Humans started to separate from the rest of the great apes about 7M years ago and we became modern humans 200k years ago.
Are we now throwing the old blueprint out the window?
So Are we more attuned to our modern needs for the twenty-first century and beyond?
Have we moved beyond the paradigm of living in a nuclear family home in the suburbs?
What do the objects we select tell us about the relationships that exist between designer, retailer and consumer?
What is the design thinking behind some of the everyday items that shape our lives?
First we have to look at ourselves and according to the fountain of modern-day knowledge Google it.
An average person.
Spends 25 years sleeping.
10.3 years working.
48 days having sex.
Women spend 17 years of their lives trying to lose weight.
Spends 9.1 years watching TV.
Spends 2 years watching commercials.
Spends 1.1 years cleaning.
Spends 2.5 years cooking.
Spends 3.66 years eating, about 67 minutes a day.
Spends 4.3 years driving a car.
Spends 3 months of our life in traffic, about 38 hours a year.
Spends 1.5 years in the bathroom.
Spends a total of 92 days on the toilet.
Spends 70% of our waking life in front of digital media.
We laugh out loud 290,000 times in your life.
We walk a total of 110,000 miles.
We spend 90% of your time indoors.
We consume. 1 teaspoons of alcohol per day.
We have between 4 and 6 dreams a night for a total of 2,000 a year.
We fart 402,000 times in your lifetime.
We spend 14 days of your life kissing.
We drink 12,000 cups of coffee.
If you’re more into tea, you drink 48 pounds in your lifetime.
Women spend nearly 1 year deciding what to wear.
The average man will spend 1 year staring at women.
Women spend 8 years of their life shopping.
Women spend 1.5 years doing their hair.
An office worker spends 5 years sitting at a desk.
The average employee spends 2 years sitting in work meetings.
The average person swears 2,000,000 times.
Your heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.
The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime
Your body has about 5.6 liters (6 quarts) of blood. This 5.6 liters of blood circulates through the body three times every minute. In one day, the blood travels a total of 19,000 km (12,000 miles)
the human body is about 60 percent water.
You pass around 42,759…. Liters of Urine in an average life time.
You are awake 16 to 18 hours a day.
“The New Frugality”
The average adult spends more than 20 hours online a week.
On average, people spend more than 490 minutes of their day with some sort of media,.with global average consumption set to rise to 506 minutes.
The internet accounted for 13% of average daily media use in 2010, but is set to reach nearly 30% in 2017.
Instant messaging use has leaped from 38% of mobile phone users in 2013 to 42% in 2014, driven by services such as Whats App and Facebook Messenger.
The mobile phone is now the primary device used for gaming with a quarter of mobile users playing games at least once a week.
80% of internet users aged between 35 and 44 are now on social media.
70% of internet users say they feel comfortable giving away personal information on the internet, including their home address, and a quarter say they don’t read website terms and conditions or privacy statements at all.
Are all becoming shut-ins.?
Or are we closer today to a global revolution than ever before. Can you feel it?
Or are we all disappearing into the Cloud.
The Question is how can we ensure that this is not going to happen.
HERE IS A SUGGESTION THAT COULD NOT BRAKE DOWN THE MESS WE SEE THE WORLD IN.
A UNIVERSITY TRAVEL SUBSIDIARITY AIR TICKET AWARDED TO GRADUATES.
THE SUBSIDY COULD BE GRADED ACCORDING TO THE MARKS RECEIVED.
STUDENTS COULD BE ENCOURAGED TO SAVE THE BALANCE DURING THEIR COURSE.
THERE IS NOTHING LIKE TRAVEL TO OPEN THE MIND.
Here below are a few observations to help you make your mind up.
Time spent looking at a cellphone is time spent oblivious to the world.
Humanity’s first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians.
We faced a “forgotten generation, or even a forgotten century.” through “bit rot,” when old computer files become useless junk.
There is a sense of powerlessness and fatalism about TECHNOLOGY.
If consciousness or HISTORICAL intelligence are lost, it might mean that value itself becomes absent from the universe.
We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realising it.
Ancient civilizations suffered no such problems, because histories written in cuneiform on baked clay tablets, or rolled papyrus scrolls, needed only eyes to read them.
To day “intelligence” is related to statistical and economic notions of rationality – colloquially, the ability to make good decisions, plans, or inferences. To study today’s culture, future scholars will be faced with PDFs, Word documents, and hundreds of other file types that can only be interpreted with dedicated software and sometimes hardware too.
From This to This
Most of the images we take today are uploaded straight from a digital camera or a phone, with the picture never actually existing as a physical artifact.
The significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later.
We’ve learned from objects that have been preserved purely by happenstance that give us insights into an earlier civilisation,”
We need history to embrace new values and institutions in pursuit of a just, fulfilling, and sustainable civilization not a “digital black hole”.
In fact, due to the intricate disconnectedness of production and economies around the world today, our technological civilization is perhaps more prone to a sudden collapse than other societies through history.
When you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives that is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people’s tweets, and all of the world-wide web the more important it is that we create legal permissions to copy and store software before it dies.
So digital objects we create today can still be rendered far into the future.
Deciding on the best format to preserve them for the next hundred years relies on anticipating what technology is likely to still be available in the future.
Computer hard disks can hold vast amounts of digitised information, but everything is lost if it fails or is wiped.
How do we preserve our interaction on Facebook, Twitter, comment threads and citizen journalism across the web?
In fact, due to the intricate disconnectedness of production and economies around the world today, our technological civilization is perhaps more prone to a sudden collapse than other societies through history. Plenty of once-great civilisations have collapsed, and our current industrialised society is by no means invulnerable –
Who will decide what worth keeping and where will we preserve a core kernel of human knowledge.
The significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later.
Even though Wikipedia represents a vast repository of information, it is not structured in a way that would guide a post-catastrophe society through stages of recovery.
Google certainly is not.
It has already changed the world by altering the way we interact with technology and there can be no questions its long-term ambitions.
Its mission is to collect information which you will have to buy with a google wallet.
“We envision a marketplace for payment instruments, commerce and loyalty services”
It’s not hard to envision a fully intact ecosystem of Google offerings with location-based mobile ads driving tracked incremental revenue via etail integrated mobile commerce, or via sales that are picked up in-store, via mobile payment.
“Now toss in Google Offers, NFC and QR codes for trigger point marketing, and the fact that Google already has the accounts open and the pot gets even richer.”
Personally I have little time for Banks but I would rather have a bank to provide a of mobile wallet products, not technology companies that can disappear into the cloud.
If Google was to make a move into supporting bank-branded wallets we would all become Googlefyed.
Google has far more on its plate than just financial services.
It’s a major player in telecommunications with its Android smart phone platform. It’s made forays into thermostats, home security and satellite imaging.
So it’s not just words and images that we risk losing for ever it’s the “grey literature” of official reports, briefings and policy statements that are only published online also risk being lost to the future?
Bit rot, a digital dark age is on the horizon unless we store information in DNA.
“It is very possible that … one machine would suffice to solve all the problems … of the whole [world]” – Sir Charles Darwin, 1946.
“Technology gives us the facilities that lessen the barriers of time and distance – the telegraph and cable, the telephone, radio, and the rest.” – Emily Greene Balch.
