Agricultural technology is unavoidable, directional, combinatory, disruptive, unpredictable and has unintended consequences

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-297
Author(s):  
Victor O Sadras
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Sustainable Agriculture ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Agricultural Technology

Science historian James Burke, scientist turned writer Isaac Asimov and polymath Stuart Kauffman have all argued, from different angles, that technology is unavoidable, directional, combinatory, disruptive and unpredictable. They also highlight the unintended consequences of technology seeking to fix a problem and creating new problems and opportunities. Here I draw on their vision to outline these features of technology with a focus on sustainable agriculture and highlight their implications for investment in research and development, and connecting public policy and technological change.

4. Technological change

2016 ◽  
pp. 84-113
Author(s):  
Alex Roland
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Combustion Engine ◽  
Dual Use ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Military Revolutions ◽  
Revolution In Military Affairs

‘Technological change’ presents three perspectives on the nature of change in military technology: research and development, dual-use technologies, and military revolutions. World War II ushered in two momentous transformations in the world’s relationship with military technology: the nuclear revolution and modern, institutionalized, routinized research and development. Non-weapons dual-use technologies include fortifications, roads, steam engines, the internal combustion engine, electric and electronic communication, and computers. Weapons dual-use technologies include the Schöningen spear, the bow and arrow, the chariot, nuclear power, explosives, and automatic firearms. Military revolutions have been divided into two arcs of analysis: the role of military revolutions in history and the revolution in military affairs.

Social Capital in the Latvian Transition: Trust and Other Managerial Values

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundar J. King ◽  
J. Thad Barnowe
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Business Culture ◽  
Technological Changes ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Managerial Values

Values play an important role in any culture, shaping attitudes and aspirations, and supporting economic activities. They are widely acknowledged to be defining elements of business culture for managers and workers alike, despite difficulties in tracing the exact linkages they have with behaviors and events (Connor and Becker 1994). They impact individuals’ ability to make critical adjustments under conditions of accelerating technological change and unprecedented expansion of information transfer (Rothschild 1992). They also are thought to affect how well technological changes and economic activity are integrated with dominant social-political structures, helping to make public policy harmonious with frames of reference individuals hold, and lending meaning to appeals for courses of action (Buchholtz 1986).

Policies, plans, and research and development investment in advanced materials in the major countries

1987 ◽  
Vol 322 (1567) ◽  
pp. 311-321 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Advanced Materials ◽  
New Materials ◽  
Industrial Activity ◽  
European Economies ◽  
And Training

Technological change is accelerating and broadening. New materials are among the most dramatic areas of such change, and are increasingly being incorporated into existing and new industrial activity. Japan and the United States of America are leading the European economies in many areas of creation and use of new materials. Europe’s talent base in new materials is smaller and weaker than those of the U.S.A, and Japan. Strengthening that talent base through improvements in education and training, and in industry and university collaboration in particular, is Europe’s most pressing challenge in this area.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

1996 ◽  
Vol 04 (03) ◽  
pp. 267-285
Author(s):  
FRANCIS W. RUSHING ◽  
MARK A. THOMPSON
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Intellectual Property Protection ◽  
Economic Literature ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Impact

This paper brings together the importance of intellectual property protection (IPP) and entrepreneurship in economic growth. The paper surveys the economic literature on what factors are important to growth. The focus is on recent models of endogenous growth which reflect on the role of investment, technological change and education. Secondly, publications, which measure the impact of IPP on some of the growth elements identified are reviewed. The third section deals with IPP and the entrepreneur as an important agent and facilitator of growth. It discusses the nature of IPP as an incentive in not only stimulating the development of new technologies and processes but also the dissemination of existing technologies. Using the surveys as background, short case studies for India and Brazil are presented on IPP as a stimulus and application of research and development. The last section summarizes the previous sections and draws some conclusions with respect to policy.

Buffaloes and Draught Power

1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charan Chantalakhana ◽  
Pakapun Bunyavejchewin
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Research And Development ◽  
Sustainable Agriculture ◽  
Soil Compaction ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Crop Failure ◽  
Small Farmer ◽  
Animal Power ◽  
Draught Animals

Draught animals still do much of the work on farms in developing countries, as well as being used for transportation. Despite the efforts made by governments to promote mechanization, tractors are not a realistic alternative for the average small farmer. Animals such as the buffalo have been used for centuries without causing any air or water pollution or soil compaction; they are an integral part of a sustainable agriculture, producing milk, meat and manure without any external cash inputs, and they buffer the farmer against crop failure and provide companionship. Draught animal power on small farms is not a backward way of farming but it needs support from research and development agencies if it is to develop its full potential.

scholarly journals Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock by Amy Beth Werbel

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Christine Schultz-Richert
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Cultural Importance ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ultimate Failure ◽  
Sexual Control

In her work, Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock, author Amy Werbel explores the unintended consequences of the forty-year vice suppression campaign of America’s first professional censor, Anthony Comstock. Equal parts a history of lust in art and a legal history of the cultural importance of the First Amendment, this work offers an inspiring tale of artist-, activist-, and attorney-led revolts against censorship, and underlines how the pursuit of moral and sexual control through prosecution is futile in the face of interminable cultural and technological change. Werbel points to the proliferation of lust and freedom of expression as evidence of Comstock’s ultimate failure to “purify” the nation of those materials that he deemed obscene. However, the most salient, underlying current of the story of Comstock is not perhaps the question of the efficacy of his mission, but instead the ways in which such efforts disproportionately silence the most vulnerable.

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