How technology came to be

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."  ~Albert Einstein


Looking back to the 1780s..
The Industrial Revolution has always been considered to be the biggest jump into the world of technology. I mean, the world literally dived headfirst into technology. Economies started booming at the beams, trade was better than ever. Production was increased, factories all around the world were trying to incorporate machines into their production lines. Look at what machines had been doing for them, there was no doubt that any form of machines = good. Machines, machines, machines: Everyone suddenly knew what was the future of the world, it just had to be machines! Did they really?

Decades later, in the 1800s. Machines, Overcrowded Labor-intensive factories, Poor working conditions. Why did they come together during the industrial revolution? The steam engine had already been invented in the 1760s, but why weren't people maximizing the fullest potential of that technology in their factories. Wasn't the basis of the entire revolution supposed to help people attain better living conditions?

Is this how everyone envisioned things to be at first? Or was everyone just "going with the flow", too timid to stand up to the widely accepted view that people aren't as important as the economy is?

Slowly but surely, through the transfer of knowledge and technology, people started realizing that things need not be that way. In the 1900s, we moved from labor-intensive machinery to more capital-intensive machinery, and standards of living improved. This could have been done ages ago if people weren't so concerned about profits and productivity, only focusing on how to maximize efficiency rather than maximizing the potential the machines had. It took an entire person's lifetime before we decided that we have had enough of disastrous living conditions!

Fast-forwarding back to the present, can we say that we have totally moved on? I think not. We might have better technologies, but our way of thinking is still the same. Profits is king. Up until today, we are still suffering from the "Industrial Revolution" mindset. Recently, people have started hailing nuclear energy as the next big source of energy, projecting it to supply 13 to 14 percent of the world's energy. However, the disposal of the waste generated is becoming a problem. To quote from Wikipedia, "there are over 430 locations around the world where radioactive material continues to accumulate.". Why are we continuing on something which we know is not sustainable at the rate we are going? Is this going to be the next "Industrial Revolution"?

Why create solutions to problems, when we can just imbue the solution into the problem from the start? We need to change our mindsets, profits are not everything. Sustainability should be, both in the standard of living as well as the usage of energy.

There are many ways to go about this, but one way of doing this I learnt today, is through the R-D-A framework for innovations. Every new innovation is a baby, and it needs to be nurtured from its inception to its deathbed! Lack of any of the RDA steps would lead to incomplete development. Ultimately, whether it becomes something great, or a fruitless burden, whether it becomes a "valley" product or a "cloud" product, lies in how we handle our "newborn".

Key take-away lessons:
1. Blindness might be a disability, but following others blindly is even worse!
2. Technology is not just a subject matter, nor is it just a machine; It is a process which requires time to develop and innovate to perfection.

I think that today we covered many points and I don't think we missed any.

Overall, I would rate this session a 7/10.