Science & Technology

Communication primal and almost instinctual need for such interaction, spurred people throughout the ages to create better ways to expedite the process of communication fibre-optic communication broadband & wifi technology provide people with the ability to access the Internet virtually everywhere UN believes broadband access to be a basic human right past vs present (long distance) - snail mail (mail spends several days in postal service) vs emails/texts (phones and computers made possible with technology) also includes: e.g. Skype, Oovoo, Google Plus technology as a catalyst for making us better and faster communicators reconnect with old friends/distant relatives technologically-induced brevity has taken a toll on our social lives - may have rendered us slightly inept at the reality of social communication (less effective communicators?) "brevity is the soul of wit" - Shakespeare Twitter technology has made effective communication easier in the spread of and conveying of ideas Arab Spring - hundreds of protestors in Libya and Egypt harnessed efficiency of communication through internet to organise protests and movements (via social networking site Facebook) technology leads to laziness - gatherings/face-to-face meetings replaced by social networking technology aids the socially-awkward, builds confidence technology allows one to remain anonymous when expressing one's views [positive] channels like YouTube, CNN, The Economist technology allows one to remain anonymous when expressing one's views [negative] rude/offensive remarks and comments revealing discriminatory stereotypes; bigotry disregarding basic social and ethical etiquette insensitive religious debates in the comments section on YouTube effectiveness/efficiency of communication hinges largely on how it is utilised Hope for the future new inventions and innovations have heralded a new age inventions like the Gutenberg press, the wheel, modern medicine, the steam engine, electricity, the telegraph can be manipulated to cause greater harm to human society if left in the hands of unscrupulous characters - crossing the boundary? genetically-modified food brought about by Green Revolution was perceived as panacea for food shortages and abject poverty of Third World till technology developed by multinational giant Mosanto was undertaken with sole aim of increasing profits and gain - charged high prices for high yield varieties, and these seeds were specially engineered to only be planted once, sending farmers back to the market place to line the pockets of the MNC innovations such as stem cell transplants, designer babies, human cloning, atomic bomb, poisons like Agent Orange, chemical warfare, weaponry used as an excuse for inhumane cruelty Angel of Death, Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, is notorious for carrying out devious experiments on twins, such as cutting their arms and sewing them together dystopian movies e.g. The Island (warns against a technology that harvests organs), Repo Men (presents a future where the creation of bio-mechanical organs has been perfected and made available to those who pay with money or "credit", failure of which results in repossession of the organ by 'repo men') World Wars I & II, Sarin attacks on Tokyo subway in 1995 (use of chemical warfare) guarantees us a future; ensures our survival & longer life spans accidental discovery of antibiotics by Alexander Fleming in the 19th century

scientists discovering a technique to silence the gene of the mosquito, such that it will not transmit Malaria complete eradication of smallpox disease that claimed so many lives in its heyday vaccine found for a certain type of cancer access to over-the counter medicines for the slightest discomfort e.g. cough/flu medication complex treatments e.g. chemotherapy, kidney dialysis solutions for global warming e.g. solar panels, alternative forms of energy (nuclear power plants), methods to monitor climate change vehicles for human advancement - fulfill Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, allow us to achieve selfactualisation, allows prosperity of the human race Neolithic Revolution - developed tools, freed up time for settlers to develop pottery, music and other forms of art Industrial Revolution - steam locomotive, division of labour, travel allowed for greater integration of societies social media - form of expression, rally communities together for common causes (Arab Spring) Zhou Enlai commented on the impact of the French Revolution: "It's too early to tell." functions as an equaliser laptops donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been brought to subsistence-level communities in Africa and have achieved phenomenal success development of new forms of nourishment for impoverished countries Plumpy'nut, a peanut and milk powdered mixture that only requires water to become a nutritious meal for families Golden Rice, rice infused with DNA from a certain kind of bacteria that allows it to produce betacarotene and Vitamin A [however, this is still not used in any country for fear that it may cause disastrous effects on environment] leads to the fulfillment of rights of disenfranchised communities all over the world Saudi Arabia is often lambasted for its lack of civil liberties, repression of women and hiding behind the veil of "culture" to justify their actions - advent of social networking and Internet led to growing awareness of their rights and women organised their first protest by breaking the law and driving without a guardian; the king recently capitulated to societal pressures and allowed women the right to vote from 2015 onwards results in greater inequity - the poor will find it harder to progress and continue to be at a disadvantage while the rich remain at an advantage and progress further while villagers in rural areas of Kenya suffer from severe poverty and face starvation, the technology to produce more nutritious food is being marketed to healthy Americans at exorbitant prices thrives on profitability, making it a primary aim over actual benefits to mankind billions of dollars and many brilliant minds involved in the Large Hadron Collider experiment which did little to benefit anybody around the world but exists because of the hype and profit the "pursuit of how the universe was born" provides Korean cloning researcher falsified findings from human cloning experiment for fame and recognition chance of nuclear accidents Chernobyl, Fukushima

