TWC Week 13 (Session 12)

This week's lecture was on presentations again and was the last in this TWC module.

One of the key ideas and concept that captured my attention was during the presentation on the answer to world hunger. While there are many future solutions to solving the issue of food supply, it seems that many of these solutions have opened new doors for large corporations to step and take advantage of the market situation. While GM food has brought about numerous benefits, the bullying behaviour of Monsanto and the the unclear health risks of such modified food cannot be ignored. It seems that for food, there is indeed enough food to go around, and the problem lies in its distribution. Hence progress in technology in this field may not be the key to solving this problem.

A key take away point from the presentations on trans-humanism and from my group's research on mind-controlled prosthetics would be that technology is indeed progressing at a very fast pace, but at the price of opening many doors to the unknown. With creations like mind-controlled exoskeletons and prosthetic limbs that are more powerful than the original human body itself, it seems likely that the risk of misuse in the future is high. As such it would be wise to start developing an ethical and legal framework on their use before such equipment become widespread around the world.

An issue for further discussion would probably be on the rich-poor divide. How much further can this social divide be pushed with increasingly powerful and efficient inventions from the 'richer' countries while the poor lag behind even further in the technology race?

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