Session 2

Session 2

This week’s lesson is interesting and informative.  The topics discussed in this session include various forms of dominance and human development. The four presentations were well prepared and speakers were engaging. They had brought many interesting facts as well as discussion questions that facilitated the discussions.

Some take away points from the session are the discussion of Reading 2 in the first half of the lesson and also the discussion of Reading 1 in the second half of the lesson.  

Reading 2 of 2a talked about innovation in the reset world. I find that the idea of box1 box2 and box3 are extremely important. Personally I like this article a lot because it well illustrated each of the box and gave clear explanations on why in this “reset” world companies should focus on box 2 and box 3. Selectively forget the past and creating the future are indeed the key points for a company to emerge in our modern society. In this passage, the author also mentioned that the best time for expansion is during a recession as goods are cheap. This point gave me a new insight about recession. In the past I used to draw a link between recession and bankruptcy. However now I realized that recession could also mean expansion and wealth. Thus being innovative can bring in wealth even in the midst of a recession.

Reading 1 of 2b gave me a clearer understanding of what human development index are and what does it measures.  Human development index mainly measures based on health, education and income. However, someone brought up a point saying that the index should include happiness inside. I find that this point is valid because happiness is an important measure of the welfare of a person.

During the lesson, Prof also showed us a video that illustrates the change of income and life expectancy of the world in the past few hundred years. A circle represents each country and the movement of the circles along the chart gave us a clear understanding of the rate of development of each country. However, one particular point draws my attention. In the video, the speaker took out china and even though china is far above the African countries in terms of income n life expectancy, some of the province is almost as poor as some of the African country. This vast gap of income is the root for many social and economic problems. Thus I think government in china and many other countries should work on the closing of the gap before trying to expand their economy.

There is a question I would like to ask for further discussion regarding the Millennium Project created by the UN. Prof posted a question that if the goals of Millennium Project seemed so unreachable then why the UN still want to carry it out. Someone answered that even though the goal may not be fully achieved, through the efforts, the life of people will still be improved. Moreover, with this project many countries are forced to put aside certain amount of money for the development of the poor ones. However, this millennium project is a promise given by all the members of UN. If the goals are not achieved, then on what ground can we put any confidence in UN?  I think if the goals of millennium project cannot be met by 2015, many people will start to question the authority and importance of UN as well as the so call SUPER POWERS. The image of UN will be tarnished. When conflicts happened again, will other countries still submit to UN? Thus, is it really good to set these goals?

Overall I give this session 9/10 because I think the discussion topics and videos as well as readings are very useful and informative. Many points can be applied in our future. I am looking forward to the next session.