Subject Code: GEC 7

Subject Title: Science, Technology and Society

Term : Midterms
Semester : Second School Year: 2019-2020

Name: Jerome Patrick Benjar E. Gallibu

Year & Section: II- Benner Date: May 19, 2020

ESSAY: Answer the following questions below. Send your answers via messenger through personal message
or on my email: fayeame08@gmail.com. ( 20 points each )

A. Discuss briefly the connection of danger to saving power in terms of our situation today.

> Heidegger implores us to question the essence of technology, in order to understand the way technology
operates and function in society. The definition often given to technology as a means to an end or a human
activity, presents technology as an enframing tool, a representation of something.” This idea ties closely with
Marshal McLuhan famous quote “the medium is the message”. In that the way technology is enframed
determines our understanding or even our use of it. That is dangerous because it changes the essence of what
technology is to be. Technology according to Heidegger is a way of revealing. So in essence, technology
enframes the truth that is intended to reveal. To which he ask, what is technology enframing and how we can
we use this to understand technology and more importantly to understand the danger of technology. He says
the danger of technology lies within its enframing. The enframing of a human existence that prevent man
from truly coming to his essence. But with the danger of technology also lies the saving grace of technology.
In this he quotes Holderlin “But where danger is, grows the saving power also”. Suggesting that in the
enframing of technology lies the ability to save by the revealing of a truth. Heidegger suggest we view and
understand this enframing as a mode to a revelation of truth. Looking at technology from a view in
accordance with something essentially the same but fundamentally different from it, Art. For art he says, is
an enframing of a truth, the enframing of something beautiful, a revelation of the power to save. “Essential
reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one
hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it.

B. Explain article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in terms of technology usage.

> Article 4 states that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be
prohibited in all their forms. Article 4 protects your right not to be held in slavery or servitude, or made to do
forced labour. Slavery is when someone actually owns you like a piece of property. Forced labour means you
are forced to do work that you have not agreed to, under the threat of punishment.

The development of technology has had an important influence on the crime of trafficking in persons,
presenting both challenges and opportunities.

In Guinea-Bissau, children as young as five are trafficked out of the country to work in cotton fields in
southern Senegal or as beggars in the capital city. In Ghana, children five to fourteen are tricked with false
promises of education and future into dangerous, unpaid jobs in the fishing industry.In Asia, Japan is the
major destination country for trafficked women, especially women coming from the Philippines and
Thailand. UNICEF estimates 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines.

Misuse of technology by human traffickers:

• Hiding identities and increasing anonymity online. Perpetrators and their associates communicate through
encrypted applications or use the Dark Web to connect. Recruitment of victims takes place through fake
social media accounts and fake profiles on applications.
• Facilitating recruitment and exploitation of victims by traffickers. Online interaction facilitates targeting of
potential victims, access to personal data, arrangement of logistics and transportation, and recruitment
through social media.
• Facilitating transactions, accessing new venues, and expanding the marketplace. The misuse of technology
can also make it easier for traffickers to engage in transactions with users, enter new marketplaces and
expand criminal operations.
• Expanding the means by which victims may be controlled and exploited. The misuse of some technologies
can also help traffickers control and coerce victims. For example, traffickers may use GPS software in
phones to track the movements of victims or, in the case of domestic servitude and other forms of labour
exploitation, monitor and control victims through video surveillance.

While technology is frequently misused to facilitate trafficking in persons, its positive use can also help
practitioners combat trafficking, such as by aiding investigations, enhancing prosecutions, raising awareness,
providing services to victims, and shedding new light on the make-up and operation of trafficking networks.
Taking this into account, future success in eradicating human trafficking, in its many forms, will depend on
how countries and societies are prepared for, and equipped to, harness technology in their responses.

C. Differentiate calculative and meditative thinking with an example.

> Calculative thinking is the more technical kind of human thought, in which people gather information and
put it together in order to put it to some specific use. For example, in research you need to gather lots of
information from different sources for you to make use of the outcome of your research. Meditative thinking
tells us why we should do or should not do a thing, beyond the simple calculative process of actually doing
it. This is when why you should do a research, for what purpose, what would be its relevance, should I really
conduct research? is it not a waste of time?

D. How does Martin Heideger describes Technology as a means to an end.? Support your answer with a
specific example.
> Heidegger ask the question concerning technology in order to find away to understand the true essence of
technology. He explains the meaning of essence as described by William Lovitt as a derivative of the
“German noun Wesen”, which means for Heidegger “to last or to endure” but for the purposes of the essay is
intended meaning is; Coming to presence. Heidegger believe that the essence of what a thing is cannot exist
as that thing itself, “That which pervades every tree, as a tree, is not itself a tree that can be encountered
among all other tree”. Drawing on this point he explains that if we look at technology for what it presents
itself to be; technology, a means to an end, whether we deny it or celebrate its essence we are doomed in not
being able to see it as a non- neutral entity operating among us.

He draws on the the ideas of technology as a means to and end or a human activity and suggest
we combine those because the use of technology as a means to and end serves a human purpose
and thus is a human activity.

“Instrumentum”: technology is an instrument created to serve a purpose Everything Heidegger

Says, depends on our ability to use technology to our likings, the idea that we can master
technology and remain in control as oppose to technology mastering us.

E. In relation to the pandemic that we are experiencing right now, how is Science, technology and society
help in the solution to the problem?
> Everything that roams around us is related to Science, Technology, and Society. When it comes to science,
it’s the reason why why we know that there is a virus because we have medical practitioners that diagnose
the disease and those medical practitioners studied science before they become such. Technology is where
people get informed of what’s happening around us like broadcast media, they broadcast the news about the
virus and people are informed so that they perform precautionary measures to avoid getting the virus. And
society is where the solution must come from. We must work as one in these trying times, we must help each
other for all of us to survive and to reduce the cases of morbidity and mortality. We must discipline ourselves
and disregard all our urges to go outside because staying at home keeps us free from harm and free from
getting the virus.