Hot & new consumer electronics are here – highway to the future or a technocultural dystopia unfolding?

Today is The Big Day for Nokia. In a few hours the the company is going to launch it’s latest Windows phone that is rumored to host the new Windows 8 OS. Later next week it’s the same with Apple and the new iPhone. The modern internet with it’s unimaginable power to transmit information boosts these two events to planetary proportions. Will Nokia finally be able to break (back) into the lead with the new phone or is the hype going to melt down with the – so far – superior Apple.

This must be what the singularity feels like but is this what it is supposed to be? I mean, virtually lining behind large companies in their attempt to dominate the market. The market? Do you mean the financial market? You know, the system behind the world scale economic disaster looming in the horizon?

I was a young man in the 90’s. Back then there were was a fast awakening to the ecological disaster facing the world. Researchers argued – and still do – that the economic boom of the 20th century is culminating in a fast depletion of natural resources. People around the world became aware of the fact that the lifestyle we enjoy does have a double edge. In the past two decades nothing much has happened to correct this “cycle of doom”.

Now we are in a situation where most of the planet is affected by how “people receive” their new mobile devices. Will the stock go up or down. It’s not long ago that Nokia and Apple both had to answer some odd questions about how, where and by whom their devices were manufactured. It turned out, that there were some mistakes made. And remember when Apple announced it would with draw from EPEAT? After a world wide protest they decided that it’s better not to.

At the start of the 21st century some of you may have noticed a modest rise of the “new consumer culture“. What this means is that people are not just buying stuff they want (like the theory of consumerism has been thus far) but people would be eager to invest in things that are ecologically and socially sustainable. This is a part of the “green revolution” and frankly, I am surprised that it still remains a very small part of the combined marketing economy that keeps our world going (faster, closer and more mobile).

I have absolutely nothing against such products like Lumia or the iPhone. Not at all. I could not imagine living with out one. Mobile devices along with other innovations of the 21st century makes my life better, easier and perhaps fuller.

And the very same things I slightly criticize here are the things I can use to look up stuff like sustainable economy or consumer movements such as “Buy Nothing Day“.

And it is after doing some thinking of my own, I have decided that the way we are “hyped about the future” may well be the thing that prevents us getting there. From a Transhuman standpoint it’s easy to see why. It’s not just the fastness of development or the availability of new products that push the world forward. Those things push the economy forward and all though that is needed to keep pushing towards a more techno-oriented society, culturally, it’s not enough.

The Transhumanist in me is seeking to find the right technologies to push forward. Deciding what is right goes deep into the basics of being human (and especially Transhuman). I’m not a big fan of “nature before everything” since I have a deeply antrophocentric world view. That said, I believe we need to look at the big picture here.

And the picture states the obvious. We can’t expect to enrich our lives with depleted meanings. Even that the technology offered here is state of the art, we should ask for more. Do we really need a new cell phone or an iPad every year? By asking more we are asking not only more sustainable technological progress but a deeper and richer content as well. You may or may not know that the bloody competition in the high end technology market puts the consumer “needs” before everything else. Where is the innovation in that? Why would any company – even super rich Apple – invest billions in research and development if what they really “need” to do is keep up with competition?

We should build less and slower. At the same time we should look at what the gadgets actually offer from a cultural and social perspective. This is totally against the ideology of the “free market” since it’s said that the free market is all we need to get the best products and practices. But is this true in a situation where best ideas are nothing but market projections for a certain market segment?

If we find our selves asking who to make the markets “smarter”, we may then wake up to the fact that there still are people on the planet who can’t read or write. Or who have trouble getting food and fresh water. The planetary infrastructure of social well being is undermined all the time, not to mention that the nature around us is dying and taking us with it. This must be something for Transhumanist’s to think about and in my understanding they are. This could also be a message what would make Transhumanism even a more interesting world view among the peoples of the world. It just needs good packaging.

No singularity worth the effort is going to happen unless we take care of the present first. We are loosing massive human resources due to poverty and we are loosing the battle to master nature – because we are continually at risk of being extinct because we are still very much dependent on the natural environment.

