Ewayan, Dave Anthony Cejano Science, Technology, and Society

Francisco, Edjil Payod TTh 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM

BS Medical Biology II September 10, 2019 (Tuesday)

Technocratic Paradigm: Effects, Analysis, Responsibilities

Technocratic Paradigm is the set of perceptions and organization of the society

towards the reality driven by technological advancement, innovation, and researches.
Related by innovation theory, Moore's law and the law of acceleration, the paradigm
saturated almost all areas of knowledge in today’s modern society. Despite the presence
of innovation from the past, this paradigm shows an abrupt rate of change in formulating
new technology, where consequences impact the state of society. The emergent effects
were the overthrow of existing technology caused by recent innovations. The use of
horses as an example was replaced by mechanical and electrical modes of
transportation. Another difference, concerning Moore’s law, was that recent information
technologies were innovated to increase its capabilities. Mobile phones had several
editions every year which had the inclusions of new updates, applications, and
specifications. Looking towards the future, the law of acceleration by Ray Kurzweil
explains the rate of technological advancement increases exponentially due to the
investment in innovation and research. Such an increase impacts the rate of change in
technology for the future. Overall, the technocratic paradigm does have different effects
on the past, present, and future of society.

In succeeding chapters, analysis of the pros and cons of the technocratic paradigm
shift will be the main concern. Regarding the emergent effects, discontinuity of outdated
technology is significant because it paves the way for newer ones to surface. It
encourages the search for updates on knowledge and technology. The innovation behind
electrical cooking stoves provides safety in homes against fire accidents. However, the
lack of critical filtering of innovations in regards to its adverse impacts became a
disadvantage of this revolution. It is due to another set of problems comes with the new
technology. Concerning electrical stoves, it needs a lot of electricity, which is another
problem concerning power supply and environmental output. The accepted ideas of
technology are limited to the available resources of the economy. It implies that there will
be a consumption of resources, thus making technology-dependent on it. The neutral
view is given to this point of technocratic paradigm shift.

As for the incremental changes of existing technology, there were still pieces of
evidence of advantages and disadvantages based on this analysis. In the course of
advancement, incremental changes give solutions towards challenges posed by the
technology itself. The role of science in providing ideas for applications alleviates the
concern of emerging problems of existing technologies. Updates on computer software
are evidence of the continual advancement of technology and science. Improvements
can ease up the limitations of the applications in current software. However, the concern
of continual updates creates a vacuum of knowledge and competition for other
technologies to arise. For example, if a company leads the space technology, other
neophyte space programs were delineated and limited to invent because resources were
focused on the existing leading innovation, which in turn could be improved in some other
way. This limits the scope of the possibility to create more efficient products or services.
This gives a negative implication for this issue. Furthermore, this concern increases the
rate of change towards technology, relating to the final premise of analysis of these
paradigm impacts.

The future of these changes lies in the present behavior of society towards technology.
The law of acceleration describes the rate of change in technological advancement
throughout time. The rate of advancement doubles for the succeeding decades, while the
rate of paradigm shifts decreases by half. This implies for the following years,
technological advancement is becoming prevalent wherein the paradigm shifts extend to
lesser time for it to happen. In light of gaining advantages, technology will change more
often than the social experience in this current time. Entailing with the preceding notion,
the overall society had no idea that this is already happening for the past decades, which
poses another risk, will the society know and be ready for the impact of that change, or
will it succumb to destruction? In this current general analysis, the cons outweigh the pros
of the technocratic paradigm shift. However, this claim is not final, for it can be falsifiable.
Moreover, to shift the claim, the responsibility of the society towards technology will be
discussed in the succeeding chapter.

Society, the innovator, and benefactor of technology play a critical role in the
management of its applications in knowledge. The rights and benefits of researches and
access to technological resources are incorporated with its correlating responsibilities.
The following are the proposals to be considered as the right options to manage
challenges on the future of technology. In the context of changes of paradigm, ethical and
policy regulation filters should be screening emerging technology with utmost scrutiny. It
should consider the intention, means, end products, and systems involved and affected
by the technology. Another would be the exercise of responsibility of the users of
technology. People should not be slaves to their products. Lastly, awareness,
progression, and education to knowledge management, technological literacy, and social
responsibility should be given access to the society for its good. Society must use its
ideas and work for hand in hand to cope with the challenges posed by its innovations.
The role of society towards this shift is crucial, whether it would lead technology to its
despair or harmony.

As time progressed, this paradigm shift will continue to occur leading to more
advanced generation. These developments brought by this shift are relevant for it
improves our lives and the present, things are currently better quicker, simpler, and
increasingly advantageous. This improvement helps us keep pace with the changes as
time goes by. It also promotes greater discoveries that will boost various aspects needed
for areas which is reliant on discoveries for successful development. Productivity also
increased in almost every industry in the world. Times have revolutionized and the world
has become faster. With the passage of time, the population also increased resulting to
double the needs of people. With technology enhancement, we all have now access to
information on how we can improve agriculture, boost food production, increase food
supplies to meet the increasing demand. In the modern industrial world, machines carry
out most of the agricultural and industrial work and as a result, workers produce much
more goods than a century ago and work less. If these new ideas and innovations are put
to the correct use, it might prompt greater advancement that will profit the people in the
next generation.