Of Changing Times

As a fan of science fiction, I have read a lot about how technology changes the way people look at things around them. I have also read many examples of how lost the human race will be without the many machines that proliferate our society. Thus, I entered the Technology and World Change class with many expectations and much excitement. And I found something that showed me that I never really knew what all those authors were trying to say.

First we saw a video that discussed the major state of flux that our planet is in. Then we had introductions all round, which was a nice touch. After that, we saw the starting of Guns, Germs and Steel which is basically a text/documentary which tries to find the root cause of major socio economics imbalances that exist today. However we did not remain soon on this topic and moved on to the relationship between creativity, invention and innovation. We also discussed the definition of technology and innovation in order to gain a more intuitive understanding of both.

An interesting idea that I had during this class was how technology could be something more than an advance from status quo. Technology as we discussed is supposed to make the lives of people better. Therefore technology development in places such as Asia and Africa could explore the return of labor intensive products which would better suit these places. Food for thought.

The key ideas from this class are -

1. TWC is a good class.

2. Our understanding of what technology needs to change.

As this for the first class, I don't really think we missed anything. We got a pretty good idea of what the prof expects from us and what the course is gonna be like. Also we know what we should expect from ourselves. Plus we are beginning to comprehend the subtle relationships between technology and its cousins - creativity, innovation etc.

I'd rate the session about a 9.

Also I'd like to thank the prof and the TA. I won't say this will be a breeze. It'll be pretty tough. But it should be a lot of fun thanks to them.