Assignment 1
One big part of my life is the computer. As an IT-designer I guess it would be quite understandable. My head is always thinking about the future and how I can make it better, and that is why I started studying in this direction. I would walk around and everywhere I look I see things that can be better. My hopes are that I will learn how to solve those issues I keep seeing.
My thoughts on the future are not only on things around me, but also on a global scale. How can we make the world a better place for all with all the technology we have at our disposal right now. Why are we letting people suffer all around the world while we sit comfortably at home watching the news and thinking how horrible it is, but still we persist in not really caring other than a temporary and brief jolt of emotions. I’m not saying I’m much better though.
Within a 1-5 year time frame I project that things will not start to look up. We are displacing the workforce with continues automation. It’s become so cheap to develop the machines that do the automation that the economical rules set today won’t allow for considering the individuals. If this trend persists I would not be surprised if riots would start, maybe not in Sweden with the 5 year time frame but most likely other countries.
Thinking about what will happen within 50 years is incomprehensible. We have gone from world with slow technological development to a information age without it’s like. We are becoming exponentially faster at developing new inventions that are changing the world around us. To me it’s not even far fetched that people might be living a large part of their lives in a Virtual Reality world in 50 years. What I hope for is that we will use all the technological power we have acquired over these years for the betterment of all. Sadly I don’t think that change in society will come easy. We will see computers that are getting so advanced that they will be able to do almost all the work for us. Question is will it be to benefit those few elite at the top or will everyone get a piece of the cookie?
I’m grateful I got to grow up in this age. Things will change so much that what is science fiction today will be old news tomorrow. I hope I will get to see it all and if I get good enough in my craft, maybe I can even be a part of creating some of the cool stuff myself.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Reflections on "Story of Stuff"
After watching Annies's story on how the consumption society works you would hope to have an idea on what we can do. Instead it just leaves you with the same feeling you always get. The world sucks, it is our fault, I'm not helping.
Since we all know we are not going to stop consuming, what are we to do? Just sit idly by until it is too late? Obviously that is what they are trying to say what we simply cannot do.
Some facts she talked about always make me so mad. Since I have studied economics for a few years I know a bit on how companies think. Basically it's all about profit. If a company can profit from making bad products it will, even though they know it is morally wrong.
One of my most striking moments of anger in economics class was the example of the motor-vehicle industry. When the car industry started out they made the best cars as they could, but over the years they realized that major revenue stream was coming from the service part. So they just kept making the cars worse and worse just to keep the profit up. And to add to that I remember reading about GM buying a patent for a prototype car model that basically made it impossible to break down by normal usage. Instead of producing that car they just bought the patent to prevent anyone else to build it. That makes me furious! That example I would have liked to see in the movie.
For me "Story of stuffI was not an eye-opener but I certainly believe that it would be for a lot of people. Without a doubt I believe that the way we are going today is not working. We need to make people really see how bad things are and also that there are things we can do to help. "Story of Stuff" is an excellent eye-opener for the uninformed and they should continue with their work. Maybe what they should do next is to show possible solutions to the problems we are facing.
We are clearly hurting the only earth we have to live on and, it seems, nobody cares.
There aren't many high-quality environment movies out there and I think this is one of the few good ones. This movie won't change things by itself, but maybe it can help. Watching it made me mad and upset, and for things to change that is exactly what we need.
Since we all know we are not going to stop consuming, what are we to do? Just sit idly by until it is too late? Obviously that is what they are trying to say what we simply cannot do.
Some facts she talked about always make me so mad. Since I have studied economics for a few years I know a bit on how companies think. Basically it's all about profit. If a company can profit from making bad products it will, even though they know it is morally wrong.
One of my most striking moments of anger in economics class was the example of the motor-vehicle industry. When the car industry started out they made the best cars as they could, but over the years they realized that major revenue stream was coming from the service part. So they just kept making the cars worse and worse just to keep the profit up. And to add to that I remember reading about GM buying a patent for a prototype car model that basically made it impossible to break down by normal usage. Instead of producing that car they just bought the patent to prevent anyone else to build it. That makes me furious! That example I would have liked to see in the movie.
For me "Story of stuffI was not an eye-opener but I certainly believe that it would be for a lot of people. Without a doubt I believe that the way we are going today is not working. We need to make people really see how bad things are and also that there are things we can do to help. "Story of Stuff" is an excellent eye-opener for the uninformed and they should continue with their work. Maybe what they should do next is to show possible solutions to the problems we are facing.
We are clearly hurting the only earth we have to live on and, it seems, nobody cares.
There aren't many high-quality environment movies out there and I think this is one of the few good ones. This movie won't change things by itself, but maybe it can help. Watching it made me mad and upset, and for things to change that is exactly what we need.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Reflection on Carl Sagan's novel Contact
I clearly remember how intrigued I was with the movie Contact and I was very happy now at a later time reading the novel. The religious aspect of the novel was not as well transmitted into the movie and me personally I feel I'm quite the opposite of Ellie. She put her full confidence in science and the scientific method of discovering the truth of things, but then started to shift her believes as it develops.
I on the other hand grew up in a fully Christian family where demons and angels and evil spirits were a fact, not even faith. I was what many would label as a "religious nut" and now looking back on it I really was. But growing up away from my parents (dad mostly) I started to read more about science and psychology I started to change. I started to question everything and grew away from that part of my life; it’s been maybe 8 years since I was in church voluntarily. But despite that I still have a firm belief that there is something, say a god that did create the big bang and set evolution in motion. Also there are too many examples in nature that are to incredible to refute the possibility that something had hand in how things developed throughout the ages.
Now being a bit older and able to reflect on things I have realized that it’s not good to put oneself into a single category of what you believe in, and that it’s okay to take the middle way.
