Finally, after a ten-week long preparation, our team is finally able to present our group project on the topic of “aesthetic surgery”. Basically, the technology of aesthetic surgery originates from ancient Egypt where the ancient Egyptian King’s nose was inserted with bone and seeds after his death. Afterwards, aesthetic surgery is most likely used to revamp physical deformities after a significant turn of events. For example, Freed slaves in ancient India underwent surgical procedures to remove or cover the brands used to mark them as property. In addition, there are also surgical procedures to reconstruct the nose of ex-criminals.From the ancient history itself, we could have already seen how mankind try to play God in terms of “fixing” or manipulating its physical trait.
On the other hand, in the modern consumer culture, where judgmental view about physical appearance is widely pervasive, plastic surgery has become a tool to improve physical traits instead of just being used to repair a deformed look. Modern cosmetic surgery patients have “chosen” their “ideal face” through cosmetic surgery when they want to apply for ideal jobs or partners of life. Additionally, some patients might use it to improve their physical inferiority, so as to avoid social mockeries from peers and family members. Furthermore, aesthetic surgery is also used to symbolize the wealth of the surgery patients because it costs more than what the average person could afford. Therefore, In my subjective view, I feel that such significant trend portraits the selfishness and materialistic concepts of human in improving their lives and it will further extends the inequalities (between the rich and non-rich and between the physically-fake and physically-natural people). It is also very disappointing to know that many of us pursue the improvement of external look instead of internal personality, which is more valuable and sustainable in creating a satisfactory life.
The other teams have presented on stealth technology and green-building subsequently. In the former presentation, it covers about the improvement of stealth technology and its implementation in human’s lives, especially in term of its popular military usage. In addition, it also discusses about the social impact and the legal concerns that should be raised when such technology becomes more mainstream in human’s life in the future. From this presentation, I have learned how humans are trying to become more Godlike in term of achieving superhero ability and it also shows the notion of “technology is easy, human is hard” when such technology could be misused for sabotage and privacy intrusion.
In the other presentation, it has discussed about the development of green-building technology, where sustainable energy and architecture are used as the main reasons of the building development. In term of the existence of such green technology, it has given human the hope for the future of sustainable environment, where energy is used at its optimal level and environmental concerns are the most important factors in developing the habitat of human. From this presentation, I have noticed that although some of this great building perceives incredible hopes for the future of sustainability, it presents a big question to me in terms of the cost of implementation. Many of such green-building implements state-of-the-art technology that requires massive amount of development and implementation cost, As such, it might need to be scaled-down in the future to fit the mainstream needs.
All in all, this session of TWC has given me another insight to the limitless possibilities and breakthroughs of human’s invention and technology to overcome the limitations in life and to make their lives more controllable. As such, I would like to rate this session 9/10 for the inspirational knowledge imparted by classmates to me.
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