The 8 billionth citizen of the world will probably be born within a few months. Never before have we been on the planet with so many people at once. Of the 110 billion people who have lived since the dawn of humanity, 8/110 = 7.3% are present at the same time. Yet we are short of hands to do all the work that is already being done. Or is that perhaps a sign that we are more focused on doing the work right than on doing the right work? This column is a welcome letter to the 8 billionth citizen of the world, discussing the fundamental unpredictability of the future and the many challenges we now face.
Anthropocentrism is the belief that value is focused on human beings and that all other beings are means to human ends. Related to anthropocentrism, humanism privileges the aim of improvement of human welfare. Humanism has underwritten efforts to expose social injustices and improve the welfare of all human beings. In relation to the environment, post-humanism can be defined by a number of characteristics. First, post-humanism exposes anthropocentrism as an attempt to ignore the behavior in which humans focus on themselves at the expanse of all other species. Second, post-humanism critiques exclusive moral focus on human inequalities in relation to environmental protection, emphasizing that inequality between species should remain within the scope of ethical consideration. Third, post-humanism exposes anthropocentrism as an inadequate basis for environmental action as it criticizes anthropocentrism as ethically wrong as well as pragmatically ineffective. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118924396 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
Original sin is only a poor stimulator of behaviour change. It's easy to understand that it seems rather unfair to blame a new-born for the major problems that humanity faces after several centuries of technological progress. That also applies to all those natural peoples, who lived in harmony with their environment, where the concept of Earth Overshoot Day did not apply at all. In this article it is argued that insights from applied psychology can help to pay off the debts in terms of behavioral change.
First Virtual Reality Museum for Migrant Women: creating engagement and innovative participatory design approaches through Virtual Reality Spaces.“Imagine a place filled with important stories that are hard to tell. A place that embodies the collective experience of immigrant women during their temporary stay”. In this project the first museum around immigrant women in Virtual Reality is created and tested. Working with the only migration centre for women in Monterrey, Lamentos Escuchados, project members (professional developers, lecturers, and interior design, animation, media and humanity students) collaborate with immigrant women and the centre officials to understand the migrant women stories, their notion of space/home and the way they inhabit the centre. This VR museum helps to connect immigrant women with the community while exploring more flexible ways to educate architects and interior designers about alternative ways of doing architecture through participatory design approaches.Partners:University of Monterey (UDEM)Lamentos Escuchados
