Transcript Document

THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY –
WHY AND HOW: ROLE OF
SCIENCE AND CULTURE
Ivo Šlaus
World Academy of Art and Science, member Board of Trustees,
SEED – South East European Division of WAAS, president
World Council Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs
and The Club of Rome
The contemporary world:
◙
◙
◙
◙
globalization – science generated
rapid changes – science generated
characterized by uncertainties and instabilities
number of Earths required to provide resources used by
humanity and to absorb their emissions for each year:
1970
1980
2005
0.86
1.00
1.25
World is dangerously in a state of overshoot.
◙ Increasing dissatisfaction of the public with governance
♣ Cross-border trade: 1950 = 8% GDP,
2000 = 25%
I. Kant
♣ 24 “globalizers” (3 billions) increased GDP/c by 5%
vs “nonglobalizers” decreased by 1%
♣ 400 household goods in UK 20% cheaper
than 10 years ago
♣ By 2010 50% internet users in developing world
vs 4% now
♣Worker/producer ← person
↓
consumer/stakeholder
♣ in 20 years 30 new infectious diseases,
resistance to antibiotics, flu pandemic
♣ Terrorism (tanker in harbor: 55xHiroshima),
crime (cyber)
♣ Trust changes quickly:
1975: 20% Americans trusted military vs
2000: 63%
♣ Demographic transition ↔ within rather
short interval of time and extremely
uneven
Failures
◙ Income gap:
1960
1990
1997
30:1
60:1
74(82):1
◙ Undernourishment in industrial 2.5%,
in Africa 40%
◙ In 1998 > 45% of people had to live on < $ 2/day
1981 to 2001: living on $1/day fell by factor of 2
while living on $2/day increased from 2.4 to 2.7
billions
◙ 54 countries experienced in 1990-2001 decline in
GDP/c
◙ NW:1945 →1985 →2005
USA
USSR/Russia
world
1985
23,000
40,000
70,000
2005
10,500
9,000
30,000
America’s top 100 foreign policy experts opinion
◙ The single greatest threat to US national interest
WMD
47%
Al Qaida terrorism 32%
Bush adm. policies 14%
Iraq war
9%
Economic decline
5%
Iran
4%
Oil dependence
3%
◙ Are we winning war on terror? YES 13%, NO 84%
Country Governed by the Will of the People?
Non-EU Europe
Yes
No
North America
European Union
Africa
E & C Europe
Asia/Pacific
Latin America
Mid East
Total Sample
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Gallup Voice of the People May-June 2005:
50,000 citizens, 65 countries equivalent 1.3 billion persons
(1)Election free/fair
◊ world
47%
(2)Country
governed by the
will of the people
30%
Political stability index = (1)(2) + (1)(-2) – (-1)(-2)
World
Latin America
PSI 2003 PSI 2004
14
12
-20
-21
PSI 2005
5
-2
Business leaders
•
•
•
•
Not competent
Unethical
Too much power
Dishonest
23%
38%
46%
40%
Political leaders
45%
49%
53%
61%
Percentage of people declaring themselves or
family “have not enough to eat”
W.Europe
4%
Asia Pacific
13%
N. America
17%
Latin America
22%
E&C Europe
25%
Africa
43%
World
18%
Highest percentages: Nigeria (56%), Philippines (46%),
Peru (42%), Ukraine (38%), Pakistan (32%), Russia (31%)
Most important problems facing the world today
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Poverty
Terrorism
Unemployment
Wars and conlicts
Economic problems
Environment
Drugs
Crime
26%
12%
9%
8%
7%
6%
5%
4%
CONSEQUENCES
DESTRUCTION
OF CIVILIZATION
MAD
ltu
u
c
re
local
war
inadequate
governance
NATURAL
lut
ion
_
xe
no
bio
atege
m
clichan
GLOBALIZATION
-
pol
WMD
pove
rty
he
a lt
h
rorism
r
e
t
h
wit
PROBABILITY
100 %
Throughout our history resources
have been finite. Possession of these
resources meant political power.
♣ Knowledge doubles in 5 – 15 years
Decision-making: quite local and global
Educated vs Uneducated
demonstrate
31%
6%
stopped buying goods 70%
34%
“The best place to store food is in another person
belly.”
