TWC session 2 :)

This is the second session of our TWC lesson. We have covered 2 main topics on Technology, Society and Global Dominance and Technology and Human Development. Here, I will pick a few interesting discussions made in class to talk about.

Change is inevitable and often necessary; the transition process can often be difficult or painful (for some). This statement was introduced to us in class. This made me think of another very similar idea, which is, change is the only constant in world. This is especially true when we apply it to our rapid pace modern society. Europe was globally dominance in terms of economy a few decades ago. However, their position was taken over by United State. Who knows maybe a few years later, countries such as China or India might be the ones clinching the top position. The development of some changes might be insignificant, but the process of certain changes can be devastating. For example, when Marx’s, the founder of communism, idea of communism was being introduced, the attempt to creating a utopian state caused over 100 million dead, millions more imprisoned, vast regions depopulated, and suffering the world has never before seen. Since change is inevitable, the only thing that people can do is to minimise the damage done by change and amplify its benefits.

There was a very interesting concept about “Rising star, falling star and dominant player” being introduced by Professor Shahi. The rising star countries contain characteristics such as open perspective, optimistic, eager to learn from others and have the guts to try out new ideas; while falling star countries, on the other hand, is the opposite of these. What I felt interesting was the idea of dominant player, which Professor Shahi described as the beginning of the end. It was meant to describe countries that are about to fall into in the falling star category. I find the definition of dominant player ambiguous as it is difficult to determine who is on the falling edge. Personally, I feel that Singapore was a Dominant player before the economy crisis 2 years ago. People at that time were starting to be pessimistic and were not keen to invest in new ideas. However, after the crisis, people started to realize that if they do not improve, they will soon be replaced by those rising star countries such as China and India. I will classify the present Singapore as a rising star now.

Among the five presentations, I realized that Dora’s presentation about hegemony interest me most. She discussed about how US tried to uphold its hegemony by providing the knowledge of missile. Initially they were not willing to share the information as they are afraid of Soviet Union’s adaptations of technology due to certain nations’ all-too-liberal export policies. However, due to the pressure from western European to relax its nondisclosure policy, US had no choice but to share the guided-missile technology. Dora brought up a question whether hegemony is still relevant these days. I believed that it is a yes from me. I felt that hegemonic these days exist in a different form. In the past, hegemony could be shown by controlling other countries (colonization, I would prefer to treat it as controlling through pure violence though). These days, hegemony can not only be shown through global dominance in military, but also other aspects such as economically dominant. US was trying to move in this direction by promoting globalization, which they believed can act as a means to control the other countries. Ironically, instead of gaining control, they were taken aback by China and India’s quick adaptation towards the new system. As mentioned in the earlier part of the lesson, change is inevitable. Nobody is able to predict what will happen and it is a risk that we all have to take.

Actually there is a question that I would like to know how the class will respond: “Do you think that the millennium goals are realistic?” Personally, I feel that goals such as eradicating poverty are too general and idealistic as it is also impossible to remove poverty from our society. I believe that everything has 2 sides of it. Anywhere with light, there will always be shadow. The total removal of dark side of the society is impossible. I felt that the goals should be set with a feasible direction, for example to increase the average wage of the poorest to $6/day. In this case, people will have the urge to move forward as the direction of the goal is clearly define and achievable.  

Generally, I will rate this lesson 7/10. I felt very comfortable with the environment created in class when a discussion was carried out. I can see that people are trying their best to sharing their valuable opinions and clarifying their doubts in class. Scenarios, such as someone speaking for the sake of speaking (no content) or asking stupid/ irrelevant questions, which I fear, did not happen. However, due to the time constrain, we did not have the chance to listen to the last presentation in detail. This was a little disappointing as it seems to be an interesting article discussed about.