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2015 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

14. Threats and Challenges of the New Era

verfasst von : Andrzej Piotr Wierzbicki

Erschienen in: Technen: Elements of Recent History of Information Technologies with Epistemological Conclusions

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter is an extended and strongly modified version of my texts (Wierzbicki 2010, 2011). I am addressing first the issue of impossibility and at the same time necessity of forecasting future, then the methodology of analyzing challenges and its relations to known methods of strategic analysis. I suggest that the analysis of challenges should start with the analysis of threats, weaknesses, opportunities and strengths, leading to suggested actions. It is illustrated by a short analysis of a list of global threats, resulting in an identification of four challenges: the challenge of sustainable development, the challenge of new global order, the challenge of informational revolution, and the challenge of biotechnical revolution. A shortened analysis of these challenges is also presented. Finally, challenges related to the development strategy of Poland in next decades are commented as an example.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Philosophy Versus History of Technology

Nächstes Kapitel Final Conclusions

Defending the short-term market rationality, a classic writer in economy used to say: “In the long term we are all dead”. But such attitude, even if typical for economics, is not typical for other disciplines, e.g., technologists often construct tools with a view to future generations. Such an attitude is not sufficient even for economics: the great crisis of the years 2007–2011 has shown clearly that market behaviour even in short perspective can be irrational.

In further parts of this chapter, threats are numbered (in parentheses), while capital letters indicate challenges.

Since to control such phenomena, classic anti-monopolistic and anti-cartel offices are not sufficient, many countries start to form specialized bureaus to control selected parts of high technology markets. For example, in Poland there is a bureau for control of electronic and telecommunication service markets, while other fields of high technology, such as pharmaceutical industry, are not as effectively controlled.

See Salmon (2009) under a telling title: Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street.

See, e.g., the discussion with beliefs of Don Ihde in Chap. 13.

Quotation after Gazeta Wyborcza, 20–21 August 2011.

I fully agree with the opinion of Joseph Agassi, a philosopher of technology quoted in Chap. 13, that the most important question today is what we should do to prevent an extinction of human (and other) life on Earth; however, I try to identify the reasons of this threat more precisely.

This is in a sense similar to the argument of John Rawls about leaving to our children the most just social conditions, or to the extension of his argument presented in Chap. 6 about leaving to our children the best and most objective knowledge and tools. Clearly, all these goals are not fully attainable, but certainly worth striving for as higher values.

Such a meaning was implied by the imprecise Polish translation of sustainable development, rozwój zrównoważony (equilibrated or balanced development, since there is no direct equivalent of the word sustainable in Polish); after long discussions, a better translation of the term, rozwój trwały (lasting development), is slowly accepted in Poland.

This issue was discussed earlier in this chapter; here it should be added that it concerns in particular the present global oligopoly economy on markets of high technology (called by Drucker (1993), post-capitalist economy, since the management of big corporations does not consist of owners of this corporations and is not motivated by a good opinion about the company in a long run) where the time horizon of rationality is at most a dozen years, some even say it is much shorter, like 3 months, and certainly does not take into account the interests of future generations. The neoliberal economy tried to respond to this objection by promoting the so-called theory of rational expectations (with the main thesis that each market player forms rational long-term expectations of the future and takes them into account in her/his decisions); however, economic practice together with recent financial crises have shown that market players behave irrationally in a long-term sense of the word. See also (Soros 2006).

People might conclude that we are sufficiently rich and have sufficient knowledge to effectively counteract the possibilities of such future catastrophes (until now, we are very poorly prepared for them, which was shown by the recent explosion of the volcano on Iceland or by the catastrophe at Fukushima). Preliminary research on this theme is conducted, but its intensification would require e.g. establishment of an international basis on the Moon in order to better observe incoming space objects and to appropriately react (enforce a change of their trajectory).

E.g. an automatic correction of a text without asking the user about her/his opinion is a clear example of such domination, but there are many other examples.

The informational revolution results also in actions that counteract the general trend of oligopolization of high technology economy, such as the development of software based on Open Source licenses. The question is which tendency is stronger.

See also (Niezgódka 2007; Galwas 2009).

Not only persons “having successfully completed education at the third level”, but also people that “are employed in an occupation where such an education is normally required”, Canberra Manual, OECD 1995.

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Titel: Threats and Challenges of the New Era
verfasst von: Andrzej Piotr Wierzbicki
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Technen: Elements of Recent History of Information Technologies with Epistemological Conclusions
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-09032-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-09033-7

Copyright-Jahr: 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09033-7_14

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