched on during lesson but due to time constrain, we are not able to expand much on this suggestion

Lastly, i would rate this lesson as 9/10 as this week's lesson has made me look forward to the next lesson. A lot of interested facts have been said and it has certainly allowed me to gain further insights on TWC. I hope next week will be a better information sharing session than this week!

Technology and World change lesson 1.

This is my 1st lesson if the week and i went in to the lesson with my group of friends. The lesson was pretty interesting and started off with a video of did you know: Shift happens. After that we had a little ice breaker to get to know about our classmates better and also our perception about TWC. We also get to know the expectation of our Prof Gurinder Shahi.

The next half of the lesson topic that we discuss is technology and the rise of civilization.We started off from this video: guns, gems and steel. Followed by a short discussion of the video and followed by technology passed down since stone age. One interesting observation that i had gained from this lesson is actually many of the things that we used and see grew primarily from the middle east. For example, Algebra is originated from Arab and people have then, used those algebra equations to invent great things. Another thing that caught my attention is the video that Prof Gurinder had shown us; Prediction by 2013, a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capabilities of human brains.

This leads to my question of whether in future, the cyber world will end up taking over humanity. I would cite one show to support my argument and that show will be eagle's eye. The show is basically how a supercomputer has manipulated the computation capabilities that it has and manipulated 2 person in an attempt to take over humanity. This might not happen as most people would claim: It's just a show. However, we must not dismiss this possibility as technology might become so advance in future and nobody knows what the future holds. Another take away point for me is how much technology has advanced to the extent that it has surpass our biological needs. As a result, there's a increase in the rate of obesity. However, i also have to add to the point that one of our classmates has discussed, i.e. some area in the states has more fast food outlet around the vicinity and most of them do not have the choice but to purchase their lunch and dinner at those fast food outlets. However, this topic was not further discussed during lesson and i hope this topic should be further elaborated. The reason is because i feel that this issue is related to us in every other way. We might not be obese now but 10 years down the road, who will guarantee that the weighing scale that we stood on, will not be at the opposite end of it? In addition, obesity is the cause of certain heart related diseases like heart attack.

I think that this first session is rather meaningful to me. However, i think prof should allow us to repeat the topics that we have chosen be it oral presentation, tropical review paper or group project. The reason is cause in addition to this, we are not allowed to repeat the same topic as our classmates which post a challenge to our research. I hope you can consider changing this policy. I would rate the lesson 7/10 =)