Fernando Alcoforado*
This article represents the continuation of the article whose title is Como fazer com que as utopias planetárias se realizem visando a construção de um mundo melhor (How to make planetary utopias come true with a view to building a better world) [1]. This article is the ninth of the 12 articles that address the 12 planetary utopias that need to be realized in order to build a better world and contribute to the achievement of happiness for human beings, individually and collectively. This article aims to present how to make the utopia of using science and technology exclusively for the good of humanity come true, ending the dystopia represented by science and technology also used to produce evil for humanity.
It is important to note that science seeks to formulate models and laws that explain the functioning of phenomena and nature. Science seeks knowledge to explain natural phenomena by identifying their laws based on observation and experimental methods. Technology is based on knowledge generated by science through which society satisfies its needs. Science refers to acquired knowledge, technology refers to the skills, techniques and processes used to produce desired results. Science is aimed at explaining something, while technology is more inclined towards developing the use of something.
Humanity lives, more than ever, under the auspices and domains of science and technology. The use made of science and technology is so intense that a significant portion of people believes that they only bring benefits to society. For humans, technology makes life easier, cleaner and longer. Man cultivates a growing dependence on science and technology in the contemporary era. It is common behavior for a large part of society to consider science and technology as liberating humanity from the burdens of work and the threats posed by the forces of nature. Adding to all this, there is the widespread view that scientific-technological progress brings not only the advancement of knowledge, but also a real, inexorable and effective improvement in all aspects of human life.
In the 20th century, it was believed that the only reliable means for improving the human condition came from new machines, chemical substances and the most diverse techniques. Even the recurrent social and environmental ills that accompany technological advances have rarely affected this faith. Today, there is a clear perception that science and technology have provided progress for humanity, but that, along with this, they also have the capacity to destroy it. Science is not only seen as liberating, but, in certain situations, as dehumanizing and enslaving human life. The uncontrolled growth of science and technology has contributed to destroying the vital sources of our humanity by creating a culture without a moral foundation. Technology has shaped our lives because we are at the mercy of interconnected systems and, what is serious, because we are submissive to their authority, molding ourselves to their functioning. The omnipresence of technology in today’s world, combined with its greater complexity, gives rise to a very problematic situation.
The advancement of science and technology resulted from the advent of the Enlightenment and Modernity. The article O fracasso do Iluminismo e da Modernidade na construção da felicidade e do progresso humano (The failure of the Enlightenment and Modernity in the construction of happiness and human progress) [2] informs that there were two great events in the history of humanity that brought a lot of hope that the construction of a new world and a new man would begin. The first major event concerns the Enlightenment and, the second, the birth of Modernity. With the Enlightenment, it was expected that tolerance, humanism and respect for nature would prevail and the right to freedom and equality between men would be affirmed. With Modernity, it was expected that society would, in turn, achieve uninterrupted progress for the benefit of humanity thanks to the development of science and technology.
Modernity was born with the 1st Industrial Revolution in England, meaning an extraordinary intellectual effort by Enlightenment thinkers to develop science and reason and discover universal laws to be put at the service of humanity. With the Industrial Revolution, science and technology acquired fundamental importance for human progress, through continuous technological innovations. The idea was to use the accumulated knowledge generated in pursuit of human emancipation and the enrichment of daily life. It is worth noting that the 1st Industrial Revolution was the set of socioeconomic transformations that began around 1760, in England (and later in other countries), and characterized especially by the replacement of man by machine in production processes (mechanical loom and steam engine, initially), followed by the formation of large industrial conglomerates.
Modernity took a step forward with the 2nd Industrial Revolution, which occurred in the second half of the 19th century, which was the set of socioeconomic transformations initiated around 1870 with the industrialization of France, Germany, Italy, the United States and the Japan, especially characterized by the development of new energy sources (electricity and oil), the replacement of iron by steel and the emergence of new machines, tools and chemicals (such as plastic). Between 1909, when Henry Ford created the assembly line and inaugurated mass production of automobiles, and the end of the 20th century, almost all industries became mechanized and automation spread to all manufacturing sectors. Modernity advanced even more with the 3rd Industrial Revolution, which is the set of socioeconomic transformations that started from the second half of the 20th century, with the emergence of industrial complexes and multinational companies, the development of the chemical and electronic industries, advances in automation, of information technology and genetic engineering, and their incorporation into the production process, which began to depend more and more on high technology and specialized labor.
