Science, Technology, and Society: Human Flourishing

Technology as a Way of Revealing

• Lesson Objectives
  • Analyze the human condition to deeply reflect and express philosophical ramifications meaningful to students as part of society.
  • Explain what technology reveals.
  • Examine modern technology's role in human flourishing.
  • Explain art's role in a technological world.

The Essence of Technology

• Definitions of Technology:
  • Instrumental: Technology as a means to an end.
  • Anthropological: Human activity.
  • The essence of technology is not anything technological.

Human Flourishing

• Human flourishing refers to living a happy, fulfilling, and meaningful life.
• It's about more than just being successful or wealthy.
• Includes feeling good mentally and emotionally, having good relationships, finding purpose, and being able to grow and thrive as a person.

Technology as a Mode of Revealing

• Aletheia: Unconcealment, truth, disclosure.
• Poiesis: Bringing Forth.
• Techne: Craft, arts, other acts of the mind, poetry.
• Heidegger stressed that the true (aletheia) can only be pursued through the correct. Simply what is correct leads to what is true.
• He envisioned technology (techne) as a way of revealing – a mode of bringing forth (poiesis).
• By bringing something out of concealment, the truth of that something is revealed.

Technology as Poiesis

• Technology is a form of poiesis - a way of revealing that conceals aletheia or the truth.
• Modern technology is characterized by 'challenging forth'.
• It involves control over nature.
• Bringing forth vs. Challenge forth are contrasting approaches.

Challenging Forth (Gestell)

• Forcing nature into a resource, treating it as a standing reserve.
• Examples:
  • Factory Farming
  • Fracking (Hydraulic Fracturing)
  • Genetic Modification in Agriculture
  • Deep-sea Mining
  • Artificial Intelligence in Surveillance
  • Strip Mining
  • Massive Hydropower Plants

Challenging Forth (Gestell) in the Philippine Context

1. Large-Scale Mining Operations:
   • Heidegger's Perspective: Mining operations in the Philippines treat the earth as a resource to be extracted and controlled, without regard for the natural landscape or ecosystems. This represents the challenging forth of nature, reducing the land to a standing reserve of minerals for human consumption and economic gain.
2. Industrial Fishing:
   • Heidegger's Perspective: Industrial fishing forces the ocean’s resources into a system of human control, reducing fish and marine life to commodities rather than living ecosystems. It reflects challenging forth by extracting resources in an exploitative manner.
3. Metro Manila Urbanization and Reclamation Projects:
   • Heidegger's Perspective: These projects treat the natural landscape as something to be shaped and controlled to fit urban needs, turning land and water into a standing reserve for human habitation and economic expansion. This is a clear case of challenging forth, where nature is dominated for human purposes.
4. Coal Power Plants:
   • Heidegger's Perspective: Coal power plants treat natural resources like coal as a standing reserve to be exploited for energy. The process of extraction, burning, and energy generation is an example of challenging forth, where nature is dominated and reduced to fuel for human consumption.

Bringing Forth (Poiesis)

• Harmonious with nature, allowing natural processes to reveal themselves.
• Examples:
  • Organic Farming
  • Sustainable Forestry
  • Handcrafted furniture
  • Small-scale solar water heating
  • Traditional crafts (pottery)

Bringing Forth (Poiesis) in the Philippine Context

1. Banaue Rice Terraces:
   • Heidegger's Perspective: The terraces represent a harmonious relationship between humans and nature, where the land is not aggressively altered, but rather revealed as fertile for rice farming. The Ifugao people bring forth the rice crops in cooperation with the landscape and its natural water sources.
2. Traditional Nipa Huts (Bahay Kubo):
   • Heidegger's Perspective: The Bahay Kubo reflects a building process that works with nature, adapting to local weather and using natural resources in a respectful, sustainable way. The house is allowed to emerge through a process of cooperation with the environment.
3. Small-Scale Organic Farming in Rural Areas:
   • Heidegger's Perspective: This farming approach brings forth food from the earth in a way that respects natural processes and minimizes the artificial control and manipulation seen in industrialized farming.

Bringing Forth (Poiesis) vs. Challenge Forth

• Comparison between an old windmill and modern wind turbines, highlighting different approaches to technology and nature.

