CAN TECHNOLOGY SAVE THE WORLD?

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We love our gadgets. Try disconnecting from your smartphone (the
meaning of “phone” no longer has any resemblance to its meaning
just a blink in time ago) and see how that goes. Just the thought
shows how integral technology is to daily life. Smartphones are
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how we consume news and entertainment, navigate cities, record
and share moments, and buy stuff. n But does technology have
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answers to really big questions? We are bedeviled by problems: Climate change. Caring for an elder boom. Income inquality. Where to
English summary find jobs in a digital economy. And politics feels exhausted, too slow,
too ideological to come up with solutions. Maybe technology can
French summary rescue us with a fancy device to get us out of this fix. n In the following pages, we ask whether technology is a force for good or bad.
Can geoengineering avoid catastrophic global warming, or is it just
a cover to avoid changing our capitalist ways? We look at how technology is upending the economy by weakening big institutions and
empowering individuals. And we show which current jobs are under
the shadow of computerization, while calling for a revolution in education policy to ensure we have enough skilled workers for a digital
economy. n It may not save the world. But it’s a start.
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OPTIONS POLITIQUES
JUILLET-AOÛT 2013
Author affiliation
POLICY OPTIONS
JULY-AUGUST 2013
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OPTIONS POLITIQUES
JUILLET-AOÛT 2013
Nous adorons nos gadgets. Imaginez la vie sans votre téléphone intelligent (le mot « téléphone » évoquant aujourd’hui tout autre chose
qu’il y a quelque temps à peine). Cette seule idée montre à quel
point les technologies sont indissociables de notre quotidien. Elles
nous servent à tout : information, divertissement, déplacements,
achats, partage de petits et grands moments. n Mais peuventelles résoudre les problèmes majeurs qui nous assaillent ? Pensons aux changements climatiques, à l’imminent « papy boom », à
l’inégalité des revenus, aux emplois à trouver dans une économie
numérique. L’action politique nous paraît stérile, à la fois trop lente
et trop idéologique pour proposer des solutions. Et si alors une géniale application informatique nous sortait de l’impasse ? n Dans
les pages qui suivent, nous cherchons à déterminer si les technologies sont au service du bien ou du mal. La géoingénierie, par
exemple, nous évitera-t-elle le fléau du réchauffement planétaire ou
masque-t-elle notre refus de transformer nos modes de gestion capitalistes ? Nous décrivons comment les technologies bouleversent
nos économies, affaiblissant les institutions et dotant les citoyens
de nouveaux moyens d’action. Et nous brossons un tableau des emplois menacés par l’informatisation, tout en préconisant une révolution des politiques d’éducation pour former les travailleurs qualifiés
indispensables à une économie numérique. n C’est sans doute
insuffisant pour sauver le monde. Mais c’est un début.
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Sleeping with the Devil
For indigenous people history lies beneath their feet, where evidence left by their ancestors
hundreds if not thousands of years ago remains. When they ask, “who am I,” they look to
the ground, the waters and the forest around them. The land is their ancestral home, and
within it their creator resides.
Aaron Vincent Elkaim
Aaron Vincent Elkaim is an award-winning Canadian
documentary photographer whose work fosters curiosity
and contemplation by focusing on cultural and environmental
narratives that investigate the space between history, identity
and land. He is a founding member of the Boreal Collective
(http://aaronvincentelkaim.com/contact).
In Northern Alberta, the wealth of the Athabasca River provided for native tribes long before European colonization. The Athabasca was
part of the main fur trade route from the Mackenzie River to the Great Lakes, employing local natives as fur trappers. Today, the
Hudson’s Bay Company has been replaced by Syncrude, Total, Shell, Imperial Oil and Suncor. Fort McKay First Nation resides 65 km
north of Fort McMurray and is surrounded by oil sands development. With the collapse of the fur trade and a growing inability to live off
the polluted land, the people of Fort McKay had a choice: work for the oil companies or fall into the welfare economy that plagues
reserves across Canada. They chose the jobs, and with them came an economic prosperity and government independence rare for
First Nations communities. “Sleeping with the Devil” examines the impacts of this transition on the community of Fort McKay.
Prospering within a system that is destroying their land, they struggle to maintain an identity that is becoming increasingly disfigured
The Alzheimer Conundrum
The real challenge
of aging and dementia
Margaret Lock
The acclaimed cultural anthropologist asks whether our
obsession with finding a “cure” for Alzheimer’s disease
distracts from the need for a broader public health
engagement with aging populations and with the multiple
causes of dementia.
Obnubilés par la recherche d’un remède contre la maladie
d’Alzheimer, nous nous sommes détournés d’une approche
de santé publique globale pour répondre aux besoins de la
population vieillissante et examiner les multiples causes de la
démence sénile, soutient la célèbre anthropologue culturelle
Margaret Lock dans son dernier ouvrage.
W
e live with a plethora of
“epidemics”
—
obesity,
diabetes, autism, prostate
cancer, breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, child
abuse, crime, and terrorism, to name a
few. Among this multiplication of catastrophes, reports about a proliferating
epidemic of Alzheimer disease are in­
creasingly conspicuous in the media. In
his book The Longevity Revolution, Robert
Butler, gerontologist, psychiatrist, and
Pulitzer Prize winner, argues that one
of the triumphs of the 20th century has
been the dramatic increase in the numbers of people who live to old age, but
he quickly adds that this has brought
about an increase in the number of
individuals suffering from dementia.
“Unless we find ways to prevent or cure
Alzheimer’s and other severe dementing
diseases,” Butler argues, “the world will
shortly be confronted with ...the epidemic of the 21st century.” Extrapolating from this undeniable association of
aging and dementia, it would appear
that the ever-increasing proportion of
elderly individuals in the world constitutes a burgeoning pandemic with the
potential of bringing the global economy to its knees.
Since the condition was first formally named as a disease in 1908, r­ epeated
efforts have been made to delineate
with ever more accuracy the clinical
and neuropathological features of Alzheimer’s, with the ultimate objective of
This is an adapted exerpt from Margaret Lock, The Alzheimer Conundrum:
Entanglements of Dementia and Aging. Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University
Press. Reprinted by permission.
as their historic values, spirituality and culture are exchanged for a standard of living most Canadians take for granted.
finding a cure. However, despite many
billions of dollars poured into research
over the past several decades, no cure
has been found, and, at present, only
four drugs are available by prescription
that variably alleviate symptoms for a
period of some months, often with side
effects, and by no means in all patients.
It is perhaps not surprising, then,
given the projected increase in the
numbers of people who will become
demented in the coming years that a
move is under way in the Alzheimer
world to implement research designed
to bring about the prevention of
this devastating condition. This new
orientation is facilitated by biomedical technologies developed relatively
recently expressly designed to detect
molecular changes regarded as incipient signs of Alzheimer disease (AD) in
the bodies of individuals. On the basis
of the results of clinical trials with human populations, these technologies
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