Perhaps The ETHEREUM IS THE ANSWER.
Importantly, because there is not a company or indeed any entity in charge of or controlling Ethereum, the cost of running the infrastructure doesn’t have to include any profit margin.
It might allow us to push the boundary on what the digital realm can cover.
But what is the most powerful technology on Earth?
You may think of a B-2 bomber, or a nuclear reactor, or maybe even far-reaching social media platforms.
But there is only one technology known to man that can heal itself, adapt to its environment, sustain itself for decades, replicate, and evolve:
The living organism.
Biological systems have the ability to do things that no human-made machine or chemistry can begin to approach: the ability to replicate, to learn, to scale from one to billions, to adapt, and to evolve.
By gaining control over biological systems and their biochemical pathways — and designing new pathways by rewriting the DNA “software” in cells — synthetic biologists are ushering in the “Biological Age.”
Creating substances with not only superior electrical, optical, and mechanical properties, but with properties that we have never seen before in man-made materials: materials that can regenerate, that respond to the environment, that learn and evolve.
We’re “on the cusp of revolutionary change” coming much “sooner than you think.”
Sugar-fueled biological actuators for hybrid robotics are on the horizon, all grown in “living foundries.
You might think that this is science fiction but it is becoming tangible due to the rapid, simultaneous development of genome-scale engineering tools, enormous data sets of genome sequences, new imaging and analytical capabilities, and the convergence of advances in information science and engineering with biology..
While it’s difficult, if not impossible, to predict future consumer applications.
If we could harness the power of biology in a predictable manner, then we could create living materials that perform functions seamlessly, cheaply, and with very low energy requirements, like walking, talking, dancing, killing, Robots.
A goal along these lines, of course, raises a lot of questions:
Better for whom? Better in what way? For biological humans? For all conscious beings? If that is the case, who or what is conscious?
Evolutionary biological changes move every which way with no apparent direction.
Yet, we continue nonetheless to see a movement toward greater complexity and greater intelligence, indeed to evolution’s supreme achievement of evolving a neocortex capable of hierarchical thinking we are now on the verge of creating a “post human” stage of civilization.
This stage may be only a few decades away.
Unfortunately if all the AI systems decided to go on strike tomorrow, our civilization would be crippled: Primitive human societies might then remain on Earth indefinitely but not to worry we’ll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years.
The simple act of connecting with someone via a text message, e-mail, or cell-phone call uses intelligent algorithms to route the information. (The number of people using Twitter and Facebook daily is around 1,138,000,000)
So a digital brain will need a human narrative of its own fictional story so that it can pretend to be a biological human.
I could at this stage give your brain a more ambitious goal, such as contributing to a better world which is badly needed considering that we are well on the way to extinction. However there is no justification for thinking that our own species will be especially privileged or protected from future technological disasters.
We tend to view the existence of our race as constituting a great ethical value when in fact our existence in a biology sense it is not worth the steam off our piss.
Why?
Because in the future almost every product we touch will be originally designed in a collaboration between human and artificial intelligence and then built-in automated factories.
Because we will continue to pollute our planet and the sky’s above to appease the Stock Exchange.
Because there will be many ways in which humanity could become extinct before reaching post humanity by wiping out what we should be rely on.
Perhaps the most natural interpretation of disaster is that we are likely to go extinct as a result of the development of some powerful but dangerous technology to combat climate change. We would do well to remember Robert Oppenheimer words when he first viewed an atomic explosion ” Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”
Extinction might be the best option.
It is not clear that creating a new human race is immoral.
As non biological brains become as capable as biological ones of effecting changes in the world—indeed, ultimately far more capable than unenhanced biological ones—we will need to consider their moral education.
The question is can they have any morals and if so what left of us will have to dumb itself down considerably. For any post human stage system that displayed the knowledge of Watson, (Watson is technology that works to understand us) for instance, would be quickly unmasked as non biological.
So what does the Future of Tech Robots.
The power of computing doubles, on average, every two years quoting the developments from genetic sequencing and 3D printing. Technological singularity is the development of ‘super intelligence’ brought about through the use of technology.
Itself imply that we are likely to go extinct soon, and we are unlikely to reach a post human stage.
What would be left of humanity would be zombies or “shadow-people” – humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated people not to notice anything suspicious.
HOWEVER ALL IS NOT LOST
This possibility of a post human stage is compatible with us remaining at, or somewhat above, our current level of technological development for a long time before going extinct.
We are still lacking a “theory of everything”, but we cannot rule out the possibility that novel physical phenomena, not allowed for in current physical theories, may be utilized to transcend those constraints.
If we could create quantum computers, or learn to build computers out of nuclear matter or plasma, we could push closer to the theoretical limits. At our current stage of technological development, we have neither sufficiently powerful hardware nor the requisite software to create conscious minds in computers.
Simulating the entire universe down to the quantum level is obviously in feasible, unless radically new physics is discovered.
As we gain more experience with virtual reality, we will get a better grasp of the computational requirements for making new worlds appear realistic to their visitors.
These shortcomings will eventually be overcome.
At the moment the amount of computing power needed to emulate a human mind can be roughly estimated. Memory seems to be a no more stringent constraint than processing power.
Our current understanding impose theoretical limits on the information processing attainable in a given lump of matter. We can with much greater confidence establish lower bounds on post human computation, by assuming only mechanisms that are already understood.
One candidate is molecular nanotechnology, which in its mature stage would enable the construction of self-replicating nanobots capable of feeding on dirt and organic matter – a kind of mechanical bacteria. Such nanobots, designed for malicious ends, could cause the extinction of all life on our planet.
So we are able to gain an insight into how an apparently purposeless and directionless process can achieve an apparently purposeful result in one field (biological evolution) by looking at another field (thermodynamics).
In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between both.
As you cannot create energy or destroy it and energy can only move from a state of higher activity to one lower activity it stands to reason that biological evolution, simple put, is descent with modification.
To acknowledge that history is not deterministic is to acknowledge that it is just a coincidence that most of us believe in nationalism, capitalism, and human rights. There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans.
Now you might think that all of this is hog wash, but every point in history is a crossroads and sometimes history- or the people who make history – takes unexpected turns.
How we using and develop Technology will determine the forming any new Monotheism Global Society.
Are we heading towards ecological disaster or technological paradise? Both do not seem bound by any deterministic laws.
You may rest assured that when Cognitive computers and Quantum computers get together with Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality along with the Arms race, biochemical pathways will not enhance human well-being.
Because human brains suffer from minimal development.
Instead of concentrating on developing technologies beneficial to mankind we are developing autonomous weapons with no accountability to select, to kill, or destroy ( which means no deterrence of future crimes, no retribution for victims, no social condemnation, no meaningful human control)
Individual humans like me are far too ignorant and weak to influence the course of history to my own advantage. It for some mysterious reason like all of us follows one path then another like a gene that has no awareness, or consciously seek to survive.
The next effort of science will be to create a new body for the human being. It will have a perfect brain-machine interface to allow control and a human brain life support system so the brain can survive outside the body.
A computer environment into which human minds can be uploaded.
These are daunting challenges, to say the least.