Despite this I’ll be rooting for Nokia this week. It’s still a Finnish company in name at least. I’ll also be dreaming about technological progress that would actually benefit humanity and pave the way for a better, happier and richer future.

African science and technology needs its own agenda

That was the headline in the Global Finland network my friend Jaana tweeted this morning. I was sitting in a bus and I had just dropped my kid to kindergarten so I was just going through the mail stream from the night and morning. I ended up reading the entire article (be honest, we often don’t read more than just the headline and a few lines here and there).

I believe the developing world is the one area in the world where technology really matters. In fact, the ‘technoevolution’ of places like Africa is going to be a very interesting thing. There are, however, some obstacles.

The first important topic is that this must be something African people do for themselves. And they are. Hannes Toivanen from the Technical Research Center of Finland (VTT) is involved in a research that shows how research and development is a growing trend all around Africa. Especially the information technology sector is starting to boom.

In the same article Professor Erkki Sutinen is running a project in Mosambik where kids are can try out natural sciences. “When children are able to program robots, they get the feeling that they are runnig technology and not the other way around. Science is not just reading huge books but a way to influence the world”, Sutinen comments.

In my opinion, the interesting thing about technology and Africa is that it comes “ready made”. African nations don’t have to go through the long period of development and the slow progression in technology. They literally jump from a pre-technological society to a high-tecnology society. Of course that is a simplification but still, it is interesting.

I myself believe that technology and ideas should be open to all and as free/cheap as possible. There is a massive innovative potential on this planet but as long as we have billions of people fighting for the basic needs, we as humanity, will not reach our full potential. So, an investment in a high-technology in Africa will help the entire planet.

A while ago I read that businesses in the social sector get the greatest benefit from innovations. This means, that there are many innovations that boost the social industry. Now, Africa is a place with many problems and there definitely is a demand for social businesses. Things like microloans are a good example of a social innovation.

In stead of trying to “save Africa”, we should offer our support for the peoples of Africa to research and develop technology. We should create investments for businesses that aid the local infrastructure, schooling, agriculture, etc. This his something that we are not really doing. This is something that Transhumanists, I suppose, ought to be doing.

City of Vaasa, Immigration and some Electric Sheep.

Today I hopped on a train heading north. In my work at the Kalevi Sorsa -foundation I am coordinating a research project on immigration and the work market. A few weeks ago I was asked to share some of my initial results from a series of workshops I hosted last fall and winter. Not only was I asked to do that, they asked me to host the entire ETNO seminar. The “Q-seminar method” I piloted with the process is focused on the question how immigrant NGO’s could start producing services to the open market.

And, since I am a true believer in open data and open knowledge, I’ll “release” the entire Q-seminar process “handbook” as a Creative Commons research method when I get the thing tweaked.

You may not know but in Finland there are only a few immigrants and even fewer refugees. With a falling birth rate and an ever expanding population of the elderly, not to mention the very costly and outdated welfare state, we really need immigration. At the same time  we are trying to avoid the mistakes in the integration process we see elsewhere in Europe – and even Sweden.

As you may know, we have our share of the right wing populist movements and this year is a local election year. Along with the Greece mess, there is going to be some heated discussions about immigration and the EU.

So, here I am in Vaasa and I am starting to realize all the stuff I forgot home.

I have some nice clothes for tomorrow but I forgot my “better shoes” so I’ll have to pull this of wearing green jack boots with yellow ties. Also, I have no toothpaste. All I have to snack is a bag of candy and some ED. Great. What I do have is a good collection of technology. There are at least two devices with 3G connections and this computer is wired to the hotels WiFi network. Everything I do is connected to this technology.

Since the long train ride here and the relatively lax day tomorrow, I thought I could take some time of from my research but no, technology follows me everywhere. And since my writing process is not going so good, all this electricity and connectedness is starting to hurt my head.

But I don’t complain, I love it. When I finish watching Reel Steal I hope to fall a sleep and dream of electronic sheep.