(Eskimos’saying)
Social groups and interactions ↔ important in evolution.
In 1973 John M. Smith applied game theory to the
evolution of animal strategies. Animals not only
compete but share a resource if that is beneficiary.
Simple species display cooperation (prisoner’s
dilemma).
Repeated prisoner’s dilemma winning strategy: tit-for-tat:
cooperate and never be the first to defect, retaliate only after
your partner has defected, forgive and cooperate after
retaliating just once. (R.Axelrod)
♥ Golden moral rule
♥ Altruism is an example of a non-zero-sum-game,
i.e. a win-win game. The state when nobody can
gain without somebody else losing – i.e. all win-win
games are exhausted - is called the Pareto
maximum.
♥ Innovations and more importantly, scientific
breakthroughs can increase the Pareto maximum.
Why?
1) Holocene: 10-12 millennia ended in1784 (J. Watt), 1873:
Antonio Stoppani, V.I. Vernadsky & Teillard de Chardin
noosphere – world of thought. Energy use grown 16 times
during 20 c. “Anthropocene epoch” Paul Crutzen:
Martin Rees: “Bio and cyber expertise will be accessible
to millions. It does not require special facilities...Even a
simple person will have the capability of disrupting the
world through terror or error.”
2) Knowledge is the resource.
3) Breakthrough curiosity-driven research is the
way to increase Pareto’s maximum.
♥ Development of human and social capital,
and increasing the Pareto optimum requires
knowledge-based society.
Knowledge is the main resource in a knowledge-society.
It permeates the life and the culture of a society: policyand decision-making.
Knowledge society is constantly changing.
Knowledge is inexhaustible and it is increased by
sharing.
“Knowledge is becoming today the main political
power.”
(Alvin Toffler)
In the knowledge society many other resources are used →
use of most of them has to be appreciably reduced and
substituted by other resources.
♥ In our own selfish interest we have to get
involved in the betterment of global
conditions. We need to emphasize
cooperation, networking and solidarity,
increasing human options and freedom.
♥ In a knowledge society individuals and social
groups will still behave and act irrationally,
make numerous mistakes, even be stupid. It is
the responsibility of the knowledge society to
develop and establish ways that can minimize
the harm of such “stupidities” and maximize
their possible benefits.
How?
Learn from successes:
☺
world ave developing world
1960: 2250
2100 Kcal/day capita
1997: 2750
2600 Kcal/day capita
☺ Higher life expectancy and healthy active life
☺ end of Cold War and spread of democracies
☺ successful treaties, e.g. ozone
Our greatest success: Knowledge
☺ existing science, humanities and
technology;
☺ knowledge one produces: ongoing and
planned R&D,innovations and ideas -Iljf&Petrov
☺ education and
☺ language, literature, art
“We understand by our heart as much as by our
brain.” (B. Pascal)
(curiosity driven research)
K-intensive
innovative G
breakthru (new literacy)
25
20
frontier research
10
15
15
(incremental research)
5
15
(instrument/
structure building)
‼ Eliminate violence, war, terrorism → Human and
social dignity, development, full employment
Culture of peace and knowledge:
democracy and freedom
‼ Eliminate ignorance → Research
and
↓
in spite of cumulative advantage feature of
science → breakthru → catch up
↓
not an elite in a sea
of mediocrity
education
◙ We have to live with dangerous technologies ‼
◙ We have to live with uncertainties: in quantum
physics from uncertainties to quantum computer and
life ‼
◙ Reduce non-renewable resources and substitute
by other resources.
◙ Reduce and eliminate dangers and threats we face.
◙ Knowledge can cause quantitative and qualitative
jump in the GDP/capita
◊ psycho-social pressures and stress + perception that our
dignity and that of our social group is threatened + short term
interests ← globalization → interdependence/ no major war
◊ energy demand: in 2030 → 2.6 times larger
◊ small influence → large effects (CO2) → Search for
alternative inputs much earlier than we reach a maximum.
◊ whatever we do not do today will be more
difficult to do tomorrow.