Each will require the commitment and individual efforts of literally billions of our fellow humans, as well as many careful, specific programs put into effect by entire populations. But there is one action that we must take, individually and as a world, if any of the others are to be successful. It directly contradicts some of our deepest evolutionary programming, but if we are to survive as a species, we must stabilize or even reduce population size.
God forbid. Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.
However it is conceivable to imagine history going on for generations upon generations while bypassing the Scientific Revolution as modern culture and science have to rely on religious and ideological beliefs to justify and finance its existence and scientific research.
So the below fellows might be the very thing to complete the Job. Rid the world of the very thing that is destroying it.
One last thought try not to join the shadow people by pressing the like button. Leave a comment. When you comment, you inspire, when you press the like button you expire.
OK, a list of what is wrong will go from here to eternity, so before you read this post take a look at the two U tube videos below, and then do something.
If you Goggle the question you will quickly find that there’s no shortage of people who know what is wrong with the world.
The most frequently cited reason is probably the decline of religion, specifically the religion of the person writing it.
Second to “the fall of religion” the most popular answer is probably “religion.” But there are other themes too: lack of respect for elders, unregulated capitalism, greed, alcohol, the economy, the rich, attachment, premarital sex, liberals, the unemployed, pride, lawyers, apathy, Starbucks, Mc Donalds.
Googling the question myself, they all sounded more like symptoms to me.
If certain behaviors are widespread and problematic, whatever causes them must be a bigger, more fundamental problem. Right? Maybe not.
Most people cannot even intelligently discuss the pressing issues of our day.
For me it is that we are too ignorant to open our minds to the problems around us. To selfish to open our hearts to what else is out in the world. To indoctrinated to accept an opinion other than our own, deaf to other people’s voices, blind to the pain and suffering we see in the streets and scared to do anything about it.
Our planet is now slowly dying and we are the reason to blame for its slow demise.
We fill her oceans with black poison. We fill her skies with acid. We cut down all the trees she spent years to grow. We cover her soil with blood and we use her as our own personal dump.
Worst of all we just sit back and watch as it falls apart.
Why?
Because as the twenty-first century unfolds, immensely powerful currents of capitalism, labour, and information turn and shape the world with a growing disregard for the boards and opinions of states.
So the world we see in front of our eyes is not governed by any particular state, organisation or ethic group, but by greed and profit. All run by the stock exchanges and algorithms
What is left is mindless adoption of technology as the end-all-be-all solution to humanity’s problems rather than global cooperation to the appearance of essentially global problems.
I think most people would not say there isn’t something wrong.
But if we’re going to regard the world as if there’s something wrong with it, shouldn’t we be able to identify it, at least with ballpark-level precision?
Here the Beady eye list of what is wrong. Feel free to add.
Climate Change: Overpopulation: Thirst: Poverty: Inequality of opportunity: Equal rights: A lack of Education: Terrorists: Atomic arsenals: Corruption: Distribution of Wealth: Religious Extremists: Political Extremists of Far Left & Far Right: Lying Politicians:Racists: Class structure: Reality TV: Farmer Subsidies: Sexists: Bestiality: High Cost of Space Programmes: Hopeless addiction to entertainment, technology, and celebrity gossip: Soulless of suburbs, sprawls, and office parks create stress, malaise, and depression: The existence of Hollywood, which poisons the world’s culture by normalizing narcissism, consumerism, and bad movies: Pervasive politically correct environment where dissenting thought is labeled sexist, racist, or homophobic: Treatment of smartphones as both friend and passionate lover, which replaces time spent in face-to-face interactions with real friends and lovers: Universities that serve as liberal brainwashing factories instead of palaces of wisdom, enlightenment, and masculinity: Disposable culture where still-functional items are thrown away instead of being repaired or reconditioned: Competitive conversation culture where people talk about themselves instead of listening. Contemplative silences are looked upon as boring or even creepy: Rule by an oligarchy that spies on citizens who don’t even care about its government’s illegal acts because they are too busy playing Candy Crush: Homosexuality openly embraced and displayed in public around children who don’t yet understand the nature of human sex: Complete ignorance of world affairs by citizens due to being comically manipulated by media propaganda. Russia bad! Saudi Arabia good!: People who can no longer handle original thoughts without being offended or“triggered.”: Militarization of police whose monopoly on violence allows them to taze and kill with impunity: Welfare state that redistributes money from hard-working provider men to a growing population of single mothers who are subservient to the state instead of husbands: Calling corporate customer service and having to converse with robots: People who favor tweets for no apparent reason:
Out of date World Organisation are in need of radical reform.
For some reason THE US GOVERNMENT still thinks they should have to take care of the whole planet. The U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger than it was back in 1981:
OPEC nations are going to bring in over a trillion dollars from exporting oil this year:
So where do we stand in regard to Solutions.?
I would really love to hear your answer to that question, in the comment section below. Whatever comes to mind. The question does presume that there is actually something wrong with the human world. If you think there isn’t, please say so too.
I know it’s a pretty broad question, and any answer is welcome. There’s no need to do up an essay or anything, but you’re welcome to. I know Raptitude readers are a thoughtful bunch and I just want to know what kinds of ideas you people have in your minds about what’s wrong with this world.
Here are few Solutions:
Make education FREE not a product.
Place a World Aid commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Sovereign wealth Funds Acquisitions, on all Foreign Exchange transactions over 20,000 dollars, creating a perpetual World aid fund. ( See previous posts) This would close down all need for Charity.
The poverty trap,” “the ladder of development”—go limp under the magnifying glass of actually being tested.
Leaders who lack wisdom approach problems with linear vision – thus only seeing the problem that lies directly in front of them and blocking the possibilities that lie within the problem. As such, they never see the totality of what the problem represents; Problem solving is the greatest enabler for growth and opportunity.
Out of this fund make available non repayable solar-panel grants. The direction to go is obvious: toward energy independence. THIS IS WHAT THE PARIS CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT IN PARIS SHOULD BE LOOKING AT. (https://youtu.be/qlTA3rnpgzU Probably, a key factor, if not the key factor, in solving our environmental problem is time.
2.5bn people still lack basic sanitation and diarrhoea is the second largest killer of children. 1.1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, practice open defecation.
Parts of the world could see a supply-demand gap of up to 65% IN WATER RESOURCE BY 2030. Currently, more than one billion people don’t have access to clean water. And with 70 percent of the world’s freshwater used for agriculture, water’s critical role in food production must be considered as climate and resource conditions change.
Reform the United Nations giving equal rights to all Nations.
Legalism of Soft Drugs would reduce the prison population.
Re Introduce National Service to deliver dignity not war.
People think about their own perceived world and part of the challenge is to get people out of that world.
The question now for all of us in the 21st century is will we realize that this is indeed an urgent problem and take bold enough action in sufficient time? The answer to this question is yet to be given.
Here lies the land of technology opportunity, a place where the upside of technology benefits is enormous and world changing.” We’re just the technologists. And actually I think those questions are for society as a whole.” Wrong.
What would happen if we applied our knowledge and skills in these pockets with the resources, creativity and speed of giants like Google and Apple? Let’s give it a try. Let’s encourage our biggest companies to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems. Let’s apply technology tools like hackathons and lab days and rapid prototyping toward solving social and environmental issues. Let’s do some good.”
