scholarly journals GENETIC TECHNOLOGIES IN THE MODERN WORLD: ESCALATION OF OPPORTUNITIES AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

Bioethics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-45
Author(s):  
A.V. Basov ◽  
◽  
А.А. Ruhtin ◽  

The article examines the development of genetic science from the moment of its inception to the present state, shows the transformation of ideas about genetics and attitudes towards it during the evolution of public consciousness (from utopia nism to alarmism). The modern possibilities of genetic technologies, the prospects of their influence on social structures and on the nature of the person himself are analyzed, the risks and social consequences associated with this process are explicated. The potential of genetic engineering, technologies of "human improvement", genetic testing is considered, its ability to influence the fundamental foundations of human existence, the ability to transform the boundaries between biological and social, nature and culture, is demonstrated. The authors also touch upon the problem of transhumanism, within the framework of which the contradiction between the position of the supporters of the emergence of mankind on a new round of evolution and modern ideas about the natural equality of all people is indicated, the overcoming of which carries ethical, legal and political consequences that are difficult to predict.

Meliora ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggie Toole

This thesis explores the ways in which we as humans are alienated by the fundamental social structures of our world and how the novels of Jenny Offill offer a possible remedy. With a specific focus on the psychological and evolutionary aspects of womanhood and motherhood, this text attempts to illustrate the ways in which these novels address the imposing weight of such fundamental structures in the 21st century. Through an analysis of the nuclear family, this thesis examines the debilitating and profound existence of women, and more specifically, mothers. Offill’s novels present a profoundly clear picture of the modern world as it depicts the reality and ramifications of psychoanalytic and evolutionary theory. This work demonstrates how Offill’s texts attempt to remedy the core dissonance of our binary-laden human existence with clarity and realization rather than acceptance of an oversimplified past and a debilitating future.


Author(s):  
Lav Kanoi ◽  
Vanessa Koh ◽  
Al Lim ◽  
Shoko Yamada ◽  
Michael R. Dove

Abstract Infrastructure is often thought of in big material terms: dams, buildings, roads, and so on. This study, instead, draws on literatures in anthropology and the social sciences to analyse infrastructures in relation to society and environment, and so cast current conceptions of infrastructure in a new light. Situating the analysis in context of President Biden’s recent infrastructure bill, the paper expands what is meant by and included in discussions of infrastructure. The study examines what it means for different kinds of material infrastructures to function (and for whom) or not, and also consider how the immaterial infrastructure of human relations are manifested in, for example, labour, as well as how infrastructures may create intended or unintended consequences in enabling or disabling social processes. Further, in this study, we examine concepts embedded in thinking about infrastructure such as often presumed distinctions between the technical and the social, nature and culture, the human and the non-human, and the urban and the rural, and how all of these are actually implicated in thinking about infrastructure. Our analysis, thus, draws from a growing body of work on infrastructure in anthropology and the social sciences, enriches it with ethnographic insights from our own field research, and so extends what it means to study ‘infrastructures’ in the 21st century.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Permyakov ◽  
Alexander Ilyin ◽  
Tatyana Ivanchenko ◽  
Alexander Ivanchenko ◽  
Nikolai Kopeikin

This article focuses on ordinary, familiar to us structures and what other benefits, except for their intended use, they can bring. One of the most pressing problems of the modern world is the excessive use of non-renewable or hardly renewable natural resources. The key element necessary for the operation of transport is gasoline extracted from oil, which is a hardly renewable natural resource, at the moment the rate of consumption of oil significantly exceeds the rate of its occurrence in the natural environment. In addition, people use atomic power stations to produce energy used in everyday life, many plants and factories are built to produce various things necessary for life, and sometimes just to increase comfort. All this has a very negative impact on the environment, and to clean it after such pollution is a very difficult task. In this way, in the use of current energy sources, we distinguish 2 significant flaws – the exhaustion and difficulty of renewal of the key components necessary for obtaining energy and the negative impact on the world around us. Many states came to the conclusion that it would be much more rational to develop a new approach to energy production, based on the use of inexhaustible and environmentally friendly natural elements. The main example of this approach is the use of solar energy by converting it into electricity using solar panels. In this article, we will look at solar panels and their use in road construction as a way to generate energy and solve environmental problems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (513) ◽  
pp. 478-484
Author(s):  
O. V. Ptashchenko ◽  
◽  
D. Y. Arkhypova ◽  

