session 10

This session was my turn to do the oral presentation. I chose an article that talks about the upstream public engagement with regards to the formation of technology development pathway. I shall not elaborate further on the content. While reading this article, this question kept coming into my mind: how are the public selected to join the engagement session with the scientist? I put it as a discussion question and post it to the class. The answer I got was why restrict the number of public that will be able to attend the interactive sessions? A small group of people will not be able to represent the population. The solution he gave was to put the engagement sessions as a forum and invite the whole community to participate and write their comments in the forum. I thought that this solution is feasible; however, there is a problem that the organizers will have to face, which is to prevent people from misusing the forum. Some people might use the forum to gain popularity or putting up advertisements (since is a whole country's event) instead of providing constructive feedback.

Weather forecasting is an interesting concept that exist since the past. Researches use the linear model of forecasting to predict the future. However, reality is much more complicated than the linear course of development people presumed and more have to be considered than these assumptions to have a more accurate Techno cultural forecast. For the forecast to be correct, several factors have to be considered, including the most complicated nature of human. Most of the time, futurists try to predict the future through analyzing the driver of change scientifically.

Both the presentor and the article for this session mention that science fiction writers forecast what are the possible trend in future, then creating the possible situation in form of a story. I would say that science fiction is an eye-opener of both the public and the scientist. It might even spark off ideas in the scientist and urge them to research on the possible means to bring these situations to reality. The accuracy of the forecast is not the main focus of the story in the science fictions. Instead, its main intention is to open up the imaginations of people and imagination is an important factor to come out with new innovations. Thus, I would say that science fiction is also one of the driver of change.

When I came across this session's topic, I was thinking of reason why we want to forecast the future. After the lesson, I came to the conclusion that people want to forecast the future because they want to be better prepared for the future change. Since people make the preparations for the future based on the forecast, inaccurate forecast can be disastrous as it might lead to people making the wrong investments and decisions. Thus, this is a topic that has to be treated carefully and seriously.