Session 3: Settling In

If the entire world continued writing the traditional stories and poems, there would be no Shakespeare. If the entire world continued painting the traditional paintings, there would be no Picasso. If the entire world continued sitting on their asses and living the monotony, there would be no world today. I'm not saying I'm any Shakespeare of Picasso. I'm just saying that this time I'm going to try something new. This week my blog will not be about what happened in class. It will be MY thoughts on the topics we discussed in class. I'm from the shy part of the world so I thought that I could voice my thoughts here. After all, this is my blog. And like prof said, I'm free to write anything on my blog.

So let's start. 

Sustainability. This word just reminds me of one thing: my environmental science class from high school. EVERY chapter used to some how end up revolving around this one word. If I sit to count the number of times I've written this word (in various forms) in school .. okay wait. I can't even remember! It's amazing how two years changes you so much. Two years ago, this was just another word. Today, I finally get it. The world is coming to an end. Maybe it didn't end in 2012 as the movie suggested. But that doesn't mean it won't ever. It's not a now or never. It's a sooner or later. You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely!! We have to learn to make sustainable use of our resources (finally this line actually makes sense).

Let's talk statistics. US has under 5% of the world's population but its energy consumption is over 25% of the world. Africa on the other hand occupies 15% of the world's population but their energy consumption is less than 1/3rd that of the US. Do you think it's fair? We are using up almost all the resources of the world to satisfy our present needs and desires. If we continue at this pace, there will be nothing left for our future generations. Do you think it's fair? The world's energy consumption has increased exponentially. The industrial revolution had a huge impact on the world. However, this impact became apparent only about 100 years after. Looking back, it is difficult to realize how what took place then is having such complicated and vast effects today. Our current lifestyle is putting a tremendous strain on the world's resources. Already parts of the world are facing energy shortages. If we move towards sustainable development, even those parts of the world will make immense strides in development.

The world has a lot of potential in terms of renewable energy resources. It is not possible to make the shift immediately and all at once, but instead we have to aim at a gradual change. We have to learn to differentiate between needs and wants. There are places in the world where people are not even being able to satisfy their basic needs, whereas there are also other places in the world where people throw tantrums when their whims and fantasies are not fulfilled. They are two ends of the same spectrum, two parts of the same world. Sustainable development not only brings positives to the future, it also negates the negatives of the past. We need to explore our options, move towards technological innovation to build a sustainable world. 

There is also a flip side to technological innovation as well. When there is a new technology in the market, it is pounced upon by other developers. It is a summit opportunity, one not easily found, rare and new. Soon, this gets overused and turns from a summit to a valley opportunity. Like HTC was the leader in touch screen phones. Then entered Apple, closely followed by Samsung and now all other phone companies. So touch screen phone became a summit to valley opportunity. We hear of research being done on 3D phones. Now that is a cloud opportunity. In short, for the case of renewable energy, we should be focusing on summit opportunities mainly, with little emphasis on cloud opportunities as well. Research does not necessarily mean working in the lab. It also includes sitting under a tree and thinking about new ideas. That we all can do. 

To conclude, I believe that we all can make a difference. This is our world and it is our responsibility to make it a better place for our future generations. We are not doing anyone a favor. It is only for the greater good of the world. 

In my opinion, the class was an interesting one, but I have a bias against the continued discussion of sustainable development. I've been learning of it ever since I was a kid. However, what I don't understand is that I don't see anyone implementing it. There is no point in having great discussions on this topic. There is need for action. 

Therefore, my rating of the class: 7/10 :)

Session 2: First Glance

I made my way to my first TWC class of the sem. I bought my sub. I bought my drink (after both Prof and I struggled a little to make the vending machines accept our coins!). I entered class just in time. I expected the class  to be a heavy one with a LOT of talking from the Profs side and a LOT of absorbing on our side. 

This made me smile :)

The class started with a short recap on administrative matters. The slides said that the first half of the session would be about "Technology, Society and Global Dominance" and the second half of the session would be about "Technology and Human Development". Honestly, neither of the topics interested me. I couldn't think of anything interesting about ANY of the two topics. So Prof started his lecture by talking about his organizational model for identifying innovation leaders and dominant players. I found this very interesting. It was actually something that was being played out in front of our eyes. Like it was discussed in session 1, US is beginning to lose its  power whereas China is growing exponentially. China is the rising star and US is the falling star. Why is it so? This was explained very well by the analysis of the model. US is sitting on its laurels, not interested in learning from others or developing new ideas. They feel they are invincible. However, as everyone (except probably the US) can see, China is moving towards becoming the super power of the world. China is the one that is absorbing knowledge and creating new ideas at the pace of growing fingernails. They are not intentionally looking to become the world's best. As discussed in class, when US looked to Africa for resources for their own development, they destroyed Africa. However, when China is doing the same today, looking to Africa for resources for their inventions and development, they are helping Africa develop as well. China is keen to learn from others and invest in new ideas. The thing with US was that they were the rising star at one point in time. They then became the dominant player of the world. However, once you reach the top, there's no where to go but down. So gradually began their decline.

