Wondering the turn of events these days relates my reading from the past following the evolution of humans or Sapiens’ civilization. The COVID 19 pandemic changes our way of life radically that to some humans understanding the turn of events is somewhat chaotic. If we consider the turn of events from the past and the use of fire to steam engine humans was able to adjust the radical changes during that given era. Reviewing the literature of Shoshana Zuboff Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Havard Law School relates her philosophical concepts from the literature writings of Yuval Noah Harari “Sapiens” and the book of Thomas Crump in titled “The Age of Steam, The Power That Drove The Industrial Revolution” connects as to how the people of the world or the civilization as a whole will adopt the new ways of the new world.
REVOLUTIONS OF THE WORLD
To understand fully the world history of revolution, the book of Yuval clearly stated the pattern of revolutions since from the start of humanity. As a start, Men are but simple foragers living with animals and the flora of the world that the balance of the overall food chain of the world are naturally distributed. But with the power of the human mind even Zeus doesn’t want to give men the POWER OF FIRE because it will create trouble to the world. But as the myth goes mankind became a complicated society. Mankind is a group of animals who even kill themselves for the sake of power and greed. Thus, we can observe from our world history that war is everywhere. The sad part is that men is always at war with its fellow men. But on the contrary, today the war with the COVID 19 virus is a different platform that mankind and the governments of the world cannot use their bullets to suppress the pandemic. As such, men are only good in fighting with fellow humans but with other creatures we are a specie that can be easily defeated during war due to our human nature. This human nature as we define formed the history of our civilization in a larger scale. The book Sapien of Yuval stated clearly the emphatic sequence of the many revolutions of our human history.
First is the COGNITIVE REVOLUTION 70,000 years ago that in this era men start to recognize its role towards other specie and the whole ecosystem of the world. As humans are good in thinking and cognition men starts to create stories that fuels the imagination of mankind. Relatively, humans created religion and governments based from the myths and stories of the ancient Greeks and ancient Egyptians. Sounds funny though, but these myths and stories being molded and formalized by religions and governments into practice made our civilization more ethical in the new worlds before. As you can imagine, men EAT men before but because of the myth and stories of religion “THOU SHALT NOT KILL” humans start to respect his fellow humans by not eating his fellow specie. Later, as population grow, human civilization needs food and shelter in a massive level of requirement.
Second, the era of AGRICULTURE REVOLUTION fed the human civilization from grains to livestock animals that the cycle of business and economics integrated in Agri-Business allows a fast supply of food to humanity that the start of ecological imbalance happening to shape from obesity to over population. Though Agriculture and the technology applied to the modern Agri-business sufficiently help hunger and famine, but the negative flip side of over production of food through agriculture triggers over population. As such, from the brilliant mind of humans creating new concepts from philosophical theories given from the traditional myths and stories of the past and by using “oil and stone” to print in visual manner the imaginative vista from the cognitive nature of men. Furthermore, during the Agri Revolution the use of FIRE is very popular that the science of cooking help mankind not only dependent to the plants that are ready to eat but also to the livestock farm animals that we are cooking until today. Moreover, as population grow the requirement of food production for example requires higher technology and supply chain connecting parts of the world and suppling in a global pattern.
Thus, the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION hastens the production of
food and other high technology gadgets and the fire power was converted to
STEAM POWER. When fire and coal created
certain energy to fuel steam engines and mobilize land and sea through the new
train and shipping technology. In this
age fast logistics around the world are connected with a parallel electrifying
connection of the under-water cable of the telegraph. This telegraph technology also paves the way
of our modern internet today. Industrial
Revolution era complicates the system of governance throughout the world that
by then knowing that scientific facts starts to be a pattern of ruling in the
justice sometimes around the world.
Thus, even police this days when they investigate a crime they use the
scientific data using biotechnology to conclude a given police crime. Comparing long time ago, if in one village
will shout that you are a WITCH! Then you will be stoned to death or hanged in
the central market. Thus, the evolution
of knowledge of human prosper that allows humanity at large to dominate the
world compared to animals and plants.
But as Yuval stated we are also animals with a different kind of degree of
intelligence knowing that we can allow our brilliant minds to infer things and
create good imagination that will create stories formalized by religions and
governments.
Because of the enormous data and information being collected
by humanity since the start of the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION using analog machines
to gain data it evolves into a more complex and fast kind of information and
business transport when the era SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION became the system of
humanity and governments around the world.
The high technology of GPS system was introduced in the field of
business and commerce. And the internet
system was also introduced in Wall Street for business knowing that internet
was first used by military for intelligence. Since the “electric” communication
from telegraph to internet needs financial support for engineering and
technical maintenance the modern internet today was popular when Ebay, Alibaba,
Amazon and other e-commerce platform who followed in using the internet were
profitable in the new age of lifestyle and fast business cycle. Government,
Business, and Education utilized the fast and time saving nature of the internet
today in the age of SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION.
