So many ideas, so little time and space to talk about them all. One theme that emerged from this week's reading assignment was over-population and the increased number of elderly that we will be facing in the future.
It seems that all "supertrends" and "superforces" give insight to important issues, but this one in particular seems to permeate Cornish's text. It concerns me because we often wish for ideal situations, like having a cure for cancer and AIDS, having enough food, water, and shelter so homelessness is eliminated. But the actual ramifications of this utopia are frightening. If people are so sustainable through a lack of disease, and genetic manipulation, where are we going to put everyone!?
This is an issue that should lead us to question our morals... which is the topic of conversation in Brockman's reading assignment. Where does our sense of morality come from? Is it learned, or are we born with a certain capacity for morals that is dependent on our genetic makeup?
The second reading in Brockman suggests that maybe one day computers will be finding the answers to these questions and we will just have to sit back and watch. This is contrary to what we discussed in class last week, where the speaker said that one thing in the future that will NOT change is the importance of the human mind to advance technology.
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It is really scary to think about over population. I mean, look at China right now - the cities are sooo populated. Luckily they have a lot of space to eventually spread out. But what really happens when we run out of space? I mean imagine if there were no longer cities - the whole earth was a city. The for example - Richmond, VA and Washington, DC grew into one... Kinda crazy to think about but I guess its always possible.
ReplyDeleteI think morals are mostly learned. As we talked about in my International Business class - many things are legal in countries like Russia that Americans would balk at - things that are written in law. Certainly nature creates you to have tendencies towards certain things, but nurture truly shapes you and your morals.
The idea that computers will be answering all our questions is truly frightening, but unfortunately I think it's very possible that it could happen. I don't know that it would be in our lifetime but considering the progress we've made, it is very possible that it will eventually happen. However, I'd prefer to put that out of my mind and a stick with the point of view we discussed in class in which the importance of the human mind is never eliminated.
The population of the world has reached 6 billion and scientists say the capacity is 9 billion. Some scientists say we have already reached the earth's capacity- so yes, this is indeed scary.
ReplyDeleteThis has happened within the last 100 years, and it makes me wonder; with this exponential growth in technology, economy, health care- can we really predict the trends in an accurate way to overcome disaster? If the growth is so rapid that we will probably have to follow many S-curves, not just one (as discussed in the previous class)- I'm sure that there will be some surprising changes that are completely unexpected.
I found it interesting that one trend was deculturation. Till now I felt the world becoming a 'global village' is a great and exciting thing and something to look forward to; but it never occurred to me that this could to a lead 'culture shock'.
I don't think computers could take over humans. Though computers may possess the human intelligence one day; they won't be capable of human emotions which will always keep them one step behind humans.
The trend of over population is scary like most of you have mentioned, but that's only if the current trends continue. If we look back on history, there have been events that have halted trends such as population growth. For instance, the famous plague of the 1300's that wiped out a lot of people in the western world.
ReplyDeleteThe real fear for me is the unexpected event that alters what we may think will happen in the future....nuclear war, extreme natural disasters etc. These wild cards are things we don't expect and will blind side us.
Happy Thursday everyone!
If overpopulation is an inevitable trend, I think what we should do is to think about how we can do better to this world and the earth. If we have to derive more resources from the earth, can we devote ourselves more to doing environment friendly initiatives?
ReplyDeleteAs for the moral, I agree with Sara that most are learned and trained. Did you remember that when you were a kid crying in public for being upset that your parents did no buy a toy you want? We will not learn the self-discipline until we are educated by parents or teachers.
I agree that no matter how technology moves forward, human mind will be always the first consideration. Just like why a lot of companies nowadays try to differentiate themselves by providing more customized service or products.