Modernity took a giant step forward with the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The book A escalada da ciência e tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e sobrevivência da humanidade (The escalation of science and technology and its contribution to the progress and survival of humanity) [3] informs that the 4th Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 underway in the current era is characterized by the integration of so-called cyber-physical production systems, in that smart sensors tell machines how they should be processed. Processes must govern themselves in a decentralized modular system. Intelligent systems begin to work together, communicating wirelessly, both directly and via a “cloud” on the Internet (The Internet of Things or IoT). The rigid centralized control systems of factories of the past are now giving way to decentralized intelligence, with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication on the factory floor. This is the vision of Industry 4.0 of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Industry 4.0 is an industry concept that encompasses the main technological innovations in the fields of automation, control and information technology, applied to industrial processes. From Cyber-Physical Systems, Internet of Things and Internet of Services, production processes tend to become increasingly efficient, autonomous and customizable. This means a new period in the context of the great industrial revolutions. With smart factories, several changes will occur in the way products are manufactured, impacting various market sectors. Making Industry 4.0 a reality will imply the gradual adoption of a set of emerging information technology (IT) and industrial automation technologies, in the formation of a physical-cybernetic production system, with intense digitization of information and direct communication between systems, machines , products and people; that is, the so famous Internet of Things (IoT).
Modernity is identified with the belief in progress and the ideals of the Enlightenment. However, the evolution of Modernity produced events that negatively impacted current society. Science and technology began to be used on an unprecedented scale also for evil. Science and technology will also have a negative impact on the world of work because it could lead to the end of employment and will lead the world to political, economic and social chaos at national and global levels [5]. Automated and robotic factories using artificial intelligence mean industries with fewer and fewer people. In three decades, 6 million industrial jobs were eliminated in the United States, causing employment in factories to reach the level of the 1940s. Jobs that involve repetitive functions will disappear quickly in the coming years. In rich countries, it is estimated that 25% of all industrial roles will be replaced by automation technologies by 2025. Worldwide, it is estimated that 60 million factory jobs will be eliminated.
The main evil of science and technology was undoubtedly the catastrophes of the 1st and 2nd World Wars. In fact, science and technology contributed to the barbarity of two world wars with the invention of powerful and destructive weapons, especially the atomic bomb. All this scientific and technological development has culminated in the current era, too, with a worldwide ecological crisis that could result in catastrophic global climate change that could threaten the survival of humanity. The consequence of all this is disillusionment with science and technology due to the evils they are bringing to humanity. In this sense, one can doubt the real benefits brought by scientific and technological progress with the advent of Modernity.
Modernity is identified with the belief in progress and the ideals of the Enlightenment. However, the evolution of Modernity was marked by events that negatively marked current society. The main one was undoubtedly the catastrophes of the 1st and 2nd World War. In fact, science and technology contributed to the barbarism of two world wars with the invention of powerful and destructive weapons, especially the atomic bomb. Science and technology began to be used on an unprecedented scale for both good and evil. The consequence of all this is disillusionment with science and technology due to the evils they are bringing to humanity. All this scientific and technological development has culminated in the current era with a worldwide ecological crisis that may result in catastrophic global climate change that may threaten the survival of humanity. In this sense, one can doubt the real benefits brought by scientific and technological progress with the advent of Modernity.
In their work A Dialética do Esclarecimento (The Dialectic of Enlightenment) [4], Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, philosophers linked to the Frankfurt School, claim that the supremacy of science and technology in Modernity also paved the way for political madness in favor of market capitalism. Scientific and technological advances, insofar as they technically made the elimination of poverty possible, also brought about its growth, which, for both authors, would denounce the raison d’être of the rational society preached by the Enlightenment as obsolete. Adorno and Horkheimer deconstruct the myth that the Enlightenment would bring freedom for men to be masters of their own destiny and would provide the achievement of happiness for all human beings. The reason advocated by the Enlightenment was replaced by the reason of market capitalism which, by exercising its control over the forces of nature with the use of science and technology, also extended its domination over human beings. Therefore, market capitalism became the privileged instance of this modality of control over nature and over human beings with the use of science and technology.