Hybrid Examples

• Cases that blur the line between bringing forth and challenging forth.

1. Geothermal Energy:
   • Bringing Forth Aspect: Uses the earth’s natural heat to generate electricity or heat homes, working with a renewable and naturally occurring resource.
   • Challenging Forth Aspect: Large-scale geothermal plants drill deep into the earth to access reservoirs of heat, potentially altering natural geological formations. This treats the earth’s heat as a resource to be harnessed and controlled.
2. Smart Cities and Internet of Things (IoT):
   • Bringing Forth Aspect: Smart technologies in urban planning, like energy-efficient buildings or water management systems, can work in harmony with natural resources to reduce waste and optimize energy usage.
   • Challenging Forth Aspect: However, the increasing connectivity and monitoring of all urban systems—reducing people and services to data to be analyzed and controlled—leans toward challenging forth, treating both the environment and human behavior as something to be optimized and controlled.

Hybrid Examples in the Philippine Context

• Hydroelectric Power Plants:
  • Bringing Forth Aspect: Small-scale, run-of-the-river hydroelectric projects harness the power of rivers without significantly altering their flow or ecosystem, making use of natural water movement.
  • Challenging Forth Aspect: Large hydroelectric dams like the San Roque Dam impose significant changes on the natural landscape, displacing communities, altering water flow, and reducing rivers to standing reserves of energy.
• Solar Energy Projects:
  • Bringing Forth Aspect: Small-scale solar installations in rural areas or households work with the natural energy of the sun, using renewable energy in a non-invasive way that doesn't exploit the environment.
  • Challenging Forth Aspect: Large solar farms in some regions require clearing land or converting agricultural areas, potentially leading to ecological disruption, which could be seen as reducing nature to a resource to be harvested.

Enframing as Modern Technology’s Ways of Revealing

• Nature is framed and controlled.
• Enframing is a way of ordering (or framing) nature to better manipulate it.
  • Calculative thinking: Humans desire to put an order to nature to better understand and control it. More technical kind of human thought, in which people gather information and put it together in order to put it to some specific use.
  • Meditative Thinking: Humans allow nature to reveal itself to them without the use of force or violence.

Human Person Swallowed by Technology

• According to Heidegger, there is something wrong with the modern, technological culture we live in today.
• Losing essence and authentic human encounters.
• We need to open up the possibility of relying on technologies while not becoming enslaved to them and seeing them as manifestations of an understanding of being.

The Dangers of Technology

• Lie on how humans let themselves be consumed by it. The responsibility of humans is to recognize how they become instruments of technology.
• According to Paulo Coelho, it is boastful for humans to think that nature needs to be saved, whereas Mother Nature would remain even if humans cease to exist.

Art as a Way Out (Saving Power)

• Technology often makes us treat everything as just useful objects.
• Art and nature reveal deeper truths.
• Art, on the other hand, reminds us of the beauty and truth in the world, helping us reconnect with our surroundings in a more meaningful way.
• For Heidegger, this is why art is a "saving power": it can rescue us from the purely practical mindset of modern life and help us see the world in a richer, deeper way.

De-Developing Rich Countries

Lesson Objectives

• Critique human flourishing vis-à-vis the progress of science and technology so that students can define for themselves the meaning of the good life.
• Analyze the limitations of economic growth as a strategy for poverty reduction.
• Evaluate the environmental impact of overconsumption in wealthy nations.
• Compare sustainable living practices in different countries, such as Cuba and Costa Rica.
• Reflect on the concept of "de-developing" rich nations to achieve global sustainability.

The Problem with Growth

• Environmental overshoot: 50% more than Earth's capacity.
  • 1.8 global hectares: Ghana, Guatemala
  • 8 global hectares: US, Canada
  • 4.7 global hectares: Europeans

A New Vision for Progress

• Global north might be against “de-development”.
• $70\%$ of people in middle- and high-income countries believe overconsumption is putting our planet and society at risk
• We should strive to buy and own less, and that doing so would not compromise our happiness.
• Rejecting GDP as a sole measure of progress.