Every person is an individual; they think differently, so wouldn’t it make sense that they all learn differently?
Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible.
Unfortunately the modern world does little to combat this. However more and more spheres of activity are being shaken out of their complacent ways.
Education is one of these spheres that needs to be redefined. We are fast approaching a new Singularity: when all the concepts that give meaning to our world – me, you, men, woman, love, hate-will become irrelevant.
So the big question for all of us is-what we want to become.
A question that dwarf the debates that currently preoccupy all of us.
After all if we don’t come to grips that we all live on the one planet and that all of to days debates between today’s religions, ideologies, nations, classes, will in all likelihood disappear along with all of us. If we don’t learn to educate for sustainability rather than consumption and Slavery to information and knowledge owned by Google a by-product of capitalism.
There is little point in going to Space, or anywhere else if we are represented by Artificial Intelligence.
It is not a lack of education, but a lack of creativity, and an inability to independently think for ourselves that is the problem with Modern day Education.
For nearly a century, societies have believed that higher education is necessary for success, but the opposite is true with the modern version of education.
For instance, most of the high-tech companies were created by high school dropouts, who dream’t of doing something that nobody else had done.
You won’t find such inventive and pioneering attitudes in those who have been through school, college, and then university. Students are trained to only strive for self-limiting ‘reachable goals’.
For a lot of people out there, it is time to realize that creative, independent, free thought is more important than anything they can learn at any university.
To teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”
“I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” — Mark Twain
So let’s have a look with the Beady Eye. (This is a “think piece” intended to stimulate thought and discussion, rather than a scholarly manuscript.) We just didn’t have time to address every social issue that surrounds education.
The term education is derived from Latin word educere, educare, and educatum which means ‘to learn’, ‘to know’, and to ‘lead out’. Education is an act or process of imparting or acquiring general or particular knowledge or skills, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
But rest assured that nobody cares about learning when they can’t even feed themselves.
In the primitive era indigenous education is said to be the significant resource for development, but in recent times it is said that modern education is the significant resource for material wealth.
There is no argument that both types of education play a significant role in development of our world and that both type are precious tools to life, to put one’s potentials to use.
But how do we explain the fact that those who had spent the most time in college are also the most unsuccessful.
It is due to what we think education is for in the first place.
Technology enthusiasts have long heralded the power of technology—from the printing press, to blackboards, to the laptop—to transform education.
So far it has done little to impact educational processes and outcomes.
A young girl is using her mobile phone to send an SMS message in Urdu to her teacher. The girl is part of a Mobilink-UNESCO program to increase literacy skills among girls in Pakistan. It is not. Why? Because the education is in English (which is deemed to be the only language to learn if you want to understand the Modern Capitals World) not her language.
She is being turned into one of the ultra-conformists that Google and modern schools seek to mass-produce. She will become one of the ones that couldn’t make it in the real world – her world.
No human beings are able to survive properly without education. Untrue.
The training of a human mind is not complete without education. Untrue.
Only because of education a man is able to receive information from the external humanity, to notify him with past and receive all essential information concerning the present. Untrue.
What is true is that indigenous educating in ones native tongue has created culture for millennium. In so doing ensuring their survival as a culture. Indigenous means originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country. It can also mean native, innate, inherent, or natural, produced, growing, or lliving, naturally in a country or climate; not exotic; not imported.
In the absence of writing, indigenous people depended on the power of their memories to facilitate the retention and transmission of all learned ideas to future generations.
Now its the power of Google, Facebook and the Smart Phone that is dumming us all down to a click for knowledge.
The debate is whether the power of mobile phone technology, will help hurdle several education barriers by finding new ways to support learning for rural girls or boys in insecure areas.
The point here is that we must protect verity, not to become copies of each other.
WHAT IS MODERN EDUCATION:
It is education that is synonymous with colonial, western or Christian education. Modern education can be understood as a by- product of the capitalist regime the terror of the ecosystem.
With the rapid expansion of information communication technologies around the globe, there is a high level of misdirected interest in harnessing modern technology to help advance the education status of some of the world’s poorest people at the cost of loosing their cultural values.
Indigenous education was for everyone in the community and existed for the purpose of strengthening the community while Modern education is for everyone in the society for the purpose of strengthening the society.
Indigenous education taught children their own indigenous culture based within their own society while Modern education brings in cultures from another societies.
The potential of technology to help improve education has significance beyond teaching children reading and math.
Quality education plays an important role in promoting economic development, improving health and nutrition and reducing maternal and infant mortality rates.
We look back on our past, and learn from our experiences.
There are many forms of Education.
Visual learning: Power point presentations, videos, and word documents.
Auditory learning has the most basic tool to learn- your voice. Through speaking and lectures.
Tactile learning involves physical hands-on activities, and therefore can take several forms.
Special attention, programs for students who need extra help to learn.
Education is in upheaval, with free online classes proliferating, tuition surging and public universities struggling. Perhaps worst of all, too many students leave school with high debt and no degrees. The endless chase for prestige and the resort-like marketing of college has nothing to do with Education.
Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are just one of these upheavals.
Others include initiatives to grant credit for “competency” in skills rather than time spent in class; digital systems to help match students to the right colleges and guide them to the most efficient course of study to obtain a degree; and hybrid learning environments at schools.
When ‘cloud computing’, ‘m-learning’, or ‘total cost of ownership’ are introduced into the conversation no one knows where education is going.
Therefore, education has become a basic principle to measure the labor market on the basis of essential skills and the ability to appropriate them through suitable communication. The knowledge gained through education enables individuals’ potential to be optimally utilized owing to training of the human mind. Employment in the contemporary world is based on education, as employees must possess the required skills that correspond with the current technology to perform their tasks.
It is said that Information Communication Technology (ICT). (ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications). is generally used to describe most technology uses and can cover anything from radios, to mobile phones, to laptops combined with technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest to reach communities.
It does nothing to teach common culture and values. Other than through this type of education that Technological advancement has been realized enabling communication and production of cost-effective products and services to the society at large.
Education is an important tool that is applied in the contemporary world to succeed, as it mitigates the challenges which are faced in life. Untrue.
Everyone is an expert in something. A modern-day form of segregation.
In many ways, higher education is like any industry that has produced its product a particular way for a long time and is suspicious of anything new.
Teaching skills require a shift away from designing curricula based on topics and subjects and toward creating experiences where learners can choose their own objectives.”You can’t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”
— John Dewey, Father of Modern Education
Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe.
Will a technological future fix any of this? I hope so.
The lack of clear distinctions between service and education is blatantly visible in the world.
Experience alone cannot define its educational value without understanding its relationship to the individual learner.
Designating students for separate educational paths based on their academic performance as teens or younger is a worthless use of resources.
There is hope.
We’re already starting to see how tech-savvy people are using the web, software, and devices to connect those who have with those who don’t.
Can education help fix any of this? And not just in terms of stitching together technology, neuroscience, and learning design, but also in stitching together opportunity, safety, support, and care. We can only hope so.
We have much to do.
So far the educated Sapiens regime on EARTH has produced little that we can be proud off.
Despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as disconnected as ever. No one seems to know where we’re going.