Driven by commercial interests scientific research should not be largely profit-driven as it represents an unhealthy deviation from the original noble ideals of science, and could result in detriments to society overstepping of ethical boundaries in the name of science for money fiction series 'Resident Evil': a multi-billionaire biomedical research firm Umbrella Corporation odiously depicted as a monstrous, purely profit-driven research giant without an iota of regard for humanity; twisted experiments carried out on all things living stemmed from research into the T-virus, resulting in an armada of zombies that decimated the entire city

 new products born from breakthrough in Science that have been vaunted as 'revolutionary' and 'extraordinary' often have this habit of being unspeakably expensive - much of such profitdriven research aimed to alleviate the suffering of the poor only serve to widen the rich-poor divide further GM crops e.g. frost-resistant tomatoes, pest-resistant lettuce and vitamin-rich Golden Rice remain too costly for the poor who cannot afford to enjoy the benefits brought about by GM as a result of patents from profit-driven company Mosanto Truvada, a drug recently touted as having the ability to turn the tide on the epidemic caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), costs a whopping USD900 a month and is inaccessible for patients without the means to afford it Science driven by commercial interests often leads to unethical and morally suspect outcomes Hwang Woo Suk, a South Korean scientist, was hailed as a super scientist by the world and awarded millions of dollars in grants for his supposed work on stem cell research, which were eventually found to be based on fabricated experiments results in many scientists treating research as a means to an end and not an end in itself Others Dunbars number (150): suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable relationships o Dunbars insistence that the human capacity for connection has boundaries is a challenge to the ethos of Facebook, where one can stockpile friends by the thousands o does digital technology really allow one to expand ones social circle? Communication Internet allows us to have conversations with one person or many people, as opposed to the telephone (one-to-one pattern) and print material/television (one-to-many pattern) o Internet merging all other mediums (books, movies, conversations all taking place online o People now become producers and not just consumers o connectivity during disasters like Chinas Szechuan earthquake, which was being filmed while it happened people texting, taking videos of buildings shaking and uploading them to QQ (all this happened minutes before the US geological survey even announced anything about the quake; BBC got wind of it from twitter donations poured in from overseas via the Internet China could no longer deny the occurrence of the quake, like it did the first time when it admitted only 3 months after unable to filter streams of information from citizens

Mass Media/New Media

Pursuing responsibility vs profit to declare that mass media should entirely pursue responsibility is a premature assertion at best as we have to acknowledge that the mass media ultimately a conglomeration of various for-profit corporations - both responsibility and profit are equally important aspects mass media helps propagate reminders that the world should help the poor in 1993, in war-torn Sudan, photojournalist Kevin Carter took a picture of an emaciated Sudanese toddler, who was struggling towards a UN feeding centre, stopping to rest under the hungry eyes of a vulture - this timely shot was published in the New York Times and other channels of mass media, then went on to become the most iconic image of starvation in the world much of what we have come to acknowledge as true is determined by the information and images propagated by mass media hence if responsibility is not fully exercised by the media, each of us would have a fragmented sense of reality to attract viewership and gain greater profits, mass media taps on the preoccupation with immediacy and places a disproportionate emphasis on certain elements of events the spectacle of seeing soldiers donning gas masks in the Persian Gulf War overshadowed the reality that the Gulf never had a chemical attack the "action news" formula adopted by many newspaper organisations is packing 30 to 40 news events into a short twenty-two-and-a-half minute news-hole it has become increasingly possible for large government corporations to manipulate mass media