Revisiting Development

• Rich countries' overconsumption
• Advocating for 'catch down' instead of poor countries 'catching up’
• Life expectancy and GDP per capita
• US = 79 years; USD 53K
• Cuba and Costa Rica = 79 years; USD 6K

The SDGs and Growth

• Objective: Eradicate poverty by 2030
• Main strategy: Economic growth
• Problem: Growth hasn't reduced poverty, despite a $380\%$ global economy increase since 1980.

The Problem with Growth

• Trickle-down economics isn't working
• $1.1$ billion more people in poverty

The Future of Development

• Adopting measures like shorter working weeks and basic income.
• Emphasis on slowing down to avoid climate disaster.
• Focus on a higher level of consciousness and sustainable living.
• Buen vivir (good living) among Latin Americans.

De-development (Jason Hickel's View)

1. Reducing Overconsumption in Rich Countries:
   • Hickel argues that rich nations are overconsuming resources and should "catch down" to more sustainable levels of development, rather than pushing poor countries to "catch up."
2. Focus on Sustainability:
   • The goal is to reduce environmental impact by advocating for less consumption and lower GDP growth in developed countries. The idea is to live within planetary boundaries, prioritizing ecological balance over constant economic expansion.
3. Alternative Measures of Progress:
   • Instead of GDP, Hickel supports using well-being indicators such as life expectancy, happiness, and ecological sustainability. He suggests we learn from countries that manage to maintain high quality of life with low consumption, such as Cuba and Costa Rica.
4. Equitable Resource Distribution:
   • De-development also focuses on redistribution of resources from overdeveloped nations to underdeveloped ones to promote global equity.

Traditional Development Framework

1. Focus on Economic Growth:
   • The traditional view emphasizes GDP growth as the primary measure of progress, with the belief that increasing a country's economic output will reduce poverty and improve standards of living.
2. "Catch-Up" Development:
   • Poor countries are expected to industrialize and grow their economies to match the consumption levels of richer countries, under the assumption that wealthier nations serve as development models.
3. Trickle-Down Economics:
   • Growth is seen as the key to reducing poverty, with the belief that wealth generated by economic expansion will eventually "trickle down" to benefit everyone, including the poor.
4. Technological and Industrial Advancements:
   • Development is often equated with technological and industrial growth, encouraging countries to adopt large-scale infrastructure projects and modern industrial practices, often without considering ecological limits.

Key Differences

• Growth vs. De-development:
  • Traditional frameworks rely on continued economic growth, while de-development calls for scaling back consumption and production in rich countries.
• Sustainability:
  • De-development focuses on ecological sustainability, whereas traditional models often overlook environmental consequences in the pursuit of growth.
• Global Equity:
  • Hickel's framework emphasizes redistributing resources from wealthy to poorer nations, whereas traditional models aim for all countries to reach similar levels of consumption and wealth.

Application of De-development Theory in the Philippine Context

• Economic Growth vs. Environmental Sustainability
• Debt and Dependency
• Agriculture Practices
• Social Inequality
• Cultural and Indigenous Rights

Application of De-development Theory in One's Personal Life

1. Minimalism and simplifying possession
2. Sustainable living practices
3. Reducing screen time and social media use
4. Mindful consumption
5. Work-life balance
6. Community engagement
7. Alternative transportation
8. Prioritizing experiences over material goods

Heidegger, Hickel, and Human Flourishing in Today's Modern World

• Understanding Our Relationship with Technology
  • Martin Heidegger: Believed technology can distance us from experiencing life; encourages appreciation of beauty and meaning in surroundings.
  • Jason Hickel: Critiques traditional development that prioritizes growth; advocates for sustainable approaches respecting environment and local communities.
• Prioritizing Meaningful Experiences Over Materialism
  • Focuses on art, nature, and authentic experiences; encourages seeking meaning beyond material possessions.
  • De-development challenges the idea that more consumption equals happiness; promotes quality of life, sustainability, and community engagement.
• Promoting Sustainability and Community
  • Encourages living in harmony with nature and fostering respect for the environment through sustainable practices.
  • Emphasizes local economies and community-focused approaches that benefit everyone; strengthens relationships and sense of belonging.
• Embracing Simplicity and Balance
  • Advocates for slowing down and being present to reduce stress and enhance overall well-being.
  • Encourages embracing simpler, sustainable lifestyles for a greater focus on personal well-being and relationships.