This was followed by a discussion on the readings. I shall not go into too much details, because that's what the discussion in class was for. In fact I shall only speak of the ones that particularly interested me.
Firstly, Innovation of the reset world: Again, these captions sound so boring, it's deceiving. It took me like 30 mins to convince myself to read the article. When I finally did, I came across the box theory. This is a very simple theory but explains one of the most complex ideas. How to survive, and perhaps even expand, in recession? The unbelievable but true fact mentioned was that recession is the best time for expansion. Take advantage of the weakness and make it your strength. If you think about it, that's exactly what has been happening with third world countries. They are the weakest of the world, and people are taking advantage of them to build on their strengths. Similarly, in times of recession, talent is abundant and cheap. It's the best time to find the gems in the dark. This article can also be related to the theory mentioned above. The strategy of the rising star should not be to plan for what they have to do in 2020. It should be to plan for what they need to do now to become the dominant player of the world in 2020. The summary of the article is basically that companies need to focus on all three boxes equally to survive and expand in recession.And secondly, A stagnant and meaningless popular culture is a big problem for society: This one, I really liked. It is one article I would probably suggest my friends to read as well. Something I would share on Facebook. It speaks of something we are all turning a blind eye to. Today's entertainment sucks (pardon my language!). What is Big Brother? A bunch of people locked up in a house with no work in life. What is so interesting about it? Nothing. Then why do we watch it? Because everyone watches it. What are these Hollywood Sci Fi movies? A process of ruining people's imagination. On a tangent, another point that hit me while I was reading the article was how movies are made out of successful novels. Why would anyone do that? When you read a book, you imagine the appearance of the characters, their voices, the stage settings .. everything. But when the movie is released, you just silently consume the director's imagination of the entire novel. And then you come out saying, "WOW! It was brilliant." Why don't we give credit to our imagination? Maybe our imagination is better. This making of movies out of novels is ruining the creative brain of the younger generation. So many people don't even read books anymore. They just wait for the movie to be released. On the flip side, even movie directors and script writers don't have the innovative brains to come up with their own stories. They all just bank on the success of the novel they are making the movie on. 

The book cover before the movie

The book cover after the movie

Do you see the difference? That is not how I pictured Harry Potter when I read the book. Who allowed them to put that face up there?

Apart from the discussions, we saw a couple of videos as well. Again, I shall only speak of the ones that caught my eye.
To start - History of the World in 7 minutes: It started with the big bang, followed by the creation of stars, the sun, the solar system, the earth, the continents and the appearance of the first human. It also included the development of human beings and how they learnt to live and create a world for themselves. The entire video was in the form of a timeline, which I thought was a very interesting concept. Each second of the video represented 50 years in the timeline. The video included the development of man from a hunter to a farmer, the appearance and disappearance of civilizations over the centuries, including Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Parthian, to name a few. In the span of 7 minutes, the whole world came into being.
Progress in Human Development: This video presented the idea of differential development of the various nations in a humorous way. It showed how the world is moving from the "poor and sick" segment to the "rich and healthy". Today, there are many nations where the urban areas are already at the top of the "rich and healthy" segment, where as the rural areas are still in the "poor and sick" segment. For example China. However, the positive aspect is that, the present growth rate indicates that eventually the whole world will be in the "rich and healthy" segment. In this video we are shown that the world we live in is radically different from the one we imagine. The video basically shows the history of the world while using stats and augmented reality animation.
Next, History of the British Empire: Now being an Indian, and knowing that the British ruled over my country for the longest time possible, I really liked this video as it exposed the true nature of the old British Empire. Their power was not because of their own greatness, but because of the value of the colonies they had occupied. This video brings to light the reality that England would not have been able to even sustain itself if the rest of they wouldn't have exploited different parts of the world. At one point in time, even England was a superpower. But as it lost its colonies, it lost its power as well. Thus, point proved.
The final one, Achieving The Millennium Development Goals: This was a very heart warming video. It brought to light how little things that people do can make such a huge impact on the world. You might say that Africans are suffering from hunger and poverty. How can you help sitting here in Singapore? Well, the least you can do is not waste food. It's a really weird world we live in today. The poor walk miles to get food and the rich walk miles to digest it. You might say that there is illiteracy in the world today. How can you help sitting here in Singapore? The least you can do is donate your old books and stationary to the homes for the poor and orphans. It's a really weird world we live in today. The rich crib about how the A.C is not strong enough when they are studying and the poor just try to find a street lamp to sit under so they can study. My point is that anyone can make a difference. You just have to try.