Being global and omnipresent, market capitalism has the necessary technique, provided by science and technology, to make men cogs in its engine, nullifying them, through the economic principle of total competition. With economic and financial globalization, market capitalism is contributing to extinguish autonomous thinking and reinforce uniformity and unanimity in a mass, amorphous society like the one we experience in the contemporary era. Allied, distant from individuals, capitalist economy, science and technology, now merged as if they were a single instance, consolidate their supremacy over contemporary society, determining its paths with the same impudence and impersonality of an invisible hand, according to Adorno and Horkheimer. Market totalitarianism resulted in the individual’s total dependence on its dictates.
From the above, it is concluded that science and technology are not only shaping our lives for the better, but also, in many situations, making them more dangerous. It seems that, since the 1st Industrial Revolution, the very collective construction of social life is being shaped as if it were a machine. For many years, science and technology have been dictating the course of social behavior, both at the industrial level and at the level of individual people. Human beings have always invested their intelligence to acquire, manufacture and use tools that prolong and multiply their material comfort. The idea that human development is a linear function of technical progress has been supported for a long time. The thesis that science and technology were the primary factors responsible for human progress was challenged by the explosions of atomic bombs in World War II, in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There began to be a discussion not only about the positive side provided by science and technology. Along with the blessings of science and technology came napalm, defoliants, radioactivity, and the atomic bomb. An atmosphere of crisis and doubt in relation to them came to the fore. Science and technology began to be seen also as anti-life and, in certain situations, as beyond human control. This situation needs to be reversed by governments around the world, with the abandonment of everything scientifically and technologically produced to the detriment of human beings and the adoption of scientific and technological development policies that are positive for human beings.
To ensure that science and technology are used exclusively for the good of humanity, it is urgent to attack the evil of this barbarism at its root with the construction of a new world economic order to replace the dominant capitalist order to prevent science and technology from being also used for evil, as has occurred throughout the history of humanity. In order to reach the condition of civilized society, there must be economic and social interventions by the State to promote social justice in a capitalist system and a Social Welfare policy in the general interest of the population and to ensure that science and technology are used for the progress of humanity. To this end, capitalism must be reformed in all countries of the world with the construction of the Social Welfare State as built in the Scandinavian countries which, being a hybrid between what is most positive in the capitalist and socialist systems, would prepare the ground for the conquest of the highest level of civilization with the building of democratic socialism in all countries of the world.
REFERENCES
- ALCOFORADO. Fernando. Como fazer com que as utopias planetárias se realizem visando a construção de um mundo melhor. Available on the website <https://www.academia.edu/104881861/COMO_FAZER_COM_QUE_AS_UTOPIAS_PLANET%C3%81RIAS_SE_REALIZEM_VISANDO_A_CONSTRU%C3%87%C3%83O_DE_UM_MUNDO_MELHOR>.
- ALCOFORADO. Fernando. O fracasso do iluminismo e da modernidade na construção da felicidade e do progresso humano. Available on the website<https://www.academia.edu/11719456/O_FRACASSO_DO_ILUMINISMO_E_DA_MODERNIDADE_NA_CONSTRU%C3%87%C3%83O_DA_FELICIDADE_E_DO_PROGRESSO_HUMANO>.
- ALCOFORADO. Fernando. A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade. Curitiba: Editora CRV, 2022.
- ADORNO, Theodor e HORKHEIMER, Max. A Dialética do Esclarecimento.Rio: Zahar Editora, 1985.
- ALCOFORADO. Fernando. O progresso da inteligência artificial e suas consequências. Available on the website <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/o-progresso-da-intelig%C3%AAncia-artificial-e-suas-fernando-alcoforado/?originalSubdomain=pt>.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022) and How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023).
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