Third week of TWC and everything started making sense after prof Shahi posted on Facebook that TWC is a mod that looks into more than technological discovery and gadgets as technology implies much more than that. And like what prof started the lesson with, an accounting method can also be considered a kind of technology. In fact this broaden the scope of TWC to an insanity level, almost incorporating almost everything in the human world. It's really a "GP on steroids".

That had really put a worry off my mind as I often myself digressing from the 'tech-savvy' aspects and wanders into a economical or social approach to look at the subject. Most importantly thanks goodness prof posted that because I was busily looking for a 'technology' that helps substantiate of the lack of 'technology' in my original article for my oral presentation.

Today topics revolved around Moving towards sustainable industrial development and Innovation management.

Sustainability is a concept that is gaining momentum at an exponential rate in both businesses and governments. We can no longer live in our 'lala land' where we enjoy materials comfort at the expenses of the future generation. The key is not about switching uses of non-renewable resources into renewable resources but how to maximize our use of these non-renewable resources, preferably to the potential of setting unlimited uses to the limited resources.

Points like there's a trade off between environmental and economical approaches had been brought up multiple times in class. IF we were to achieve sustainability, we have to sacrifice our economic growth. I beg to differ as the current rate of economic growth are spurred by much uses of non-renewable resources and the introduction of debt (consuming future goods) and are definitely not 'real'. An interesting concept is when we do not extract oil or other kind of renewable resources, there is a net investment gain. Current model of computing economical growth has certainly not taken into account the net investment loss of extracting non-renewable resources.

What we need to achieve is to demolish the linear nature of the industry and chain the processes into a cycle by replacing extracting with recycling. What we should hope to achieve is an ambitious 99% rate of returns of the raw materials recycled. Because of this, products have to aim to be easily taken apart into the its basic raw materials, much like how LEGOS works, I assembled a structure with 100 different legos and I should upon taking it apart, get back my 100 legos, all in their original states. Products should therefore, minimize changing the nature of its raw materials unless confidence of reusing it in its modified form is strong.

Another issues of sustainability is definitely energy as renewable energy are accounting for approximately only 7% of world energy consumption. I felt that the class did not understand that the rise of compressed air, fuel cells and electrical vehicles is not a solution to our environmental woes and energy sustainability woes. All these are energy carriers technology. Energy still have to be produced by burning fossil fuels elsewhere to produce these fuels or electricity. They are definitely good technologies that improves our energy efficiency of transportation but relying on them alone is insufficient. We have to direct our investment on improving technology or directly investing into increasing the scale of our renewable energy! I have failed to share this info in class because I have to save it for my oral presentation… Sorry! =p

Suresh had questioned whether the risks taken by a government to give incentives to innovation is justifiable. Firstly, I think it is definitely a risk that should be taken as not all innovation is profit maximizing in nature, thus not favored by corporations. If governments do not provide subsidy or incentive for these innovations, they will never be able to reach an applicable stage in the hands of private corporations. Moreover, government can do more than providing subsidy or incentive to innovations and risk draining their reserves. They can direct innovations by taxing on unfavorable area where innovations should not be wasted on or by using law, legislation and regulation to dictate a general guideline innovations have to achieve. Uses of regulations and directions have to be minimal to avoid converging of ideas though.

2nd lesson of Technology and World Change touches on 2 topics, Technology and Global Dominance and Technology and Human Development. Had our very first presenter, Jannah presented on the first topic and her article is about Google. There's 2 presenters for the second topic, one article was about genetic engineering and another about immortality.

Regarding the question posted whereby whether Google is making us stupid. I personally felt that it is making us smarter. As consumers, we are exposed to large array of information and products. With multiple source of information for the same products, we learnt to compare information given by different sources and hold our reservation towards any information. This process teaches how to judge and decide for ourselves the trustworthiness of any information. Google might have dominated the global market for information but its dominance has brought about a threat to corporations' dominance in other industries.

Prof characterize rising stars in the industry as one with open perspective and keen to invest in new ideas and vice versa for the falling star. He's definitely right but been just open to new ideas and keen to invest in new ideas is not the only key to success. Without proper management and ability to judge the potential of any ideas, this trait might just be the company's tombstone. As an economics student, I tend to look at things from another point of view. The successes to companies are often more than how top management are open to new ideas and technologies.

A company's dominance on the market might be also due to

-High barrier of entry

-First come first serve (Market too small to support 2 separate entities, example is TCS and Channel U)

-High level of capital of existing firms that can drive competitors out through a price war

The list goes on but what interesting is that with brilliant innovation and revolutionary technology, the little ants can also turn the game back on the giants and dethrone them, despite the many factors that impedes their growth. This emphasizes the importance of keeping a open mind toward new ideas and technologies.

