Principles of Anthropology

Chapple, Eliot D.; Coon, Carleton S.

doi:10.2307/141117

Cited by 52 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…According to major insights from anthropology [17], fundamental technological progress that affects the basic processes of societal reproduction, such as the digital revolution, will cause fundamental societal transformations characterized by new social and power structures [18] and new types and levels of human systems. We discuss in what ways the emergence of supranational systems and the emergence of a (global) mind-set of the social species become real by E D .…”

Section: The Social Dimension Of the Digital Revolution Is Not Yet Wementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?

Scholz

2016

Sustainability

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This paper identifies and discusses the benefits, threats, and vulnerabilities related to the digital revolution. It aims to motivate research and its funding regarding digital threats and vulnerabilities related, in particular, to anticipating unintended, undesirable rebound effects, tipping points, critically fast evolutionary change rates, trade-offs, etc. A brief analysis of the history of the mind and technology reveals slow technological development over tens of thousands of years (including the invention of a place-value digital number system). Then, a small series of groundbreaking ideas (e.g., binary logic, Shannon's symbolic analysis of relay and switching circuits, architectures of computing) enabled the industry-driven invention of programmable computing machines. Ultimately, the mastery of electron and semiconductor physics allowed for economical and seemingly unlimited storage capacity that made digital tools available to all domains of society. Based on the historical analysis, a coupled human-environment systems perspective (that includes a hierarchy assumption ranging from the human cell to the human species) enables the identification of several potential challenges to society and science. First, digital nano-engineering promotes genetic modifications (i.e., directed evolution), and synthetic biology enables a new level of the appropriation of nature. The understanding of cell-based biocomputers may call for new forms of logic. These and other challenges require thorough sustainability research in order to anticipate major changes on all levels of human systems. Second, the human individual is exposed to new forms of vulnerability. In particular, the potential epigenetic effects resulting from the excessive use of digital information of historically unknown speed, density, and contents and the loss of (the Western common-law right to) privacy resulting from big data (whose ownership is often unknown) should become subjects of research. Third, digital technologies are responsible for rapid changes in all social and economic structures. The paper suggests that thorough, discipline-based interdisciplinary research is needed in order to develop basic knowledge for creating and managing resilient relationships between human systems and their digital environments.Keywords: digital revolution; digital threats; rebound effects; genetically modified organisms (GMO); cell-based computers; cell-based computing; environmental epigenetics; loss of privacy; appropriation of nature Why Do Digital Environments Call for Special Attention? The Social Dimension of the Digital Revolution Is Not Yet Well UnderstoodThe development of Homo sapiens and human societies is characterized by a couple of fundamental transitions. The present paper starts from the proposition that, phylogenetically and historically, many impacts linked to the emergence of digital environments (E D ) have the same gravity as the mastery of fire, the development of speech, the invention of agrotechnology, and the Industrial Revolutio...

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Section: The Social Dimension Of the Digital Revolution Is Not Yet Wementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?

Scholz

2016

Sustainability

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“…Their objective has been to state why stable marriages or the attainment of adult status and the like are socially important and fraught with difficulties in one society but less important and less disturbing in another. dr a similar vein is the view expressed by Chapple and Coon (1942) that rites are both an indication of disturbed social equilibrium and a device for restoring equilibrium. Where no rites occur, it appears to be assumed that no social disturbances exist; a t least, there has been no systematic observation of individual societies to account for differences in practice.…”

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confidence: 69%

The Interpretation of Data: Puberty Rites¹

Norbeck

Walker

Cohen

1962

American Anthropologist

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“…We consider the individual citizen's right to know about the accessibility of important and essential (i.e., non-substitutable) mineral materials as a cornerstone [36,37]; some key actors are presented in italics.…”

Section: Governments' Needs and Rights To Know In Order To Fulfill Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting Phosphorus First: The Need to Know and Right to Know Call for a Revised Hierarchy of Natural Resources

Wellmer

Scholz

2017

Resources

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Abstract:The aim of this paper is to develop two concepts regarding phosphorus that will serve as a contribution fulfilling the call for intergenerational equity: to improve knowledge of future resources and to develop a framework by setting priorities for maximizing availability with a hierarchy of natural resources. The increasing human demand for minerals and metals is causing persistent concern about long-term supply security. This holds true particularly for phosphorus. Phosphorus is bioessential; it cannot be substituted. There are no unlimited resources for phosphorus. The question of how large the reserves are and the potential for finding additional reserves and resources for a long-term supply are, therefore, of interest to numerous stakeholders, from governments to individuals. We examine governments' needs and individuals' rights to know private exploration data. Because of the essential nature of phosphorus, we emphasize the public's special right to know as much as possible about phosphate reserves, resources and the geopotential for new discoveries, based upon the basic human right to feed oneself in dignity. To fulfill the call for intergenerational equity, however, knowledge alone is not enough; guidelines for management have to follow. This can be achieved by defining a hierarchy of natural resources for setting priorities. For humankind's technological and cultural development, a sufficient supply of energy resources must be considered the key element; therefore, efforts to maximize information that will enable best decisions to be made have been the strongest. A hierarchy of natural resources with fossil and nuclear energies at the top was proposed. However, with the new development of renewable forms of energy and the decreasing role of fossil-fuel energy, the hierarchy of natural resources that defines priorities must be revised. We propose a hierarchy that replaces fossil-fuel energy at the top with phosphorus.

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Principles of Anthropology

Cited by 52 publications

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Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?

Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?

The Interpretation of Data: Puberty Rites¹

Putting Phosphorus First: The Need to Know and Right to Know Call for a Revised Hierarchy of Natural Resources

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Principles of Anthropology

Cited by 52 publications

References 0 publications

Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?

Sustainable Digital Environments: What Major Challenges Is Humankind Facing?

The Interpretation of Data: Puberty Rites1

Putting Phosphorus First: The Need to Know and Right to Know Call for a Revised Hierarchy of Natural Resources

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The Interpretation of Data: Puberty Rites¹