[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’Better living, living well’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY IKE SEÑERES
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
IN THEORY, it is possible to improve the quality of human life, even without technology. In reality, however, human history will show that much of the improvement in the quality of human life now could be attributed to technology.
It could not be denied, however, that the use of technology for good or for bad would depend on human intervention, or shall I say human action or inaction, as the case may be. Perhaps only God knows how many ways technology has been used for good or for bad in human history.
Conversely, perhaps only God knows how many good technologies have gone to waste in human history because these have not been used, never mind the bad technologies.
Up to a certain point in human history, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as it is called now was merely a subset of Science & Technology (S&T). As a matter of fact, here in the Philippines, it was only recently when the ICT function was removed from the Department of Science & Technology and was transferred to a newly created Department of Information & Communications Technology (DICT).
For whatever it is worth, the website www.diffen.com says that “the goal of science is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, while the goal of technology is to create products that solve problems and improve human life.” It adds to say that “simply put, technology is the practical application of science.”
While I would actually disagree with the statement that “the goal of science is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake”, I do agree that “technology is the practical application of science.”
As I see it, the goal of science should be to pursue knowledge for the sake of improving the quality of human life, with the ultimate goal of developing technologies that would consequently create products that would solve human problems and improve human life.
For good measure, science should not just create technologies within the category of ICT and instead, it should create technologies that are independent of ICT. In reality, however, even the technologies that are created independently from ICT could still benefit from ICT.
Looking at it from another perspective, the value of the sciences in relation to the improvement of human life could and should be measured in terms of how much it could contribute to human security.
Of course, there could be other ways of valuation towards this end, but the angle of human security could and should be a good starting point. Since we could not possibly prevent all scientists from pursuing knowledge for its own sake, we could possibly tell them to pursue any form of knowledge as much as they would want to, for as long as they would initially be able to apply the knowledge they would discover to anything or something that would contribute to human security.
It appears that as of now, there are no common standards yet for smart cities and green cities. Meanwhile, frameworks for safe cities are emerging, powered mainly by the Internet of Things (IOT) technologies.
On top of all that, the United Nations has developed a seven point human security framework, combining economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security.
At the outset, this framework appears to be broader than the old human settlements concept that the United Nations used to promote, a concept that focused more on the basic needs approach. Fast forward to today; the United Nations is now promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Whatever it may be called, or whatever framework may eventually be used, the end result would be cities or countries wherein its residents or citizens would be living well or would have better living, depending on how one would look at it.
One way or the other, the bottom line to all these would be happier and more satisfied residents or citizens. In this connection, the Kingdom of Bhutan has set the trend by announcing that it has adopted a happiness index, and index that will measure how happy the Bhutanese people are about their quality of life. Perhaps related to their goal is the announcement that Bhutan is also aiming to be the first carbon free economy.
Looking at it from the qualitative side, for the lack of an official government definition as of now, it could be said that cities or countries that would have higher happiness indices would be those that would have lesser poverty, lesser hunger, lesser sickness, lesser pollution, lesser joblessness, lesser homelessness, lesser crimes and lesser rebellions, among others.
Look closer now, and you will discover that all of these reductions are in line with the seven point human security framework of the United Nations. In closing, I would say that even if technologies are already available, nothing much will happen if there are no policy frameworks that would support it. This is really where Bhutan has done right. What about the Philippines?/PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