Just imagine how many airline flights we can avail everyday across the globe, and that is one of the ultimate dreams of capitalism. Accordingly, as China used capitalism in their trade and commerce and communism in their justice system it is a hybrid governance system called by Shoshana Zuboff as “AUTHOCRATIC CAPITALISM” that this concept of philosophy troubles the philosophical thinkers of the industrial revolution era were philosophical practitioners are so orthodox in following the concepts of Marx or Smith. Today the irrelevance of those philosophical concepts of governance were being studied by governments around the world and modified the system into a hybrid one using AUTHOCRATIC CAPITALISM” in China. On the contrary in United States they need to control their civilization and preserve their trade governance of a free country. Thus, the book of SHOSHANA ZUBOFF “THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM” will reveal the AUTHOCRATIC CAPITALISM being used both United States and China to control their respective population. The book of Shoshana as I read is only criticizing the Surveillance Capitalism of America via the internet surveillance system of Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. But the book did not mention the Surveillance capitalism of RUSSIA & CHINA that these two countries used a lot of surveillance system communication in Syria and Crimea. Not to mention England, Germany, and France. Today, internet is a NEW WORLD of DATA MINING. As you read the book of Shosana she included the words in her thesis “THE FIGHT FOR A HUMAN FUTURE AT THE NEW FRONTIER OF POWER”.
DATA REVOLUTION: (THE POSSIBLE NEW WORLD ORDER) “THE NEW WORLD OF THE MIND”
The future revolution after the scientific revolution is the DATA REVOLUTION. The future of civilization lies in the world of the internet web. Even at this time due to the COVID 19 Pandemic all our day to day household transactions are being saved through the high technology communication of the different applications provided by the google app market. We enjoy the delivery of Food Panda and Grab company to satisfy our daily food needs and other platforms for our other daily needs in the house during lockdown. But all these data are being used for DATA ANALYSIS in the major companies like Facebook and Google, now as Shoshana discuss the many aspect of the legalities of the Surveillance Capitalism being practiced now in the US, other famous authors named her as the new “KARL MARX” of DATA REVOLUTION AGE. But my question is why she only discussed in her text the companies in the US not other countries that I mentioned above. As a personal understanding the Internet is the new world that everyone is free to explore just like the geographical areas in Mars. If you visit google Map you can already determine where is the area explored by US and Russia. Still humans believe in the stories during COGNITIVE REVOLUTION were stories drive our minds for being so religious and nationalistic.
On a negative point of view base from the history of the world EXTREME RELIGIOUSITY will result to RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM and EXTREME NATIONALISM will result to FACISM just like Benito and Adolf. Therefore, this DATA REVOLUTION era will lead the way to neutrality and understanding with common understanding. The human moral lessons that we can get from this sad pandemic COVID 19 that humans are humans just like the virus, virus knows no country, virus knows no religion, but virus knows only to infect humans. The negative fruit given during the COGNITIVE REVOLUTION create MANY STORIES AND MYTHS that DIVIDED HUMANITY. In this new world of DATA REVOLUTION, a huge chance for humanity to unite and use this leap of DATA REVOLUTION to advance our human existence against our adversaries like the virus.
But the book of Shoshana further discusses the misuse and the negative side of surveillance technology in the US when the three big companies of google, Microsoft, and Apple try to interpret the data of the online activities of the people to robust knowledge management used for commercial and security. Shoshana used the term DATA SURPLUS of online users that these famous companies can utilize for further interpretation. Thus, if AI technology of google for example can use the behavior of the people in a much shorter time then Google Analytics and AI as a whole will be much smarter than any government or educational knowledge data. In the age of surveillance capitalism, the expansion of opportunities is within the hands of these tech companies. Moreover, government, and other public and private organization can utilize the new world of data usage for new output of learning or to a more faster and accurate MACHINE LEARNING that will upgrade to an advance machine can equal to the knowledge of humans or even surpass the intelligence of an average human intelligence. In the next revolution the prediction that MACHINE INTELLIGENCE from MACHINE LEARNING will eventually dominate the DATA SPACE inside the internet. As of this time all these companies not only in the US but including China, Russia, and all the leading countries in Europe will explore the NEW WORLD of DATA REVOLUTION and achieve the ultimate competition in the future of technology which is the Artificial Intelligence. Relatively, many dystopian novels focusing their main ideas in AI will all result to a competition between humans and AI machines. As of the book of Shoshana we are still in the stage were big companies such as google are still gathering data from each world citizen ready for the replication for AI technology in the DATA REVOLUTION to come. As such, the conflicting justice system around the world like China and America will come to a unanimous pattern of hybriding the communism form of government and democratic American systems creating a One World Order through the high technology usage of AI. I just wonder if in the future during the time of DATA REVOLUTION are we still 100% humans?
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