Regarding Human Development, I felt that although much improved, the current HDI (Human Development Index) is a poor gauge of real development for humanity. Human development is defined as "It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accordance with their needs and interests, thus bringing the focus back onto people." Quoted from Wikipedia

Life expectancy is part of a calculation for HDI but they failed to recognise that life expectancy above a certain age might not be healthy in developing human's full potential. If life expectancy is increased forcefully through the use of expensive life-extending medicines, procedures and operations, it effectively means that every individuals' ability to produce the maximum output in his life decreased. It is especially so when through this life-extending processes, the patients are in agony or pain. It is an extreme irony that in many states, it is illegal for family members to end one's agony by rejecting to continuation of his life extension. This controversial issue of having a right to end one's own life become a monster that saps every single possible cents from the patients in his dying stage.

Increases in life expectancy also means that an individual has to spread his earnings and savings over a longer period of time provided that that his retirement age remains the same, thus reducing his standard of life.

The current HDI fails to recognise how stress level and happiness level is vital in one's quality of life and his ability to work and produce real human output. Years of schooling should be replaced with quality of education. The mere numbers of years of schooling a country's citizen had might not truly reflects their productiveness. Increased number of years in areas that yield no real benefits to society and industries might decrease the overall human output an individual is capable of.

All in all, until economic imperialisation or 'freakonomics' find a way to quantify the unquantifiable or intangible, there is no real means to correctly judge human development.

Start of our TWC journey

First Session of our Technology and World Change experience started proper with a brief introduction by prof and other fellow classmates. After which was a video dated back to 2008 when MySpace was still 'alive' which briefly illustrate how technology has made its indestructible foothold in our life. The class moved proper into discussion on Technology and the Rise of Civilisations: Historical Timeline and Technological "Revolutions" after a brief look at the timeline of the universe and humanity and other related readings.

I will touch a bit more on "Gun, Germs and Steel", a video adaptation shown to us by the prof.

Finishing the first episode of "Guns, Germs and Steel : Out of Eden", I find myself back at the drawing board when the question on why technology disparity widen and happens was thrown out into an open discussion in class. Many classmates came up with answers and one comment about the geographical location of civilisation and the resources available to them was a factor. He chose to focus on raw materials like ores but the video has brought in a wider perspective. It was illustrated that the difference in the productivity of local agricultural products and livestocks has huge part to play and the keyword here is surplus. Only when the basic needs are met, with a surplus of food then there will be availability of time and workforces to focus their need on other areas, to allow specialisation. This is further illustrated from examples in the modern world. Companies, corporations and even countries can afford to go into R & D only when they have surpluses and profits.

While geographical advantages seemed to disappear in the face of globalisation, where resources are no longer bound by geographical means, it might not necessarily be so. China, is well known for using its monopoly of rare earth as a political tool. When questioned about its attempt to devalue the RMB to secure an export advantages by the USA, huge amounts of rare earth setting for the USA were called back and held up at the port. Was it mere coincidence? Or was it yet another well planned threat?

I would also like to discuss the possibilities that the abundance of resources might not necessarily be favourable. When resources are abundant, people do not innovate to make the best use out of the resources as they saw no need to. Will humans tried ways and means to improve the effectiveness of engine if there's no red alert on oil supply? Next, we look at what is called the resource curse, most commonly referred as the oil curse for Middle Eastern countries. The oil curse happens for several reason, it might be the mismanagement of resources like the lack of innovation I mentioned. However, the strongest reason the oil curse occurs is that the lucrative petroleum industry drive up the real exchange rate, destroying the profitability of any other industry. Resources and funds are pumped into the petroleum industry for the high yield, other sectors have totally no hope of matching up in term of profitability. For countries that had been hit by other kind of resource curse, once the global industry moved away from that particular resources, the economy died off as there exists no other competitive industry.

The key message I got was "too much of anything is never good". Everything in the universe must have a balance. When we have too much money, we failed to see the real value of money and aspects of life which money cannot define. When we have too much resources, we do not innovate, we do explore other possibilities. When we have too much technologies, we failed to understand the marvel of human bodies, the beauty in the simplicity that life can offer.

Prof had mentioned in class how Singapore government had failed to incorporate the importance of green technology into our society. Why is it that we had such an abundance of sunshine that we failed to make full use of it. I had asked myself the same question a few years back during my stay at HQ transport in army. With such a huge plot of land, of parking space, there is endless sunlight shining on them. Why are they going to waste? Why is it that, Singapore, claiming to be a first world country is so reluctant to embrace these technology when the Europeans and Americans had long awakened, leading a green revolution that forces government and corporations to take a second look on their 'business as usual' mentality.

I strongly feel that the government, the public sector should be the one making a spearhead lead into these arenas. Tesla had managed to create a hybrid sedan that is capable of running on both electricity and gasoline that is suitable for daily usage. These electric vehicles are capable of going up to 200 miles per charge from charging stations that is sun-powered. The charging capability of a smallest charging station for household use can hold enough power for 26 miles per charge! It's time we start transforming our buses, SAF vehicles (non-outfield uses) and our taxis into electric vehicles, talk about the potential market behind this!

Further issues I hope to touch on some other time would be how the invention of lithium ion battery transform the renewable resources industry, how creating a better engine will not unhook our lust for oil, and how the Big 5 of the oil industry has won the battle against fuel cell in the early stages of cars, how their dominance impedes the technological advancement in renewable resources and ultimately how fuel cell is making a comeback.