Digital Divide

It is known that technology is everywhere. Since the pen I write with until the latest medicine invented to help with Alzheimer’s disease. What is not known for a few people in society is that, there are a few issues with technology that, instead of approaching people, pushes them away. This is called Digital Divide, and we can see it through: first, people with access and privileged information, such as countries spying others nations, second, people who have access of information and can make money with it, and third, those people who do not have financial conditions to be aware of what is happening, and cannot be a candidate in a job position, for example. Because of these disparities, technology should be used carefully and fairly.

In the past few months, a few spying situations happened between United States of America and Brazil, and / or several other countries. The Brazilian Government found out that they were being spied by the USA through the internet, telephone calls, etc. The fact is that politically the USA government could have some decisions being influenced by this information they had and the Brazilian Government did not know. It was an unfair situation, not very polite or even ethical. But in the end, there is nothing Brazil can do, because they cannot have control on what any other nation does, even if it is unethical. And by now, there is no way to know if the Brazilian Government has the same technology that the USA has. As the facts show the USA spies on Brazil, only the USA has the Technology and it is causing this divider, not in a small community, but in a very large scale.

A small issue is also an issue. When we have people that have access to monetary information or privileged information and can make money, that no one else can do, than yes, there is something wrong. Eike Batista is a Brazilian businessman that is known for having a huge quantity of money, and in the past, for being one of richest people in the world. The problem is that Eike had information about the financial market and some companies, which were provided only for him. This is totally unethical, unfair, illegal, but it happened – and I can assume there are a lot of people in the world that have this same “benefit”. This is way too much to be considered only a digital divide, and it is isolating people from something that should be equal and fair: the information.

This same information is not being given for people who need it to survive! In a few poor communities, the people do not have easy access to the internet or others ways of communication, that it is easily found in rich communities. A lot of companies use the internet to post job position and opportunities, but it seems to be excluding people that do not have computers (Robert Aucoin, personal communication, 27 November, 2013). Those people will not be able to candidate to these jobs, only because they have been excluded, but not because they are not qualified. If the propose of the internet is to connect people, than it should be at least cheap enough, for everyone be able to afford it.

Since the spying, making money or having a job, everything depends on a fair or unfair communication. This communication is failing. Not because it is bad, but because in a time that the world is being daily changed to be more democratic (with exceptions), my first sentence should not have the word unfair. If the technology is being used as a way to have access to information or to connect people, it should be democratic. This digital divide cannot happen in our society and people should care and be aware that everyone has the right to know.

Technology for dummies?

This week we had the PlayStation 4 releasing in many countries, such as Canada and USA. Next week the video game is going to be released in South America countries and another places as well.  We can say that this is a popular activity is several nations and the PS4 is known in almost every culture. There is a huge amount of people wanting to buy this video game since it was first announced, and this is curious because this type of technology brings fun, but not real production.

The video games in general had the first technological diffusion many decades ago, but they were not as common as they are today. What we have today is a common sense about the best players, games, and also, the availability of worlds that this electronic life have. It is a funny activity and today it is also a way of living. Either by those who play or those who develop and create the games. People make money in competitions and people make money using the imagination to produce the scenarios, characters and strategies.

It is all so popular that in this latest release of this week, there were people making lines in stores, at midnight to be the first to buy it. I just wonder if these people keep playing the entire dawn until the sun comes up.  I also keep thinking if these people who bought it this week have other types of jobs besides playing. OK, I primarily understand that a creator keeps playing all the night to test, and to feel, to develop new ideas… But a player? A common person?

Because there is no increase in someone’s skill if they just play… Besides playing skills… And when someone is developing the game – then there are all the abilities in the 3D software’s that they improve,  practice and when they are playing they can have new ideas, it is just an infinite world. But it is a profession. Everyone should have fun. But there are limits. A normal person could just go in the day after the releasing date to buy it, and it would not make any difference.

So, I wonder why video games exist… This is not a technology created to help us in some task. This is not an extension of ourselves anymore – except when we talk about video games for airplane pilots, for example, where they need training – and we cannot even say that there is a productivity paradox, for those people who play for fun, because they are not playing to improve their tasks  at work. They are just playing for fun.

To sum up, video games can be a needed tool when we talk about training, or they can just be a tool for fun. But when you keep awake only to play – then it is not for fun, but an addiction, and this is the only factor I can think of that justifies why there were so many people on the line last week. Are the creators of games making profit on dummies that do not have any new skill to develop?

Technological Nonsense

By the time that the world was spending money in a technology that was able to extract oil from the Alberta Oil Sands, in Canada, we could also see an increase of the Natural Resources usage, the growth of numbers of cars in China and many other countries, the large number of oil in transportation. But what we could not see was an investment in a sustainable energy, only the opposite.

The global oil consumption has grown from 60 to 87 million of barrels a day, from 1985 to 2005. There is a human dependence in oil, and it does not justify the reason why we are so worried about getting the oil from Alberta, because this increase in the natural resource usage has to have an end. Humans are using their forces and their abilities in the opposite way of the needed development. Today, our technology is basically based on natural resources, and we are not maintaining or protecting almost anything of that.

There was a huge growth in the numbers of cars in China, in 37 million, since 2009, and there are some researches that show that the number of oil consumption for transportation is going to increase in approximately 3% in 15 or 20 years. But the fact is either there will be no space for cars in the world soon, or the oil we are depending so badly is going to end before that. And we did not invest on any other energy while we had time.

China has invested more than $3 billion in the Alberta Oil Sands since 2009, what is just interesting, because the production among these oil sands uses almost more energy and resources to get the oil, than the product of oil itself.  And those investments, not only from China, but from many other countries are probably going to result in a profit in the next few years, but in a close future, this oil will have an end.

All facts around the investments in the Alberta Oil Sands result on the same issues. And this statement can be written with a ‘general word’, like ‘all’, because there are enough evidences to support this thesis. Unfortunately, there are not enough people to put their money in a sustainable and clean energy. Probably people are going to be without money and without oil.