Session One

When I first looked through what the professor had put up for introduction questions just the day before the first class, I was a little shocked with his second question. He wanted to know what we currently knew about technology and world change and if we had any special interest. I was wondering if I was expected to have read extensively before class and was supposed to give a very intellectual answer. I suddenly was not looking forward to the class as much as before because my knowledge regarding technology was limited and special interest was totally out of question. However, I felt better after hearing many of the answers. A large number of students were actually admitting that they did not have a lot of knowledge on technology and were there to learn. This got me more relaxed as I felt less dumb.

The professor slowly introduced us to the course through some videos. I was shocked to find out the extent of technology’s impact on the world, especially after looking at facts in videos that were just few years apart from each other. The change in statistics was huge. We then went through the “timeline of time” which was very interesting as we got to see how the world has evolved from the start till now.

The main topic we touched on was a book written by Jared Diamond (Gun, Germs and Steel). The book was based on a question put forward to Diamond by a New Guinean. The question was: Why did white men have so much cargo and New Guineans so little? Diamond then rephrased the question according to what he felt was the root to the question: Why did some societies advance faster than others? The professor then put this question to the rest of the class. Some of the answers were:

-          Some societies got more exposure to different technologies and advancements by travelling. And they improve on these advancements.

-          Some societies had the ability to read and write while some didn’t.

-          Some societies could only advance with whatever resources that were available to them.

What I found interesting was that none of these answers actually answered the question to the point. For example the first point: It doesn’t answer why those societies who travelled were able to travel but not the other societies. It made me realize that as simple as the question and as obvious as the answers seemed earlier, it was a lot more complicated.

We could not go through the rest of the book or other articles provided but after reading them I felt that the first key takeaway from all the articles was the importance of farming. What we are today as compared to Stone Age times is largely due to farming. A simple tool to survive led to such huge developments such as advancement in technology and even social changes. The second key takeaway was that contrary to the traditional view that it was the whites who were pioneers of technological innovation, it was actually the natives of the Middle Eastern continent who sparked of the start of these advancements. Especially the article titled, “Science and Technology: Historic Innovation, Modern Solutions”, shows that many of today’s technologies originated from non-European scholars/scientists and were used as references/guides by the Europeans.

I would rate the class on a scale of 10. Because it has opened my mind up to a lot of different thing I had never considered or bothered about. And also these questions were not bombarded on us but instead we were slowly introduced to them.