☺S&T give the power to change the future.
♣ IGO handful 1900 to 4667 in 1996
♣ NGO 196 in 1900 to 44,000 in 2000
♣ Global civil society
♣ Knowledge-Governance Intertwining
♥ Assure sustainable consumption. Minimize the
dangers of modern technologies. Revitalize hidden
and traditional knowledge.
How close are we in achieving knowledge society?
ROADMAP
☺Each nuclear state reduces its nuclear weapons
(number and power) in half every two years.
☺Each state reduces its total military power in half
every five years.
☺Appreciate: Education is needed not only for jobs
and skills, but much more to be able to live.
☺Assure: Low-cost technologies, e.g. ICT: $100
laptops.
☺ education at all levels for everybody and
lifelong
Europe USA
◙ % working population 21 % 38%
with tertiary education
◙ Gross enrolment
52% 81%
Japan South Korea
36%
82%
Within 500 leading universities – Europe – cradle of
education – has very few.
☺ European Institute of Technology as a network
♣ Economy will swell by 40% from 2005 to 2015
♣ Chinese middle class: from 65 millions in 2005
to 650 in 2020
☺Appreciate:
♣ Work ≠ Employment.
♣ Changes in jobs and skills,
♣ Human resources development.
♣ Capacity to manage change.
♣ Taking risks and controlling risks.
☺Each state reduces unemployment by 2% each 2
years by increasing employment in education and
research
Since less person-hours are needed to achieve the
same output in agriculture and manufacturing and
since part of services are redundant, the demand for
new jobs will be in education
(About a factor 4-6, since instead of 12-16 year education, a
lifelong, i.e. about 60 year long education, and for a much
larger number od persons.)
and in R&D.
Knowledge-intensive sectors in EU = 33% (UK = 41%)
◙
GER&D/GDP
Europe
USA
Japan
1.99%
2.76%
3.12%
◙
top 1% cited articles 37.3%
◙ scientific publications
46.1%
◙ world researchers
33.4%
(5521 in thousands) 1843
◙ researchers/million inhabi 2319
62.8%
39.4%
22.8%
1261
4373
10.8%
11.7%
647
5085
☺ Each state increases its GER&D to reach
3% of its GDP, but assuring that all R&D
outputs indicators
(top 5% cited papers, number of NP and FM laureates
and of fellows of international/regional academies,
number of leading universities and research institutes)
increase, intertwining knowledge with
economy and governance.
(assessed by involvement of active top scientists in
policy- and decision-making bodies above a threshold
of 10%).
Ownership of knowledge – Knowledge as a
common good.
Predictions & Scenaria
Scenaria are rigorous, logical, but imaginative stories
about what future might be, designed to help plan.
Scenaria are NOT predictions. Multiple scenaria.
They are tools for preparation – early 70-ies by Shell. Now
IBM, Coca-Cola, Apple, AT&T, DARPA, Heineken,
Kellogg, Republic of Singapore,...
Scenaria identify “predetermineds”, “critical uncrtainties”,
“wild cards”, “embedded assumptions” and it is useful if
scenaria have “early warnings”.
Exponential growth - Singularities - Catastrophic
phenomena - S curves
1) The Heaven Scenario
Ray Kurzweil “Singularity is near”: conquering disease &
poverty, technology is in control, but increase in
wisdom, love, truth and peace.
2) The Hell Scenario
Bill Joy “Why the future does not need us”, F. Fukuyama
“Our posthuman future”: hostile world, destroying large
segments of biosphere, reversals.
3) The Prevail Scenario
Jaron Zepel Lanier (named “virtual reality”) “The Future that
Loves Us”: increasing links among humans,
transcendence is social, not solitary. Human are
choosing their future.
Caveat: Knowledge is contextualized only within a
specific cultural system.
All cultures need constant changes?!!
TIME
♣ Chronos and Kairos
♣ There was no time when we did not exists (Bhagavad Gita)
♣ Man is afraid of time, but time is afraid of pyramides(Arab)
♣ Future is an ethical category – we choose it.
(Soedjatmoko)
Theory of relativity – Albert Einstein
While most resources existed separately of people,
knowledge resides in people.