TWC lesson 2 (:

We delved in the aspects of global dominance of a country and how technology plays a part in influencing it as we explored what qualities or characteristics would attribute to a rising, dominant or falling country. Secondly we explored how technology affects human development thus allowing us to gain a greater understanding of ourselves, our capabilities. On the other aspect, on how technology can also have detrimental effects on the human development.

“Unless you’re open to getting information from outside, you’re likely to get isolated and hence less likely to rise up the social ladder and emerge tops.” I feel this aptly explains the need for countries to avoid being self-satisfied but rather, be radical to changes and welcome new technologies to accelerate their growth and global dominance. Indeed, change is inevitable and necessary; the transition process may be often difficult and painful for some. Yet despite the paradox faced, there is a need for many, in fact majority of countries to undergo such a situation.

We watched a YouTube video on Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its proved that despite the various improvements, developments and advancements of any developed or developing countries, poverty rates are still ever increasing. Infant and pregnancy mortality rates do not decrease despite the advancements in medical technology. People are still surviving in slums despite developments on infrastructure throughout the times. Shocking statistics of what the world is still undergoing was reflected to us through the video and what caught me thinking was, “why was it so?” Perhaps we humans have been so caught up in the rat race, striving to become better while leaving these developing countries behind when they have lesser chances and opportunities to help themselves. We have been too busy and self-centred in helping ourselves that we have neglected what these technologies was created for, which ultimately, was to aid humans and developments.

I hoped that this topic was discussed to a greater detail in class as we could have explored the reasons as to why the developing countries are not exactly improving as rapidly as the developed ones are and whether it was the issue of the developed countries or the developing countries that cause the widening gap or was it due to the lack of the transfer of technology from the developing countries. This would enable us to understand the reasons for global dominance of certain countries.

Overall I felt the lesson was very informative especially in all the three presentations so I’d rate the lesson a 7 out of 10!