“The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to
adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man.”
-
George Bernard Shaw -
I found this quote to be a thought provoking one. I interpret the quote as saying that we should always strive to overcome problems that we find in our lives with the power that technology gives us and thus seek to change the environment we live in, instead of allowing problems and inconveniences to persist (adapting to the world). I find it inspiring that much of the progress of mankind is due to our traits of curiousity and "unreasonable-ness" which have made us seek solutions to our problems and led to the development we now see today.
For the topic of drivers of world change Alistair presented on aviation. I found this to be an important factor. Aviation has been a breakthrough in transportation and has led to the congregation of people to work together and thus the communication of ideas, and also improved the method of transport for trade to occur. This thus led to both industrial development and technological development. However i was puzzled by his ending question of whether aviation was a double-edged sword, despite the convenience it has brought to us, Studies have shown that transport through air is 3 times greener than transport by sea. He also mentioned the problems of transnational crime given the increase in mobility. However we must also remember that with this mobility it has created the opportunity for the richer countries to help the lesser developed ones. The delivery of food and medical supplies, as well as actual people to help to impart knowledge to the lesser developed countries have been aided through the use of planes for transport. The delivery of aid to disaster-striken countries such as during the tsunami in 2001 and earthquakes in china would surely not be possible without the speed of transport which aviation brought to us. As such aviation have certainly aided in solving the problem of inequality, and it is fair to say that the benefits which aviation have brought to us far outweigh the problems.
I found this quote to be a thought provoking one. I interpret the quote as saying that we should always strive to overcome problems that we find in our lives with the power that technology gives us and thus seek to change the environment we live in, instead of allowing problems and inconveniences to persist (adapting to the world). I find it inspiring that much of the progress of mankind is due to our traits of curiousity and "unreasonable-ness" which have made us seek solutions to our problems and led to the development we now see today.
For the topic of drivers of world change Alistair presented on aviation. I found this to be an important factor. Aviation has been a breakthrough in transportation and has led to the congregation of people to work together and thus the communication of ideas, and also improved the method of transport for trade to occur. This thus led to both industrial development and technological development. However i was puzzled by his ending question of whether aviation was a double-edged sword, despite the convenience it has brought to us, Studies have shown that transport through air is 3 times greener than transport by sea. He also mentioned the problems of transnational crime given the increase in mobility. However we must also remember that with this mobility it has created the opportunity for the richer countries to help the lesser developed ones. The delivery of food and medical supplies, as well as actual people to help to impart knowledge to the lesser developed countries have been aided through the use of planes for transport. The delivery of aid to disaster-striken countries such as during the tsunami in 2001 and earthquakes in china would surely not be possible without the speed of transport which aviation brought to us. As such aviation have certainly aided in solving the problem of inequality, and it is fair to say that the benefits which aviation have brought to us far outweigh the problems.
Another driver of world change was mentioned in Eric's presentation : People, through the use of social media. A valid point mentioned in his presentation was how social media has allowed information to be spread rapidly to a large number of people, as such unjust and inappropriate actions would be quickly brought to the attention of the public. This makes corporations and government more accountable for their actions and by giving a voice to everyone, it prevents oppression of the weak because social media gives a voice to everybody. An example is how issues like the human rights violation in burma and the ill treatment of prisoners of war by the american soldiers were all quickly brought to light into the mainstream media through the initial spread on social media websites.
On the other hand, his opinion that social media should be more flexible so as to allow a "bottom-up" approach whereby the common man could voice his opinions and feedback towards the government officials and policy makers and as such give the people a greater say on the way things are done. I strongly disagree with this opinion. Government officials and policy makers are highly educated people and have all the necessary information available to them thus giving them a broader and more in-depth perspective of what is happening and hence make more informed choices. Opinions of the common man, on the other hand, are mainly one-dimensional and often affected by their own self-interest and laziness. Take singapore, for example. We have one of the most educated population in the world, yet common criticisms from the people include that of the electronic road pricing, central provident fund, and national service, all of which have been mentioned by international commentators as highly innovative, successful and some have been used as good benchmarks and examples while some countries have implemented similar concepts. If even the educated population of singapore are not able to provide valuable feedback, more so other countries.
