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.
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