and set the agenda for many issues - ill effects on readers and viewers choosing not to report on the genocide that happened in Rwanda over a hundred-day period in 1994 that killed over 800,000 people (if the media had reported it, and governments mobilised to enter Rwanda and subdue the perpetrators, the extent of the genocide would have lessened greatly) "we grew up where much of what we read was true or as close to true as we could figure out, but now, some of what we read is clearly false" - Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google "CNN effect": the media phenomenon where the media sets the agenda and creates news by reporting it; serving as a mobilising force, the validity of information it reports becomes of undoubted importance e.g. political sensationalisation - FOX News Corporation chose to report on Barack Obama's birth certification and issues like whether Obama being elected was a Muslim conspiracy, leading some people to not take Obama seriously at all in recent years, there has been a proliferation of independent media outlets that strive to provide an alternative view on world events Al Jazeera, set up by the Emir of Qatar in 1996, provided an influential antidote to the Western bias of global news - Al Qaeda leaders used the station as a vehicle for some of their occasional broadcasts, and others accused it of feeding its 50 million viewers with a regular diet of anti-American propaganda but what it portrayed was the truth "we will take on a global view, rather than looking at things from a purely Western perspective" - Alan Fisher, English senior correspondent of Al Jazeera International media also gains a large proportion of its profits from advertising, and would thus be compelled not to publish news stories that would be damaging to their partners in a survey conducted in 2000, about seventeen percent of journalists in the US have been criticised by their bosses for writing stories that were "seen as damaging to their company's financial interests" in order to gain profit, the news report has "to sell", and this has led to an increasing reliance on sensationalism in order to outrun their competitors the New York Times has frequently been called "the newspaper of record", its brand of trust inspired by many years of hard work, generating millions of profits in sales Changing the face of human interaction new media has revolutionised the manner of human interactions by greatly facilitating them, leading to their ease as well as phenomenal growth in the scale of such interactions around the world rise of communication over the Internet e.g. Skype, email; real-time communication transformed by video-calling technology; communication made more convenient and possible at all times; expansion of human interactions from a predominantly local to global scale by removing barriers between people in different countries new media acting as a bridging platform between authority or government and, the subjects it controls, common man politicians across the world have used social networking sites to communicate with the people and establish stronger ties between the leadership and the populace General Election in Singapore - various political parties made use of Facebook and Twitter to organise rallies, promote their visions for the country and receive feedback from citizens channel through which citizens expressed support - Nicole Seah's 50,000 'likes' on her Facebook page - or criticism - Tin Pei Ling receiving numerous negative comments over her many infamous blunders new media merely a platform and would not change the face of human interaction if they were inaccessible due to "road-blocks" or are down altogether - government's desire to maintain power by quelling dissent Great Firewall of China, where a large team of censors is employed to trawl the Internet for what the government deems to be objectionable content and erase it (even more extreme example) in North Korea, the Internet penetration rate is virtually zero and the government holds an iron grip over any form of media

with such measures, scale of human interaction cannot progress much beyond local communication and remains very much at a parochial level changes that new media can effect on the way human interactions are carried out may lead to a breakdown of human communication growth in human interactions would be made negative when "inflation" sets in, when the real value of friendships and human interactions is diminished study carried out by sociologist Robin Dunbar on various species of primates that exist and interct in "societies" gave rise to Dunbar's number, this number 150 is the estimation of how many other individuals an ordinary human will be able to maintain viable social interactions with, which is far less than the number of "friends" a person today has on a social networking platform (600 on average) interaction becomes largely superficial and non-committal, real value of human-to-human interaction has been lost and turned into ersatz interactions changes in human interaction are largely unequal in the world in Ethiopia, the majority of the population lies below the poverty line and survives on less than a YS dollar a day - priority of the people is ensuring survival and not the pursuit of new media new media is but another medium of communication, the fundamentals of human interaction remain the same as they have been since the dawn of time: through the use of language, words, body language, body contact and eye contact - basics have not changed and it is universal to all interactions between humans Liberating force freedom to fight for rights o Arab Spring series of protests/demonstrations across Middle East & North Africa (success of revolution attributed to use of internet technology) o shortly after murder of Khalid Said, Facebook page appeared under We Are All Khalid Said with posts of his demise being caused by corrupt police forces spiraled into all-out campaign against police brutality and rights abuses in Egypt, graphic videos and photos + names of allegedly abusive cops posted on the page current membership of approx. 380,000 (largest and most active online human-rights activist group) o midway during the US presidential campaign, Obama changed his vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), causing public uproar, even among his own supporters on his own website however, Obama did nothing to shut them down/hide the group/deny its existence (understood that mybarackobama.com was used to convene supporters, not control them) using media to impede democratisation not popular with many people, especially (US) politicians o The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip Ronald Reagan o Trying to control the Internet is like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall Bill Clinton o connectivity x devices = democracy! if you give people enough connectivity and devices, democracy will inevitably follow dismantling of cultural, economic and political barriers o confuses intended versus actual uses of technology o China governments answer to a crime includes amateur sleuths (example of how Internet helps regimes stifle dissent) what government told the media: Prisoner Mr Li and his fellow inmates played elude the cat (Chinese hide-and-seek), afterwhich Mr Li was blindfolded and soon after sustained a fatal head injury thousands of Chinese bloggers surmised that Mr Lis death was a result of a beating by the police (not uncommon in China) rather than suppress accusations by erasing Web postings, government selected 15member committee from the public to carry out an investigation investigators were told at the crime scene that they were not allowed to view surveillance camera tapes, examine the autopsy report or question the guards on duty Web users also found out that all 15 members of the committee were current or future employees of state-run media

Others viral advertising common in the Internet generation o retailers like Abercrombie and Fitch and G2000 have started a strong following on Facebook, getting consumers to like their page to receive discount coupons for their purchases censorship o Lust, Caution 3 episodes of graphic sex, with full-frontal nudity, considered by the director to be critical to the story Singapore released cut version with NC-16 rating but released uncut in Hong Kong, Taiwan & New Zealand public outcry on perceived immaturity of Singaporean audiences uncut version released with R-21 rating ease of access o prior to new media, the KGB (USSR military service) officers had to torture to get information, now this information is readily available on Facebook pages etc