With camera, internet and GPS, or should I use it to talk?
Publicado en la revista online “we have no vision“It is all about questions, answers, action and reaction?, 6 de agosto de 2008
The launching of the new iPhone has created a revolution to the chosen countries blessed by this new technological creation (Venezuela is part of the second “group” of countries to be included: I am Venezuelan but I am living in Spain, I don’t know in which group am in). Is the iPhone a revolution or reproducing the same old problems with technology?
With an iPhone the world today can be looked through media, packages of information, audiovisuals, images and characters: TV shows, web pages, news papers, blogs, advertisement, downloads, uploads, Safari, Microsoft, Apple, NBC, BBC, Digital +, shopping mall, super market, traffic jam, metro station, etc. The amount of people that can get access to all this would not reach the half of the population of the world, not even 21 percent (1). Even though, this “percentage” controls more than the 79% of the global economy (first world, G8, etc), this could be translated into a few words: power to change the reality
.
Cue on the Cube, New York, waiting for the official launching of the iPhone, 2008.
Technological changes are (and have been) empowered by economy, most of the time controlled by market rules. This process has been happening for centuries in the West. The information revolution has been possible thanks to the development of media resources in TV, Internet, among others. They had speed up the transmission of data through networks.
The leading industries of technology generally plan to advance their own goals: create more utility, lead markets, competition, efficiency, etc. Recently we have observed how sustainability and ecology have become the new “goals” of big companies/institutions. The environmental discussion has reached every other field of knowledge. So far we do not know how this is affecting the production of the reality in our habitat, in terms of big steps that could change the rapid degradation of the planet.
Ecological protection has become a political, business and bargaining tool: a way to obtain different degrees of approval in developed countries. Ford can sell more cars producing green technologies, politicians earn “clients” with policy to make more clean processes in industries, companies can obtain the approval of the mass with a green focus, an architectural project is more attractive with a sustainable focus (Norman Foster’s Abu Dhabi City (2)).
The dependency of oil is a subject that has been for the last years in political meetings, industries, media and ecological organizations. Yet, one the topics of the discussion (besides the price of a barrel of oil), has been the energy production such as new ways to power transportation systems by using ethanol or hydrogen in cars, planes, ships and every other device. However, there is still a whole range of products used in everyday life that are dependent on the oil. Going to a supermarket is just one way to experience of a world of oil; packaging plastic is everywhere, or the production industry of processed food.
The iPhone is a perfect example of a modern product that has a lot of oil in the processes to get it to the end user. This starts from raw materials that needs oil to be extracted, the industries located in Asia for the small computer be produced, packaging, transportation, advertisement, etc. Everything depends on “black gold”, so it seems quite difficult for a market based on this mineral to change in a short period of time. Maybe this won’t happen before the 2050 (3).
Throughout history, big changes in technologies and resources used by the world (and its structure) have been produced by crisis. Crisis is generally defined as war, conflict, disaster, loss of vital needs, etc. Our power of reaction is more than our power of action. Actions are produced when there is an enemy to defeat, a threat: before the first man in the moon (remembering the spatial race between URSS and USA and then the cold war), there has always existed two forces in the battle of power. Threats unite people to struggle, join energies, produce changes, and create new realities. Threats make humanity react. When 10 people are gathering their efforts with the same objective, it becomes a unit, and successfully. We are made of energy (that most of the time we do not control or use), but a politically motivated action of people has the power to produce influence changes. Change that as we discussed above, has the power to influence technological change.
Neil Amstrong represented the victory of the United States on the race to the space, 1969.
For example, in 1989, Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez announced economic measures to follow the receipt of the International Monetary Fund (controlled by United States) that produced catastrophic effects to medium and poor Venezuelan social classes. The result was a reaction that produced the phenomena called ”el caracazo“, an emergent manifestation of people in the streets of Caracas claiming for their rights. The “caracazo” is considered the starting point of the “Bolivarian revolution” that was lead by today’s Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frías (4).
People going "down" from the slums located in the "misery belt" of Caracas hills, fighting against the police and military forces, 1989.
In 2002 another emergent movement caused the return of Chavez to the power, people in the street again claimed for the 3 day illegal government presided by Pedro Carmona for Chavez to return to the presidency of Venezuela, denouncing to the world a coup against the “Bolivarian Revolution”. I am not defending Chavez or his populist policies and the war of power that is taking place now a days in Venezuela, I use these examples show how powers such local or international governments were defeated by the movement of people, and joined energies in its intentions to change the course of the reality of a country to resist follow external interests.
Of course there were tragic consequences in both cases. However, these movements would not be possible without the intervention of an external menace or threat. Today Venezuela is drunk of “petrodollars” without taking in consideration the creation of a common base of values, services and quality of live. It seems a very naive discussion, considering this as a local example of phenomena reproduced all over the world. Maybe the reality that we are all creating is leading us to a point in which we won’t have any other option than to become a mobilized unit react.
As Venezuela is drunk of “petrodollars”, the first world is drunk of iPhones. Already taken the past as reference, and maybe not pointing on the future “hangover”, then there are some questions for our present:
- Are we able to have an evolutionary learning process that could let us know that our model to create our reality is repeating old models of development?
- Are we asking ourselves the right questions as the leading generation to produce changes and new realities?
(1) From Movistar, accessed 21/07/08
(2) From Internet World Statistics http://www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm, accessed 21/07/08
(3) From Foster and Partners, accessed 21/07/08
(4) Oil reservoirs are estimated to be finished in this year and the consumption is increasing every year, though the predictions regarding peak oil are varied accessed 21/07/08
(5) Accessed 21/07/08