The article examines the main global problems of the modern world space, defining the main tendencies of overcoming the crisis and the further path of human development. Globalization indicates the general nature of most processes meaningful to mankind. Modern humanity represents an indivisible system of economic, political, social and cultural ties and interactions, which is significative for the unity of its future destiny. Informatization became the basis of globalization, reflecting the current level of technology development. Global problems are problems affecting all mankind, influencing the course of economic development and social sphere, also ecology and political stability. These problems require international cooperation, since none, even a highly developed State, is able solve them on its own. The number of hungry people in the world has increased over the past few years. Now every ninth person in the world is starving every day, suffering from a lack of nutrition. Both the food scarcity and hunger are among the greatest threats to the overall health of the human population exceeding malaria, tuberculosis or HIV. Responsibility for the planet should begin with responsibility for the country, because the crisis of a separate country complicates the world situation in the political aspect; ecological and resource crises jeopardize environmental equilibrium and complicate the problem of resources on a global scale; an economic crisis leads to social consequences in other countries.


Author(s):  
Vitaly F. Poznin ◽  

Contemporary Russian theater and cinema are approving a new aesthetic paradigm that implements such principles of postmodernism as deconstruction, relativism, a mixture of various types, genres, and stylistic devices. The purpose of this article is to identify the most characteristic stylistic features of Russian arthouse films of the 21st century. The author’s task was to show that this style is not something radically new, as some art critics and cultural experts try to present. Using the methods of hermeneutic, art history and comparative analysis, the author identifies the methods and techniques of creating a special art space that are characteristic of modern Russian arthouse. These are combining real and conditional, concrete and symbolic, psychology and parable, recognition of everyday realities and explicit functionality of the characters. Based on the idea expressed by a number of scientists that there is much in common between the state of the modern world (that is, what is now called postmodernism) and the public consciousness of the Middle Ages, the author of the article puts forward a hypothesis about the similarity of the stylistic techniques of the Russian arthouse with the aesthetics of the Middle Ages. First of all, arthouse films bring closer to the literature and art of the Middle Ages such a characteristic as hybridism, i.e. combining different styles in one work, in particular, combining a realistic image with a parable form and symbols and an artistic interpretation of space as a background that weakly interacts with characters. First of all, Russian arthouse films brings closer to the literature and art of the Middle Ages such a characteristic as hybridism, i.e. combining different styles in one work, using, along with a realistic depiction of the parable form and symbols and artistic interpretation of space as a background that weakly interacts with characters. One of the reasons for the emergence of a new aesthetic interpretation of art space in modern Russian literature and cinema was the radical changes that took place in Russia in the 1990s. The disappearance from the world map of a huge country called the USSR and the loss of familiar landmarks and stereotypes could not but affect the worldview of artists, writers and filmmakers trying to artistically comprehend what is happening. The conclusion that follows from the analysis is that many principles of the aesthetics of postmodernism were reflected in the style of the arthouse films of 21st century, with the exception of such traits inherent in the best postmodern examples as humor, irony, game element and non-linearity of narration. The coexistence of real and clearly conditional art space in such films contributes to the fact that the cinematic texture contradicts conditional situations and characters, causing the viewer to feel art inorganic. Analyzing the perception of art films by experts and the audience, the author concludes that the assessments of art critics and viewers are largely diverging for the same reason: viewers mostly perceive author films as works of a realistic style but can not find in them psychological characteristics of the heroes and the motivation of their actions, i.e. the traits inherent in realism; experts evaluate these films based on the presence of the elements of symbolism and metaphorism and metaphysical and universal image of reality.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana A. Lyausheva ◽  
Azamat M. Shadzhe ◽  
Marina A. Igosheva ◽  
Victoria V. Kotlyarova

PurposeThe goal of this paper is associated with the study of global processes which change the world order and are accompanied with the aggravation of economic competition and geopolitical confrontation, which cause large-scale migration, radicalization of ethnicity and the rise of ethnic separatism. These processes contribute to the aggravation of interethnic antagonisms in multicultural countries and regions; therefore, it is necessary to search for adequate models of interethnic relations management in a multicultural society.Design/methodology/approachThe methodological foundation of this research consists in activity, civilization, and transformation approaches, which allow understanding the specificity of global processes, the causes of the actualization of ethnic factor in the modern world and the search for new methods of interethnic relations management.FindingsThis paper presents an overview of models of interethnic relations management established in the western countries in the second half of the 20th century. The authors identify specific features of the assimilation and multiculturalism models for managing ethnic differences, their methods of regulation of interethnic relations in a multicultural environment. Their potential in solving the issues of adaptation of migrants and their integration in political and cultural space of the host society in the face of new global challenges and threats is assessed.Originality/valueThe authors of the paper justify the need for a new model of interethnic relations management which is able to forecast the global development trends and adequately respond to negative consequences of global processes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-193
Author(s):  
Sean Ahlquist