Finally, about the presentations, I would just like to say that it was really well done. It takes some courage to come up in front of everyone and be the firsts to present. From Anonymous to eugenic technology to online learning to the future of education in Africa to Robots, it was all just amazing. So much so that I actually didn't mind the class ending 15 minutes late. Well done guys :)

My rating of the class: 8.5/10

                                

Session 1: Pilot

Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day - it all just hurts! The morning of our TWC class, I was pulled out of bed by my shrieking, panicking mother. I wasn't done packing. I had my flight back to Singapore that night. I was to miss my first TWC class. After the most boring 4 hours, especially since I can't sleep on flights and my flight happened to have no entertainment (yes all bad things happen at once!), I reached my home away from home. I was bored further when immediately after landing I was forced to listen to my friend ranting about what we have to do for TWC. Really, I could have done without it. Anyway, so it took me like 3 days to actually register everything I was being told about the coursework and the first session. The flight had made me slow I guess. 

Since I didn't get to be part of the ice breaking session, I think I should start by a short introduction of myself. I'm from India, a sophomore in SIS (it's a tough life!!). I love music (who doesn't?!), playing the synthesizer, art work (sometimes I feel I should have gone to Lasalle!) and absolutely love to dance (although I get conscious when people stare!!). I believe in being nice to one and all (trust me it gets difficult at times!). To conclude, I have been getting this feeling that 2013 has made me smarter, like I have been enlightened or something. So I'm hoping to have a good semester, an even better year, making lots of new friends and obviously learning a lot more. 

So I got down to catching up on what I missed. I started by seeing the video: Shift Happens. I read "Size does matter" and got a little disinterested. I'm short. "Size matters" isn't something a short person would like to hear/read. I chose to ignore that and continued. On watching further, I realized what it really meant. The United States is considered to be the most powerful nation of the globe. But we measure power by where the country is today. Not by how much it's growing. Thus it proves to be very misleading. If we were to see the growth of nations, China would be at the top of every counting. The gallops that China has made is almost unbelievable. In terms of population, in terms of dominance, you name it and they have conquered it. In essence, US is just a brand name. The facts in the video reinstate the same. The power of a country is determined by its people. As mentioned in the video, China and India have the numbers in their favor. The video also mentions how the times are changing. There was day when a person worked for just one company all his life. And then there is today when a person works for almost all companies in just one life. This is the degree of change. Everyone is preparing for the future. Everyone is gearing up for a race that hasn't even started. It's mind boggling to even imagine the kind of competition that the future beholds. It's scary to think about how the human is preparing for his own doom. The shift in power has happened even before we could think about it. There was a time when England was the world leader. It was outdone by America and now China and India are looking to take the lead. It's scary to think of this uncertainty. In my opinion, it's not about how much you know, but about how fast you can learn. Everything is uncertain. Everything is changing, shifting. The facts at our disposal are growing exponentially. In this age of information and technology, it's all about how fast you adapt to the never ending change. Therefore, people are forced to prepare for the future. Students are prepared for jobs that don't exist. They are taught to solve problems that don't even exist. Essentially, I feel that they are made to live in a make believe world. Even so, the future is unpredictable. In terms of statistics, it's not about the y, it's about the delta y!

The first video made me think so much, I couldn't watch the second till the next day. Guns, Germs and Steel: it made no sense to me. What was this video about?! On watching the video, what I liked the most was the fact that it spoke of how "a society's potential for advanced development was not determined by race or creed, or by time and experience, but by access to domesticated animals and cultivated plants." It's not the fault of the people of the third world countries that they are underdeveloped. It's not that they chose it to be so. As mentioned in the video, the people are one of the most culturally diverse and adaptable. So how is it their fault that they are not as advanced as the modern Americans? Why are they so much poorer? Yali's question is so simple, yet the toughest to answer. There is nothing genetically inferior about them! How did the world get split? How did it become so different? I guess some questions will remain unanswered. I was really shaken up by this video.

To sum up, even though I didn't attend the first class, the matter was so interesting and brain wracking, that I can't wait to see what the next class holds in store for us. A criteria for the blog is to specify what I wish had been given more discussion time. Well right now I just wish I was in the class to be part of the discussion. 

I can't rate the class, however, I can rate the content: 9/10 :)