This week's presentation topics range from automotive to social issues like poverty.
I have a lot to say about poverty, especially extreme poverty.
Before we proceed on to the international level, I would like to take a look at my own country, Indonesia.
Extreme poverty is still rampant in Indonesia. Despite the increasing living standard for the past decade, it is still a perennial issue unsolved by the current president and his parliament. It is a matter of willingness and passion to help the people that the politicians/civil servants are supposed to serve. There is actually no excuse for running away from our responsibility to do social services to the community.
Why is it that extreme poverty still exist?
The reason is simple: We DO NOT know extreme poverty and the suffering it wrought. No matter how much pictures can tell, they can only convey images, not the pain, the suffering that each individual in the picture is experiencing. We DO NOT know the people in extreme poverty line. I personally am guilty of the same mindset, but I hope that does not diminish the credibility of this post.
One thing is clear: The poor people want to increase their standards of living, and are willing to work for it, given the chance. This particular fact is supported by a Ted Talk that I watched recently. The poor in African country strive to increase their living standard and they do not want to be dependent on foreign aids all the time, either. They are willing to work hard for it, given the chance to learn. This is an important point of view that everybody must have.
Exactly because we, people who live comfortably in modern cities, do not possess this kind of point of view that extreme poverty still exists. We are too detached from them, and by donating some small amount of extra change, we think that we have reached out to them, that we have done our part. This is a blatant lie that many of us are telling ourselves.
The eradication of extreme poverty can be brought about by increasing our awareness of how massive are our actions' consequences. I am not talking about some chaos theory here. If, every one of people who are middle-income earner and above would spend, say a few weeks to help teach and interact with these people. We are becoming increasingly egalitarian in our point of view regarding poverty. That is a hindrance, too.
Obviously, we can't choose who to be our parents, and which family we are born into, are they well off or not.... An egalitarian society is one that perpetuates a negative cycle. As poor and rich became segregated, the gap usually becomes bigger due to the oppression of the poor by the rich, and rich becomes more powerful. Listen to the poor people, for often they are robbed of their options and choices, their freedom to shape the course of their lives due to our disdain for "non-elite" people.
A few things we can do so that we can create some real and sustainable impact rather than fooling ourselves continuously by just donating money:
1. Be involved in community services, e.g. Teach the community your insights and experience and skills
2. Utilize your skill sets for the benefit of these people, e.g. engineer could build water filtration plant, etc.
3. Encourage friends/families/others to do 1 and 2
Rating: 10/10
Highest rating for the last class (for teaching, anw)
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
TWC - Week 10 Discussion
Future Technology.
In the class, we discussed all the different technologies which would be a life-changer: nuclear fusion technology, augmented reality, driverless cars and others.
Those are all cool technologies which would definitely sell when it become economically viable to purchase them.
Investment and financing of the researches constitute half of the battle for the scientists. First, they need to get the money or grant in order to start something, and then, they need to do the science and meticulous research to prove their hypothesis.
Now, there are many ideas and theories which are scrapped before researchers could even prove their ideas due to the lack of grant and money to do the research. I personally think that this filtering is absolutely necessary to uphold the quality of the research and prioritize the one with the highest benefit to society.
I would like to think of the logical steps needed to evaluate a research. On what measurement would we evaluate a research's value? Is a research on animals less important than the medical research on AIDS? How are we going to justify such a claim? Who will make such a claim? And who can give such a claim the weight of authority?
1. Research must be feasible, with adequate literature with which scientists could design the methodology and experiment, and yield certain result.
Human is a "loss averse" creature. It has been proven by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. .
Such characteristics made assessment of risks for investment portfolio an important thing. Investors do not like seeing their money lost, but is this the correct behaviour?
Future technologies are the brave new world of science. They are uncharted territories, which would require vast resources and effort to explore and discover. There is gain without any pain. When there is excess wealth, I personally think that it is better to invest in causes and researches which could potentially bring about great benefits to the society. It is not unlike what Bill Gates and Melinda Gates have been doing for the past decade. Their institutions have raised money to help to poor.
So, research need not be totally feasible when it starts, because breakthrough could not happen without breaking the limitations given to us. However, research should at least be based on certain empirical finding or observation before being approved for funding. T
2. Creation of Technology Assessment Organization.
A non-profit technology assessment organization with powerful think-tank team will bring credibility to the papers released by the organization. Such technology assessment organizations could potentially direct the scientific community's energy towards future goal.