Self made Gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company. Wreaking havoc all around us, yet not finding happiness. It’s time we started to reeducate ourselves. So, do we need to revert to old school education in this new age techno world?
For starters you’d have to do away with the internet and the array of electronic gadgets that are so much a part of our children’s everyday lives.
The truth, as I see it, is that we are caught in an inexorable grind of change and human evolution. Towards what, God only knows, but it will obviously influence our children’s education, and their future. Finally, regardless of how out-of-control today’s schoolchildren appear, it may well be a matter of perception coloured by the nature of our own reality as adults.
I think some people teach solely because of that very belief.
I have written on this subject before but of course you are all to preoccupied to comment.
With the major powers refusing to give up their prerogatives and hogging most of the world’s resources, a new organisation of the global community must be invented soon.
The main challenge would be to define and defend mankind’s common resources.
The spread of conventional and nuclear weapons, and terrorism and genocide through such rudimentary means as the machete, are violence that goes beyond state borders.
We need to examine the reasons for this violence. Hunger, indecent development gaps, inequality in the face of natural disasters (particularly climatic ones), the major powers’ encouragement of arms sales and other trafficking, ideologies that breed racism and discrimination (neo-Nazi factions in European and Russian countries, “Ivoirité” in the Ivory Coast, discriminatory Zionism against Arabs in Israel, with implications for the failure of the peace process, radical Islam).
Human beings will always be confronted by their own violence.
Globalisation is leaving many more poor by the wayside, provoking new forms of violence and widespread terrorism. The UN has done nothing about the protection and equitable sharing of such vital resources as water, energy, knowledge and medication.
It’s a worthless gossip shop given that international law, which remains the framework for any reform, leaves sovereign states totally free in their commitments.
The complexity of a global society is totally ignored.
If we want to imagine another worldwide institutional system, we must examine the world we live in and ask ourselves what our goals should be.
Peacekeeping has become a belated, often useless, stopgap.
The UN manages inter-state relations, albeit feebly. The intense relations established directly between populations outside state control are developing into a power struggle to the detriment of the human rights they pretend to observe – ISIS. The peace dividend promised at the end of the cold war was an illusion.
Arms sales are soaring because the major powers chose to militarise their economies. While the UN is still dominated by the victors of the second world war. It has not lived up to its mandate and will not be now or in the future be able to do so.
Its composition bears no relation to the declared intention of equality between members. The status of the permanent members and their veto remains intact as unjustified positions of power. This permanence of power remains unchallenged even though it is ephemeral by nature and the legitimacy of the five second world war victors has been eroded years ago.
President George Bush’s unilateral decision to invade Iraq removed a dictatorship only to plunge that country into chaos and violence, further confirming the helplessness of the UN.
Not mention current wars between states, civil violence, poverty, infectious diseases, environmental degradation, terrorism, organised crime, nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons.
There is no hope of the UN reforming itself any amendment must receive two-thirds of the vote in the General Assembly. To be enforced, it must then be ratified by two-thirds of the member states, including the five permanent members, and we all know what they will do.
Any proposal to democratise the council is a sham.
The history of democracy has been a constant struggle against the usurpation of power by the richest and strongest.
Where does this leave us?
The universal spread of extreme free-market values is calling for a universal political community, not to replace national communities but to complement them and cater for the complexity of a society that combines inter-state and inter-individual relations.
Technology is driving the world apart not together. Them and US.
The geopolitical shifts in Asia and in Asia’s relations with the rest of the world could lead to a redistribution of power and patterns of participation, with or without formal, structural reform.
The UN is already unable to adapt to global dynamics. Peacekeeping missions have developed exponentially, often leading to fiascos.
Is there is no one in power that can see that we need to look impartially at international trends that are challenge the world?
The need for democracy (by the elimination of all prerogatives that benefit only a few states), for law ( A world Court of Human Rights.The establishment of an international court of human rights, which would enforce the rights laid down in international treaties and hear individual appeals in special circumstances.) and justice (by the mandatory nature of international law).
These cannot be ignored for much longer. The world needs a new Organisation, not called Google.
Of course any New Organisation will need financing.
This can only be achieved by Independent funding. Any other form of funding is useless. Globalization and technology stop at no borders and capitalism continues to privatize the planet our collective destiny.
( See previous posts: A 0.05% aid commission on all High Frequency trading, on all Foreign Exchange transaction over $20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisition. This will create a perpetual fund of billions)
I for one am fed up of seeing people dying while our world leaders have another conference.
There is no doubting that the influence of technology will go beyond new equipment and faster communications and that Science and technology are in danger of out running our morality.
The evolution of technology has morphed the relationship between consumer and creator forever. But life exists in individual moments and it is up to us to make sure those moments are vital to technology. Each of us has meaning, and it is us that bring these moments to life not the other way around.
This for me defines the dangers of Technology. There is a danger that we will end up starved for wisdom and individual wonder distorting the values of civilization.
Sharing may well be the mechanism that propels culture forward, but individualism driven by knowledge is what counts. Therefore we should be wary of falling into the trap of futurism. There may be a temptation to follow technological determinism, that is the idea that technology provides a logical sequence of development that pervades society regardless of its effects.
So it is necessary to study the relationship of science, technology, innovation and government. We need to stay attuned to the power dynamics at play.
Ultimately as we continue to develop and our technological capabilities even the stars will be open to our explorations.
Will humanity be prepared for the greatest discoveries of the history of our civilization? No
Will we find other intelligent civilizations far older and incredibly superior than our technological capabilities and collective wisdom? Yes
Our collective destiny could end with speculation on the values, ethics and consciousness of these civilizations and lessons they may hold for the future of humanity.
Recently I have concentrating on the effects of what Technology could do to Society and how we will behave or change as its influence grows.
We are already living in a world few could have imagined 50 years ago. In a new economy—powered by technology, fueled by information, without a sustainable Life-Plan.
As technology continues to spread, questions emerge:
What are we losing as a society? What is the effect on social relations? Work, after all, is more than just a job or paycheck. It is where we meet friends, share ideas, and build a common sense of purpose and a social network.
What happens if we all become Google Slaves. (see previous post) Is it creating an Hip-pro activity world designed by us that will not work. With voice mail, e-mail, and computer networks, how do we preserve the human network and the social interaction that work has helped to facilitate? What takes its place?
As I have said there may well be a strong link between technology adoption by society and its culture. But technology is never purely beneficial. It has negative and positive effects, There is a need to distinguish between desirable sustainable development and economic growth.
While it is not possible to foretell the future, it is useful to examine present trends and determine their possible consequences.
The use of computers and the Internet in workplaces is become more pervasive as work and skills are being redefined and reorganized.
The demands of the future will require increased efforts to include these workers who have been left behind and have not shared in our prosperity.
It will also require successfully integrating millions of immigrants into the workplace.
If we’re not careful, our technological evolution will take us toward not a singularity but a sofalarity.
The problem with technological evolution is that it is under our control and, unfortunately, we don’t always make the best decisions.
Does Technology want what life wants: Increasing efficiency; Increasing opportunity; Increasing emergence; Increasing complexity; Increasing diversity; Increasing specialization; Increasing ubiquity; Increasing freedom; Increasing mutualism; Increasing beauty; Increasing sentience; Increasing structure; Increasing evolvability. I think not.