Not more than a few weeks ago my girlfriend, who is a Christian, told me her view of the Bible and what means to her. And to my astonishment she has an almost more scientific and logical view than me. But still she has kept her faith up her whole life, where as I lost it.
What I want to make out of all this is science and faith are not at all mutually exclusive to live a fulfilling life as a human. What I'm saying is, as an atheist you should not refuse the possibility of life beyond or a god, and as a Christian you can't take the Bible to its most literal sense and refuse anything else. This is generally called the Agnostic point of view, kind of.
But back to the novel. After she returned from the "jump" and was sure she held the truth of the existence of extraterrestrial life she was generally refuted. Because there was not enough proof and the religious part of the world did not want to accept the possibility of anything else. They did not even want to send someone else to verify it.
This could be compared with our today current technological breakthrough in LHC(Large Hadron Collider) in C.E.R.N. With this machine they are trying to find the "God particle" that created the big bang. And I believe that if they actually find it, it will be the same as when Ellie returned. Anyone, whose belief system is then put of balance, is going to refuse to believe it.
But throughout history all new advances go through several steps before they are generally accepted. The first step is usually outrage.
Even if we in the future found out how everything works, and we were even able to recreate it I think religion would still exist. But instead of looking at it as telling us how things are, it will show us how to live our lives to our fullest and show us a way to be good.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Snooping Bosses.
I just finished reading the Snooping Bosses article and was rather upset, as i used to be when i read about integrity-invasive procedures.
The article is about how Bosses in the US have a wide array of systems and programs to keep track of their employees. I can understand how the CEO or employer want to have a employee working at 100% efficiency all the time to increase to increase the overall productivity in a company. But what they don't seem to understand is that 100% efficiency will first off never happen, and isn't a realistic goal. Secondly all the surveillance creates discontent in the employees.
I remember clearly how my previous Boss asked me for my e-mail to invite me to his Facebook.
First i hesitated and reminded myself what stuff i write on Facebook and then also i thought it would be rather rude to say, No, to my boss. Reading this article made me really think on how much personal information you hand over with adding a single Facebook friend. Well for me thats fine since i hardly ever use Facebook, but most of my friends does.
I think that if i wasn't working in close community workplace i would really not want to give my boss access to my Facebook.
Back to the article, it continues showing examples on how peoples private lives are being violated. A very telling quote from a manager was "I don't give a rat's rear what they do at home. But what they do at work is all my business." Yes i understand that, but when you call me on my sick-day saying "Why are you at Disneyland and not at home sick". And this is made possible with the GPS tracker in your cellphone. I can imagine that this manager could squeeze in an argument why that would be all his business to.
For me to belive in any of the integrity invasive procedures i would really need to have statistics on if productivity at all is increased against how the employees feel about working in such an environment. Do they feel fear about speaking their mind? Do they always watch what they write and talk about? Do they purposefully change their behavior? Do they feel safe knowing everything they do is monitored and read?
Well i would say those questions should come to mind when a company is thinking about implementing this kind of procedure.
My feelings about this is pretty clear, i don't like taking away pieces of my integrity for the sake of my companies productivity. I'm also very hesitant to accept the argument of personal safety, as with cameras. One never knows where this information is going, and how uses it for what purpose.
I find it very interesting now this article is so similar to Marchall Brain's Novel, Manna.
For those of you that liked Snooping Bosses, i really recommend reading Manna.
Personally am a all or nothing kind of person. I'm willing to give up all my personal integrity, but only if everyone else does that to. Their can't be an elite at the top watching what everyone else does. And if that doesn't sound good, then back off my private life
The article is about how Bosses in the US have a wide array of systems and programs to keep track of their employees. I can understand how the CEO or employer want to have a employee working at 100% efficiency all the time to increase to increase the overall productivity in a company. But what they don't seem to understand is that 100% efficiency will first off never happen, and isn't a realistic goal. Secondly all the surveillance creates discontent in the employees.
I remember clearly how my previous Boss asked me for my e-mail to invite me to his Facebook.
First i hesitated and reminded myself what stuff i write on Facebook and then also i thought it would be rather rude to say, No, to my boss. Reading this article made me really think on how much personal information you hand over with adding a single Facebook friend. Well for me thats fine since i hardly ever use Facebook, but most of my friends does.
I think that if i wasn't working in close community workplace i would really not want to give my boss access to my Facebook.
Back to the article, it continues showing examples on how peoples private lives are being violated. A very telling quote from a manager was "I don't give a rat's rear what they do at home. But what they do at work is all my business." Yes i understand that, but when you call me on my sick-day saying "Why are you at Disneyland and not at home sick". And this is made possible with the GPS tracker in your cellphone. I can imagine that this manager could squeeze in an argument why that would be all his business to.
For me to belive in any of the integrity invasive procedures i would really need to have statistics on if productivity at all is increased against how the employees feel about working in such an environment. Do they feel fear about speaking their mind? Do they always watch what they write and talk about? Do they purposefully change their behavior? Do they feel safe knowing everything they do is monitored and read?
Well i would say those questions should come to mind when a company is thinking about implementing this kind of procedure.
My feelings about this is pretty clear, i don't like taking away pieces of my integrity for the sake of my companies productivity. I'm also very hesitant to accept the argument of personal safety, as with cameras. One never knows where this information is going, and how uses it for what purpose.
I find it very interesting now this article is so similar to Marchall Brain's Novel, Manna.
For those of you that liked Snooping Bosses, i really recommend reading Manna.
Personally am a all or nothing kind of person. I'm willing to give up all my personal integrity, but only if everyone else does that to. Their can't be an elite at the top watching what everyone else does. And if that doesn't sound good, then back off my private life
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