The future awaits us.
Rating: 8/10
In the class, we discussed all the different technologies which would be a life-changer: nuclear fusion technology, augmented reality, driverless cars and others.
Those are all cool technologies which would definitely sell when it become economically viable to purchase them.
Investment and financing of the researches constitute half of the battle for the scientists. First, they need to get the money or grant in order to start something, and then, they need to do the science and meticulous research to prove their hypothesis.
Now, there are many ideas and theories which are scrapped before researchers could even prove their ideas due to the lack of grant and money to do the research. I personally think that this filtering is absolutely necessary to uphold the quality of the research and prioritize the one with the highest benefit to society.
I would like to think of the logical steps needed to evaluate a research. On what measurement would we evaluate a research's value? Is a research on animals less important than the medical research on AIDS? How are we going to justify such a claim? Who will make such a claim? And who can give such a claim the weight of authority?
1. Research must be feasible, with adequate literature with which scientists could design the methodology and experiment, and yield certain result.
Human is a "loss averse" creature. It has been proven by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. .
Such characteristics made assessment of risks for investment portfolio an important thing. Investors do not like seeing their money lost, but is this the correct behaviour?
Future technologies are the brave new world of science. They are uncharted territories, which would require vast resources and effort to explore and discover. There is gain without any pain. When there is excess wealth, I personally think that it is better to invest in causes and researches which could potentially bring about great benefits to the society. It is not unlike what Bill Gates and Melinda Gates have been doing for the past decade. Their institutions have raised money to help to poor.
So, research need not be totally feasible when it starts, because breakthrough could not happen without breaking the limitations given to us. However, research should at least be based on certain empirical finding or observation before being approved for funding. T
2. Creation of Technology Assessment Organization.
A non-profit technology assessment organization with powerful think-tank team will bring credibility to the papers released by the organization. Such technology assessment organizations could potentially direct the scientific community's energy towards future goal.
The future awaits us.
Rating: 8/10
Saturday, October 16, 2010
TWC - Week 9 Discussion
After 2 weeks of break (I missed one entry on agricultural biotech, I will include my opinion later on this entry), finally I am resuming my entries on this blog.
So, renewable energy/ alternative energy. Viable or not?
With increased technological capability and effectiveness... yes. As long as we are able to gather all those wasted energy that pours down on us everyday (solar energy), we will be able to keep the whole world ticking without oil and other fossil fuels that we are currently using. There is certainly no doubt about that.
But, is it expanding fast enough to save the world from the looming environment catastrophe, i.e. Global Warming? Will we, people (and government), who are always slow in embracing new technology, be willing to sacrifice the revered "economic development" for "sustainability"?
Why do I say so? As always, I do not have figure to totally support my point, but from the articles/journals that I've read before, I am pretty sure that embracing this technology will bring some pain in the short run. Increased/High capital cost of the energy, efforts to curb toxic emissions/waste, and others. It will cost money, and people do not like that.
I am reading John Perkin's The secret History of American Empire, who gives quite a worrying account on environmental devastation that humans have done to Mother Earth. Some pictures on toxic flood that I've seen before give me goosebumps (the link is here http://webecoist.com/2010/10/12/wave-goodbye-10-of-the-worlds-worst-toxic-floods/) . Such is the extent of damage that we have wrought, and all of us have been implicated in this damage. We could not escape from the allegations/responsibility. We are consumerists, we consume products which production processes kill the environment. That is a fact.
For example, John Perkin mentioned something about the "bloody" minerals obtained in Africa. Just like the movie "blood diamond", this is a real-life account on how conflicts in Africa are mostly politically motivated so that certain corporations or country could obtain certain resources (rare minerals important for electronic products, gold, oil, etc). We might have blood on our hands. I have not gotten the time to trace the sources and others, but this possibility in itself is not giving me any comfort.
Yeah. That's my point. It is not going to be so easy to change the mindset of the people and the corporations who care mostly about the bottom-line. I must admit, we need more CEOs who appreciate the benefit of "enlightened self-interest". That is the only way we could bring our current situation around, through the business world, through the capitalism system itself. We must introduce some drugs to help this diseased economic system, that drug might just be this "enlightened self-interest".