Computational design affords agency: the ability to orchestrate the material, spatial, and technical architectural system. In this specific case, it occurs through enhanced, authored means to facilitate making and performance—typically driven by concerns of structural optimization, material use, and responsivity to environmental factors—of an atmospheric rather than social nature. At issue is the positioning of this particular manner of agency solely with the architect auteur. This abruptly halts—at the moment in which fabrication commences—the ability to amend, redefine, or newly introduce fundamentally transformational constituents and their interrelationships and, most importantly, to explore the possibility for extraordinary outcomes. When the architecture becomes a functional, social, and cultural entity, in the hands of the idealized abled-bodied user, agency—especially for one of an otherly body or mind—is long gone. Even an empathetic auteur may not be able to access the motivations of the differently-abled body and neuro-divergent mind, effectively locking the constraints of the design process, which creates an exclusionary system to those beyond the purview of said auteur. It can therefore be deduced that the mechanisms or authors of a conventional computational design process cannot eradicate the exclusionary reality of an architectural system. Agency is critical, yet a more expansive terminology for agent and agency is needed. The burden to conceive of capacities that will always be highly temporal, social, unpredictable, and purposefully unknown must be shifted far from the scope of the traditional directors of the architectural system. Agency, and who it is conferred upon, must function in a manner that dissolves the distinctions between the design, the action of designing, the author of design, and those subjected to it.


INvoke ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
SUSA Submissions ◽  
Alec Skillings

Sports stadiums work to shape the identity of cities and reflect their cultural attitudes. From the Luzhniki Sports Complex’s material representation of Soviet Russia’s political leanings and ideologies to the Houston Astrodome’s display of technological advancement, stadia architecture has strong connections to regional zeitgeists. In this paper, I explain the importance of stadia architecture and how it is embedded in the collective memories of sports fans and citizens. As well, I explain how stadia architecture carries political and social consequences. Adaptive reuse or demolition of abandoned stadia also carries social and political consequences as stadia have the ability to embody the social history and civic imagination of their cities. I then present the case of Edmonton's Rexall Place arena, and provide an account of why it is important to repurpose the structure as a place for hockey. Ultimately Edmonton's collective memories and identity are held within the cement walls of Rexall Place, and the demolition of the structure would be detrimental to the hockey-centric civic identity and history.


2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 425-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisling de Paor

Ground-breaking genetic discoveries and technological advances have introduced a new world of genetic exploration, and technological advances have facilitated the discovery of the genetic basis of a myriad of diseases. Genetic testing promises to potentially revolutionise health care and offer the potential of personalised medicine. Genetic technology may also offer the means to detect potential future disabilities. In light of rapid advances in genetic science and technology, questions arise as to whether an appropriate framework exists to protect the interests of individuals, prevent the misuse of genetic information by interested third parties, and also to encourage further advances in genetic science. In consideration of rapidly advancing genetic technologies and the ethical and legal concerns that arise, this article examines the regulation of genetic information, primarily from a theoretical perspective. It explores the preferable mode of regulation and choice of regulatory frameworks in legal theory, including non-discrimination, privacy and property.


Author(s):  
Наталья Шафажинская ◽  
Natalya Shafazhinskaya ◽  
Сергей Шишов ◽  
Sergey Shishov

The importance and timeliness of the topic of the International Christmas Educational Readings in 2019 "Youth: Freedom and Responsibility" is obvious and significant. This should be especially noted in the context of complex socio-political, economic, spiritual, moral and ethical relations of the modern world, the main potential resource of which is youth. Socio-psychological, civil formation of the younger generation has historically always been fraught with serious difficulties, and now the problems of a psychological, moral and ethical nature have been aggravated by the intensification of a hostile information policy directed against Russia, the traditional national values of the national culture. Contradictions and the increasing aggressiveness of the information space often prevent young people from understanding the current events and impede the process of social and political socialization of young people. This phenomenon, which is legitimately described as an open ideological intervention. It is difficult, first of all, to oppose the most psychologically vulnerable contingent - youth and youth - but perhaps with the consolidated efforts of representatives of the humanitarian educational sphere. A significant role in shaping public consciousness belongs to the content of all areas of educational and pedagogical activity, thanks to which youth policy becomes an essential component of both the socio-demographic policy of the state and the value vector of its ideological development.


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