Inception and ICT

Jonathan Rod S. De Guzman

STS X2 Group 5 Mai-team

Reaction Paper 1: Inception

I have a riddle.

The movie Inception talks about a very communal thing among all of humankind—dreams. One of the least understood human sensations—dreaming—was attempted to be recreated on the big screen by Inception. In my opinion, the movie recreated the dream experience as accurate as possible. The transition between the real world and the dream world is very realistic and the portrayal of the beginning of each dream is exactly what all of us experience. Once we dream, we almost always end up right in the middle of a situation without a background story whatsoever but we always end up passing everything off as reality unless, of course, if we are experiencing lucid dream.

I believe that there is still much to be learned from the art and science of dreaming and that humanity is yet to maximize its full potential. Understanding the subconscious will be like and even more significant than uncovering the mystery of the depths of the oceans and seas—a venture into oblivion, an adventure into the unknown. Unveiling the mysteries of the subconscious may lead to more precise and accurate representation of the human psyche and it may also unlock the key to harnessing the full potential of the human mind.

You’re waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you don’t know for sure. But it doesn’t matter. How can it not matter?

Because you’ll be together.

Reaction Paper 2: ICT

                  37,602,976 internet users. 14^th most in the world. 106,987,098 mobile phone users, 94 million people. 12^th most in the world.

The national ICT consumer pool is exponentially increasing while the ICT infrastructure has remained stagnant and maybe even degrading. Our national policymakers are uninformed and uneducated about the uses and advantages of ICT thereby creating weak and, frankly, head-scratching laws and policies that hinder the potential of ICT and the merits of ICT use, one of which is the Cybercrime Prevention Act. Lack of regulation and to an extent even connivance of private entrepreneurs with government result in lack of competition and monopolistic and oligarchic tendencies among the main ‘competitors’ of ICT utilities.

                  The state of ICT the country is horrific and sadly, the future of ICT looks bleak; this is mostly due to the government’s incompetence and hubris. One thing we can do is to fight for our rights as citizens, as netizens, as techies, and even as non-techies alike.