Personal opinion: We are touting renewable and alternative energy as some world-changing technology which will make us less dependent on fossil fuels. Yeah, but, those are empty ideology in my opinion. We are just cheering the scientists and engineers on from the front line. I say, we do what we can to stop our dependencies on fossil fuel. I mean, it's like drug addiction, it's going to be painful not to use it... but, think about the future.
OOOK, am I being too alarmist here? All right, maybe OK, even if the world is not going to end if you don't change your way, there is still quite a considerable economic benefit and I believe, "personal satisfaction" - or "moral satisfaction", if that "value" still exist., of changing our ways. Oil will fluctuate in price and geologists have predicted the end of oil in coming decades, its days are numbered. Reducing dependency now will make the oil price increase less relevant to us (and maybe curb the hegemony of USD - coupled with the reduction of US debts owned by other countries, I'm pretty sure USD will lost its current hegemonic strength). My second point, is... more or less an appeal to common sense and human's sense of dignity as the stalwart of mother earth.
Rating: 7/10
Still, even after writing this post. I am guilty of being a hypocrite. *Sigh*
So, renewable energy/ alternative energy. Viable or not?
With increased technological capability and effectiveness... yes. As long as we are able to gather all those wasted energy that pours down on us everyday (solar energy), we will be able to keep the whole world ticking without oil and other fossil fuels that we are currently using. There is certainly no doubt about that.
But, is it expanding fast enough to save the world from the looming environment catastrophe, i.e. Global Warming? Will we, people (and government), who are always slow in embracing new technology, be willing to sacrifice the revered "economic development" for "sustainability"?
Why do I say so? As always, I do not have figure to totally support my point, but from the articles/journals that I've read before, I am pretty sure that embracing this technology will bring some pain in the short run. Increased/High capital cost of the energy, efforts to curb toxic emissions/waste, and others. It will cost money, and people do not like that.
I am reading John Perkin's The secret History of American Empire, who gives quite a worrying account on environmental devastation that humans have done to Mother Earth. Some pictures on toxic flood that I've seen before give me goosebumps (the link is here http://webecoist.com/2010/10/12/wave-goodbye-10-of-the-worlds-worst-toxic-floods/) . Such is the extent of damage that we have wrought, and all of us have been implicated in this damage. We could not escape from the allegations/responsibility. We are consumerists, we consume products which production processes kill the environment. That is a fact.
For example, John Perkin mentioned something about the "bloody" minerals obtained in Africa. Just like the movie "blood diamond", this is a real-life account on how conflicts in Africa are mostly politically motivated so that certain corporations or country could obtain certain resources (rare minerals important for electronic products, gold, oil, etc). We might have blood on our hands. I have not gotten the time to trace the sources and others, but this possibility in itself is not giving me any comfort.
Yeah. That's my point. It is not going to be so easy to change the mindset of the people and the corporations who care mostly about the bottom-line. I must admit, we need more CEOs who appreciate the benefit of "enlightened self-interest". That is the only way we could bring our current situation around, through the business world, through the capitalism system itself. We must introduce some drugs to help this diseased economic system, that drug might just be this "enlightened self-interest".
Personal opinion: We are touting renewable and alternative energy as some world-changing technology which will make us less dependent on fossil fuels. Yeah, but, those are empty ideology in my opinion. We are just cheering the scientists and engineers on from the front line. I say, we do what we can to stop our dependencies on fossil fuel. I mean, it's like drug addiction, it's going to be painful not to use it... but, think about the future.
OOOK, am I being too alarmist here? All right, maybe OK, even if the world is not going to end if you don't change your way, there is still quite a considerable economic benefit and I believe, "personal satisfaction" - or "moral satisfaction", if that "value" still exist., of changing our ways. Oil will fluctuate in price and geologists have predicted the end of oil in coming decades, its days are numbered. Reducing dependency now will make the oil price increase less relevant to us (and maybe curb the hegemony of USD - coupled with the reduction of US debts owned by other countries, I'm pretty sure USD will lost its current hegemonic strength). My second point, is... more or less an appeal to common sense and human's sense of dignity as the stalwart of mother earth.
Rating: 7/10
Still, even after writing this post. I am guilty of being a hypocrite. *Sigh*
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)