2 Discussions

Chapter 10 – Policymakers are tasked with making decisions on issues characterized as wicked problems because of controversies, unknown relationships between causes and consequences, and uncertain futures.  From this perspective, Moody and Gerrits (2015) think that its desirable to get decisions mapped ahead of the possible outcomes prior to the actual decision-making because that would generate certainty in ambiguous situations.  Looking closely at the Technological perceptions, technology is thought to revolve around humans.  It reflects on questions of who drives technology. 

Q1: Please identify and name a few of those questions discussed in this debate and provide a brief explanation around your thoughts?

Chapter 11 – From the chapter, we learned that the pattern of behavior arises from fundamental psychology and in particular, the following: a) our capacity for habitual behavior, b) the difference between intelligence as the manifestation of the coping mode of cognition and understanding as the manifestation of the pervasive optimization mode, and c) the phenomenon of authoritarianism as the need for external authority through a lack of understanding of one’s living environment.  On the same line of thought, Andringa (2015), stated that the combination of these phenomena leads to a formal definition – the Bureaucratic Dynamic – and this is where the prevalence of coercive formalization scales with what the author terms as “institutional ignorance” – a measure of how well workers understand the consequences of their own actions both within the organization as well as the wider society…

Q2: In conclusion, the author presents a view that most people may agree with – that “All human activities benefit from some form of formalization, and that formalization allows automating routine tasks, to agree on how to collaborate, determine when and how tasks should be executed, and when they are finished.” The author offers a key reason(s) why procedures should not be changed too often.  What are those reasons? Provide a brief explanation.