Much thanks to the anonymousity provided online, netizens rarely have any sense of social inhibition, this have given rise to lots of internet trolls and so-called "flamers". These are people who post opinions simply to rant or confuse others and have no intention to contribute to real discussion. Moreover too much freedom of expression will merely allow the proliferation of misguided opinions and incite anger, creating chaos and dissent among the community. Just take a look at any online forum: rarely would you see a consensus being arrived by two opposing parties; what usually happens are simply mass posts of insults, one-sided anecdotes and ad hominem attacks. Where contributors are of the same opinion all that occurs is circlejerking (A group discussion or activity between like-minded individuals that validates mutual biases or goals in a non-confrontational environment.) and straw-man arguments. In a group where people are not bound by social etiquette to discuss in reasonable fashion, and are filled with people who think they are smarter than they are, rarely is there any notable feedback which could be of use to anyone (and, if any, would be buried by the heaps of nonsense posted). Singapore also have grass-root leaders who do hold real-life discussion forums so as to allow people to air their views. This is the correct way to do so, in my opinion, as more reasonable discussions can take place, and only those who sincerely wish to contribute will take the trouble to participate.
On the other hand, his opinion that social media should be more flexible so as to allow a "bottom-up" approach whereby the common man could voice his opinions and feedback towards the government officials and policy makers and as such give the people a greater say on the way things are done. I strongly disagree with this opinion. Government officials and policy makers are highly educated people and have all the necessary information available to them thus giving them a broader and more in-depth perspective of what is happening and hence make more informed choices. Opinions of the common man, on the other hand, are mainly one-dimensional and often affected by their own self-interest and laziness. Take singapore, for example. We have one of the most educated population in the world, yet common criticisms from the people include that of the electronic road pricing, central provident fund, and national service, all of which have been mentioned by international commentators as highly innovative, successful and some have been used as good benchmarks and examples while some countries have implemented similar concepts. If even the educated population of singapore are not able to provide valuable feedback, more so other countries.
Much thanks to the anonymousity provided online, netizens rarely have any sense of social inhibition, this have given rise to lots of internet trolls and so-called "flamers". These are people who post opinions simply to rant or confuse others and have no intention to contribute to real discussion. Moreover too much freedom of expression will merely allow the proliferation of misguided opinions and incite anger, creating chaos and dissent among the community. Just take a look at any online forum: rarely would you see a consensus being arrived by two opposing parties; what usually happens are simply mass posts of insults, one-sided anecdotes and ad hominem attacks. Where contributors are of the same opinion all that occurs is circlejerking (A group discussion or activity between like-minded individuals that validates mutual biases or goals in a non-confrontational environment.) and straw-man arguments. In a group where people are not bound by social etiquette to discuss in reasonable fashion, and are filled with people who think they are smarter than they are, rarely is there any notable feedback which could be of use to anyone (and, if any, would be buried by the heaps of nonsense posted). Singapore also have grass-root leaders who do hold real-life discussion forums so as to allow people to air their views. This is the correct way to do so, in my opinion, as more reasonable discussions can take place, and only those who sincerely wish to contribute will take the trouble to participate.
I found the pessimism-time curve to be an important tool because it makes innovators aware of the troubles that they will surely face and hence will be more prepared to overcome them. However it was mentioned that around 80% of innovations are scrapped due to lack of practicality and cost, while only 5% are actually released to the market. With innovations requiring so much effort and cost, we should not be too quick to criticise companies who are slow to innovate.
Prof also talked about the traditional model for change in companies, and how it needs to be reworked. The traditional model was to freeze-unfreeze-refreeze, meaning that companies review and revise the decisions, goals and policies made in a company once every few years. However given the rate at which information is expanding and the environment of constant change, it was suggested that the modern model - one of continuous monitoring and renewal - should be adopted. I was pretty puzzled by such a suggestion. Wouldnt such a model create lots of confusion especially in larger firms where such constant changes in company policy and decisions would not be disseminated to everyone?
Key takeaways for this lesson were that some of the main drivers for world change revolves around making the world more interconnected together such that the spread of ideas and new technology can be adopted by everyone and ideas can be interchanged.
Questions for further discussion would methods to make innovation a less risky step so that companies will be less averse about embarking on such innovations, especially small companies. Is Singapore limited in its capabilities of embarking on sustainable sources of energy given its small space and lack of natural resources? It does not have access to geothermal and hydroelectrical energy as well as lack of space for wind energy. Previous methods of harnessing solar energy also required large amount of land space that singapore lack. Should Singapore embark on taking up sustainable technology?
Today's session was informative and interesting as always, i rate it a 8/10.