Technological evolution has a different motive force. It is self-evolution, and it is therefore driven by what we want as opposed to what is adaptive. In a market economy, it is even more complex: for most of us, our technological identities are determined by what companies decide to sell based on what they believe we, as consumers, will pay for.
When it comes to technologies, we mainly want to make things easy. We are at a time of great creativity, of great potential for change for better or worse.
Technology is not the only cause of these changes, but scientists have made clear that it is a driving factor.
It is already dispensing death by algorithms.
Assuming that we really are evolving as we wear or inhabit more technological prosthetics—like ever-smarter phones, helpful glasses, and brainy cars—here’s the big question:
Will that type of evolution take us in desirable directions, as we usually assume biological evolution does?
The technology industry, which does so much to define us, has a duty to cater to our more complete selves rather than just our narrow interests. It has both the opportunity and the means to reach for something higher. And, as consumers, we should remember that our collective demands drive our destiny as a species, and define the post human condition. Both Google and Apple would do well to keep this in mind.
All of these factors have contributed to rising inequality. The development of a hierarchy of knowledge, a prejudiced vision towards a desired future rather than recognition of more plausible realities.
We all want a future defined not by an evolution toward super intelligence but by the absence of discomforts.
In general, humans have a tendency to always choose the easiest option without
stopping to think that maybe, to think another perspective would open other
possibilities.
Right, this is the last post on the subject of what is shaping our technology driven Society.
We are living in a world that relies on data communications.
It is hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones.
The Mobil Phone/Cell phone/I phone what ever you wish to call it has evolved into the Smart Phone. > voice and text services, cameras, alarm clock, and radio, access to the internet> all of which will be on your wrist shortly > Apple Smart Watch.
1 in 4 people check it every 30 minutes, 1 in 5 every 10 minutes.
There are almost as many mobile subscriptions (6.8 billion) as there are people in the world (7.1 billion)
I start this post by saying there is no argument when it comes to positive benefits to Society, that the mobile phone has contributed more to the individual than the Internet or Big Data has done to date.
On the other hand I believe it has also contributed to : The mess we have on our hands, to spreading the inequalities of the world, to fueling terrorist Organisations, to spreading non-thrusts, to making today, now it’s tomorrow, and to leading us to expect more from Technology and Less from Each Other.
The Mobil Phone has become an indispensable feature of technology that is rapidly changing the face of communication not only in the most remote areas of the world but also the family structures of the world.
Returning to an Individual and an overall view:
Mobile phones are helping under served populations access the critical skills and empowering information they need to make informed decisions for themselves and their families, and move toward economic self-sufficiency.
They have done more than all the Aid given to Africa and beyond. In fact they are being used to facilitate and promote economic development and growth.
They reduce search costs and increase information availability, which makes markets function more efficiently.
In terms of the diffusion of ideas and knowledge, mobile phones make available information about market prices and employment.
The people who are growing your food, making your clothes, and assembling your electronic devices are often poor, low-wage workers around the world who don’t have Internet access. The way we are able to connect with them is through mobile,” it provides workers with a voice — individually and collectively — by having an anonymous tool to provide feedback.
But we’re also learning that organizations — large, for-profit corporations and small, nonprofit social enterprises alike — are using mobile technology to operate better and smarter. Organizations are using mobile phones to gather real-time data that help them make informed business decisions andthatyield social impacts.
But what effect are they having on Society as a whole.
Smart phones have brought a whole new meaning to the term multitasking.
Smart phones are changing the way that people interact with each other, allowing the users to be in a conversation without showing their personal expressions. As a result, we are beginning to lose the face-to-face contact that was such an important part of our lives in the past. The need to belong.
They provide farmers with information on market prices and weather reports, and they link micro and small entrepreneurs to markets and potential buyers. And, they provide mothers with important information to keep themselves and their children healthy.
Just look at
Taro Works, a mobile enabled tool with a cloud-based back-end. In non-tech lingo, this means field-based workers can gather and submit data through a mobile phone, providing real-time intelligence to their home offices. One organization using Taro Works is Honey Care Africa, a social enterprise that promotes sustainable beekeeping and economic development by providing micro finance, training, and other services to bee farmers.
Vision Spring is another social enterprise that uses Taro Works for better business and social impact. Vision Spring fights poverty by selling affordable eyeglasses to the poor, enabling them to work and learn. Why reading glasses? Studies of the economic impact of reading glasses in India showed a 35% increase in individual productivity and 20 percent increase in individual monthly income.
We knew there is great potential for mobile phones. But how to approach the issue of development using mobile technologies, remains contentious. In conjunction with Big Data, the Internet, their impact on economic development and growth are numerous.
There is no doubting their ability of time-saving capabilities/conveyance or getting assistance in an emergency. Therefore, smart phone is an important device which people cannot leave home without it. A social necessity that we teens and adults, cannot be without, an addiction.
It would make uninteresting reading to list all the possibility of Mobil usages.
There are a few to high light how they are changing our world and could be used to change it further.
Before the appearance of the smart phone; it was impossible to shop online during lunch time without a PC or laptop. However, with the support of smart phones, shopping online in these days is as easy as making a phone call.
Services to transfer money can also help counter human trafficking, crime.
Services/Apps have changed the way healthcare is delivered globally, with the potential to provide individuals with an unprecedented amount of access to health resources.
Mobile phones eliminates the need for clients to spend time traveling to the physical banks, enabling greater access to capital, which facilitates investment and productivity.
Services to conduct Surveys, to Petition government. To impose Western ideals and culture upon other nations, resulting in a “practical elitism, but smart phones also emit radiation which some believe may be harmful to human health.
The growth of the cell phone industry itself, adding more jobs and creating more demand for products and services is another way in which mobile phones have contributed to economic growth.
Recent studies show that radiation from mobile phones are interfering with navigation system of bees and causing them to lose their way back to their hive. As a result of this their colonies are collapsing.
Cell phones have led to social evils such as ‘sexting’, harassment and bullying of teens, in addition to creating less unity with families and friends.
Social interaction does not lead to greater concern for others, and in fact may have the opposite effect of reducing concern for others, leading to decreased pro social behavior. Eroding people’s ability to write sentences that communicate real meaning and inhibit the art of dialogue resulting in a negative impact on people’s interpersonal skills. The next generation (or so) is not going to ever be able to connect with another person, confront someone, or talk to someone face to face.
Trans formative tool for Science, Research, Surveys.
And how much about our lives and work and relationships is left to be completely transformed as a result? is anyone’s guess.
Conclusion:
For me all three ( Internet, Big Data, Smart Phones) are all connected to each other.
You will see from previous posts that I advocate that the power of Mobil phones as a lobbing force is untapped. It could be used to force the United nations to pass a people’s resolution to place a 0.05% aid commission on all electronic trading on the world stock exchanges. ( See previous posts.)
We hear more and more communication, but less and less to communicate.
Half human, half machine almost god, this new link in the evolution will continue its exploration beyond the enclosure of time and space. Fortunately there are, not that our smartphones are intelligent.
