Technology & Society

All humans are engineers. Humans engineered the civilization from nature. By engineering we assert our freewill. We intend to engineer a better world in this random universe. The subject of this paper is the method with which we engineer.

Engineering implies a method. A method to design, to improve, or understand a product. We are aware of the scientific method: hypothesis, experiment, and theory; however, the method implied in engineering is not formalized. Thus, I emphasize the Engineering Method.

The journal entries examine the following undamental paradox of modern society: "Technology has made enormous powers available to society, yet we as individuals exert very little of that power". The journal will address the paradox in the context of engineering. Engineering produces technology, by understanding the intent of engineering decisions, the choice of problems by engineers, and to the degree to which engineers exercise "power" of technology the paradox can be examined in a finite manner.

The objective of this report is to discuss major interior home technological trends in the next ten years. Networking, monitoring, automating, and digitalizing are the four major trends. I relied on "George Washington University Forecast", British Telecommunication exact timeline, the popular media "buzz", and my background as an engineer to identify the trends. Networking allows devices to use the information on the Internet to better perform their tasks.

In the developed world, scientific technologies improve health care, education, management, transportation, communication, recreation, and security. Also, the problems of obesity, the threat to privacy, mad consumerism, and environmental degradations are linked to scientific technologies. Although pockets of Asia and Africa experience parallel use of scientific technologies, more than half of the communities do not have access to the systems created by scientific technologies. Bringing carefully selected technologies to developing communities can have a positive impact. But, in the past, many transfers of technology to developing communities have failed to achieve their intended results, have caused more harm in the long term, contributed to social and environmental damage, and overall had a negative impact. Thus, the essential question this essay seeks to answer is what criteria should be used in selecting, and transferring scientific technologies to developing communities.