R. Laing already wrote in 1967: “The machines have become more and more able to communicate with each other as humans.
If we want a world that is more equal, access to information should be universal – it should not be limited to the privileged groups in a society, but available to all of us including the impoverished.
So what will be their future applications. Feel free to add to my list.
Brain training.
iPod Finger, Smart Phone Finger, insurance will become big business.
Increase literacy.
Suddenly my smartphone vibrates mystique.
“The digital revolution is over, the digital won! Because the more you consume, the more it abounds. The more stores, the more it circulates. The more you distribute, the more it flows.
This is what I call – A run up the flag pole post – see who salutes.
Sorry it’s also another rather long-winded post.
We can’t go anywhere, do anything without our Gadgets.
In my last post I said that Inequality was at the heart of most of our troubles in the world.
But is the Internet (which is without the qualities of Love and Tolerance) also contributing by having an effect on Society/Community and spreading discontent by highlighting these Inequalities? I would say (All technologies have their downsides) Yes.
To Say that humankind is now almost entirely connected, albeit with great levels of inequality in bandwidth, efficiency, and price, is not quite yet a reality.
There are about fifteen billion devices presently connected and there will be around forty billion devices connected by 2020.
There are about 16 million subscribers of wireless devices in the world.
In 2013 it was close to 7 billion (in a planet of 7.7 billion human beings). In 2014, nearly 75% (2.1 billion) of all internet users in the world (2.8 billion) live in the top 20 countries, sending around 114 billion e mails each day of which 68.8% are spam.
Ninety eight percent of all information existing in the planet is digitized and most of it is accessible on the Internet and other computer networks.
Think about what happens when we connect all of those unconnected devices.
We will all turn into Me-centered society.
Does anyone care other than those that have being effected that another Social relationships is being reconstructed on the basis of individual interests, values, and projects, and not on the values that are shared through out the World.
Today, social networking sites are the preferred platforms for all kinds of activities, both business and personal, and sociability has dramatically increased — but it is a different kind of sociability that conveys the best and the worse in humankind.
Technology is already a second skin for young people.
While highlight the gaps between the Haves and Haves Nots. The Internet is on one hand desensitizing us as individuals.
It is doing this by disintermediating government and corporate control of communication.
Horizontal communication networks are creating a new landscape of social and political change. The consequences of which are not understood and will not be for some considerable time to come.
More than 50 billion ‘things’ are projected to be connected to the Internet by 2020, which, combined with advanced big data analytics, will constitute a giant, intelligent network that will change the way we govern, trade, and interact.
Technology is a material culture and the Internet is the technology of freedom that allows us to do what we wish with this material culture.
To date we are overwhelmed by it, out of sheer ignorance of its effects. It is like a Bulgarian riddle – Here I am, there I am, and yet they cannot catch me.
At the moment we are unable to access its effects and implications, so there will always be a gap between social change and its understanding. To the full understanding of the world in which we live is becoming an impossibility due to consent distraction.
So let us address some effects before virtual life becomes more social than the physical life, but it is less a virtual reality than a real virtuality. If you get what I mean.
Community is formed through individuals’ quests for like-minded people in a process that combines online interaction with offline interaction, cyberspace, and the local space. Our social environment, how we enjoy ourselves, how we buy, what we study, how we travel,… Everything we do has changed thanks to the Internet and a host of spin-off technologies. From the alphabet to clocks and printing, every major new technology has profoundly altered the way in which humans think.
Take for instance Facebook users: They visit the site daily, and they connect on multiple dimensions, but only on the dimensions they choose.
Unquestionably this change has also reached the business world. How will the business of the future function? Big data is undoubtedly one of the key ingredients for a successful transformation that has already begun. Networks are global and know no boundaries, but the network society is a global network society with no rules.
Many public issues and social voices are pushed to the margins of society by market values and commercial communication, making it difficult to get the attention of those living in the “walled gardens” of consumerism.
For example:
In work (entrepreneurship), in the media (the active audience), in the Internet (the creative user), in the market (the informed and proactive consumer), in education (students as informed critical thinkers, making possible the new frontier of e-learning and m-learning pedagogy), in health (the patient-centered health management system) in e-government (the informed, participatory citizen), in social movements (cultural change from the grassroots, as in feminism or environmentalism), and in politics (the independent-minded citizen able to participate in self-generated political networks).
If the dominant cultural trend in our society is the search for autonomy, and if the Internet powers this search, then we are moving toward a society of assertive individuals and perhaps cultural freedom.
Yet, the global network society is our society, and the understanding of its logic on the basis of the interaction between culture, organization, and technology, in the formation and development of social and technological networks is key to what society is going to be in the future. For example the Intense use of the Internet increases the risk of isolation, alienation, and withdrawal from society.
Already from this Internet-based culture of autonomy here is emerging a new kind of sociability, networked sociability, and a new kind of sociopolitical practice, networked social movements and networked democracy.
Did it lend a hand in the creation of Jihad John and ISIS.
Whether it did or not the Web constitute the technological infrastructure of the global network society, yet it continues to feed the fears and the fantasies of those who are still in charge of a society that they barely understand.
The digital gadgets on which we now depend, have already begun rewiring our brains. We are offloading thinking to technology, using our phones as our extended minds.
Smartphones users Worldwide will surpass 2 billion in 2016 i.e. ¼ of the Global population and will be 3 billion by 2018.
From a society that valued the creation of a unique storehouse of ideas in each individual, man is moving to a socially constructed mind that values speed and group approval over originality and creativity.
Some evolutionary biologists claim that the scholarly mind is a historical anomaly: that humans, like other primates, are designed to scan rapidly for danger and opportunity. If so, the net delivers this shallow, scattered mindset with a vengeance. Hyperlinks and over stimulation mean the brain must give most of its attention to short-term decisions.
The digital technology is already damaging the long-term memory consolidation that is the basis for true intelligence.
In particular clicking, skipping, skimming—and especially on working and deep memory. Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Something is always lost, and something gained.
Here are a few unanswered Questions.
How will privacy issues impact upon the uptake of the Internet of Things in democratic institutions?
What is the role of Government in an age of Smart Cities and algorithmic regulation?
How can civil society institutions ensure that the Internet of Things is harnessed for the public good?
How can technologies be designed to create deeper civic engagement?
What are the global implications on foreign policy of connecting the unconnected?
How can the Internet of Things impact developing countries?
What is the potential impact of the Internet of Things on transnational crime?
Cyber crime and Cyber security.
How will the Internet of Things affect critical national infrastructure?
Hyper connected Diplomacy.
Encryption and Integrity.
And then you have Humor.
To what extent does the Internet function as a mediator of ‘old’ or traditional humorous forms and topics (e.g. jokes), and to what extent does it facilitate‘new’ humorous forms and topics (e.g. digitally manipulated photographs) in cyber-humor.
Since visual language can move across cultures more easily than verbal language ask yourself if the Internet has become a major actor in the production and distribution of humor.
Internet use empowers people by increasing their feelings of security, personal freedom, and influence, all feelings that have a positive effect on happiness and personal well-being.
Humor appears in many kinds of Websites, spanning personal/amateur blogs that provide funny and lighthearted commentary on events to commercial or professional Websites which often link to mass media such as newspapers (e.g. http://www.theonion.com) and television (e.g.www.comedycentral.com).
How do the new forms and topics of online humor relate to fundamental characteristics of the Internet, specifically interactivity, multimedia and global reach?
The joke might indeed be dead as an oral form since visual language can move across cultures more easily than verbal language. Jokes have been transformed to a popular Internet-based written form-home video’ and ‘media slapstick’ humor.
Why are the types of ‘home video’ and ‘media slapstick’ so popular on You Tube.
Is it because they are personal pieces that seem to reflect the bottom-up nature of the Internet as a space in which everyone, and not only professional comedians, can create humorous content. This kind of humor is not culture specific – a man who slips on a banana peel will probably be regarded as funny in many parts of the globe, by members of various age and gender groups.
How does comedy undermine or reinforce our attitudes towards race, gender, religion, class and ethnicity?
Does what makes us laugh reveal our deep social norms and taboos?
In viral Internet-based commercials, humor is an integral, almost obligatory component but violence as a means of humor in advertising is on the rise.
Viral advertisements,’ Top ten things men know about women’ or ‘Twenty excuses to miss a day of work.
Not only are the vast majority of texts in English, but they also reflect the values and priorities of Western, capitalist and youth-oriented cultures. However, the definitions of interactivity, as well as the methods for their ope rationalization, remain in dispute.
Culture jamming argue that culture, politics, and social values have been bent by saturated commercial environments, from corporate logos on sports facilities, to television content designed solely to deliver targeted audiences to producers and sponsors. The Internet is wide open to this form of brain washing.
When it comes to humor has the Web has been corporatized? Interactivity is perceived as an important key to understanding the social implications of the Internet.
That everything is worth making fun of, nothing should be taken seriously, not even a guy getting punched in the face until he bleeds or Hitler reacting to an incident.
Last but not least we come to the Question of Porn.
The Internet is saturated with porn that is debasing us all.
Should there be a safety door into a segregated area of the internet into which all pornographic content should be placed. Viewable only by those how supply online personal details, such as age, positive Id. It would be a step in the right direction. Not Censorship but sensible Stewardship.
If you are not already Gadgetry I would be interested to hear you views.
In my last post I said that “Technology is making us conscious of the need for a new society.” It was a thought without an explanation.
It seems pretty obvious to most observers that our social networks have changed in the past few decades thanks to technology. The widespread use of cell phones, the increasing affordability of air travel, the rise of the Internet, and the advent of social media have changed the way we work, the way we live, and the way we make and maintain friendships, the way we view the world.
Our increasing on-line connectives is and has changed our perceptions of our social world for the better and to the determent of reality. The world of social networking sites is changing every day and is going to have more impact on the lives of generations to come. Because television and other popular forms of social media shape our perception of reality.
Nothing epitomises the anonymity of the Internet more than Anonymous.
Anonymity can be extremely dangerous, particularly to governments.
On the other hand sharing is all the rage these days. Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn allow people across the globe to broadcast every detail of their lives with the rest of the world through the mediums of text, audio, photo and video. Nowadays, the internet has simplified everything to the extent where you’re never more than a few minutes away from what you need.
However is the on-line world truly distinct from the off-line one?
Illegal activity such as drug distribution or human trafficking are handled through the ‘deep web’, areas of the internet not indexed by search engines. The worldwide group of self-proclaimed ‘hacktivists’ whose actions have had a number of significant impacts on corporations around the globe are another example.
General internet opinion is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways of establishing a consensus on something, with businesses or Governments ignoring public opinion doing so at their peril.
Technology hasn’t undermined our social relationships, although it has certainly affected them.
The prevalence of social media has, as a result, fundamentally changed the way we read and watch: we think about how we’ll share something, and whom we’ll share it with, as we consume it.
So what impact does Facebook have on today’s technologically advanced society?
Facebook’s effect on today’s society is not difficult to distinguish. … Facebook opens up other questions about today’s society, too. … in the age of digital communication when we can follow our state and national politicians on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But it remains nothing more than a medium for communication, and yet, it is so much more than that. At a glance, a user can learn everything from what gender a Facebook member is, to what religion they believe in, what school they attend, and their likes and dislikes, all with the click of a mouse.
In other words, the world of constant connectivity and media, as embodied by Facebook, is the social network’s worst enemy.
The time of mentally entertaining ourselves, is disappearing. We’ve forgotten how.” Whenever we have downtime, the Internet is an enticing, quick solution that immediately fills the gap. We get bored, look at Facebook or Twitter, and become more bored.
Getting rid of Facebook wouldn’t change the fact that our attention is, more and more frequently, forgetting the path to proper, fulfilling engagement. And in that sense, Facebook isn’t the problem. It’s the symptom.
The number of things we have pulling at our attention, the less we are able to meaningfully engage, and the more discontented we become. What Facebook does to our emotional state may be in simply looking at what people actually do when they’re on Facebook. What makes it complicated is that Facebook is for lots of different things—and different people use it for different subsets of those things.
Topics such as cyber bullying, addiction to cyber porn, and overall addiction to Internet games are something we need to study more.
The Internet may increase the overall frequency of communication but it is opening a new forum of disconnection to what really matters in our lives. The internet doesn’t just offer information in comprehensive fashion, it offers it instantaneously.
It is an ongoing record of human history – regardless of how much it continues to grow, individuals will always be able to access some obscure story from the earlier nineties, for instance, ensuring that almost anything we create today will never be lost to future generations.
Sites that mix professional and public criticism together, such as Rotten Tomatoes or Meta Critic, are now regarded as highly important by the likes of film and game manufacturers, as negative reception spreads more quickly than ever and sales are impacted as a result.
Crowd sourcing is allowing projects to source investment, interest and possible custom from a huge user base.
E Bay is providing a medium for consumers to make exchanges with other consumers, allowing people to sell their unwanted goods rather than throwing them away.
YouTube, Sound Cloud or U stream, is used to distribute either pre-recorded or live material.
Trip Advisor, where everything from restaurants to hotels are looked at in meticulous detail.
Netflix and catch-up services. Tailored marketing, literature, games, films and television have outgrown the need for a costly physical medium such as a book or disc, and are accessible in an instant on the likes of e-book readers.
From car-sharing and house-hunting to dating and charitable donation sourcing, somebody somewhere seems to have come up with an online solution that makes things easier, and long may it stay that way.
What is lacking (for lack of a better word) is an Internet World Political Party.
A rallying point to bring the power of the Internet to address the Inequalities in our world.
To increases social trust and engagement—and even encourages political participation. It would impart a feelings of bonding with a general social capital increase that could be used to pressurize change for the good of us all.
We live our lives immersed in technology, surrounded by cell phones, computers, video games, digital music players and video cams.
The Internet of Things : ’The home of the future. Your own personal digital ‘nanny’ to control almost every element of your life through apps or a web browser.
People will not only make their entire home web-connect and use it for personal benefits they will also become addicted to their Digital Nanny.
The Internet of things will become central to society than the internet as we know it today, its role will probably be reduced in the future.
Nonetheless, it’s definitely exciting to see what the future brings other than – “Liking.”
From This to This 
(This is a “think piece” intended to stimulate thought and discussion, rather than a scholarly manuscript.) We just didn’t have time to address every social issue that surrounds education.
