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Threats to Sustainable Development

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Technology, Society and Sustainability

Abstract

The paper presents conclusions to the theme of sustainable development drawn from the recent works of the Committee of Future Studies “Poland 2000 Plus” on the Report Poland 2050 and related to the issue of global threats; both these themes take into account and stress the importance of technological perspective. It is shown that network technologies and other high-tech developments, while bringing many benefits to the mankind, bring also threats related to the speed of change and destruction of existing social structure. Thus, one of the main challenges of mankind in the future will be not limits to growth, but how to limit growth and speed of change.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is sometimes argued that human rights should be understood as they were formulated in eighteenth century and thus this concept is outdated today; however, such an argument shows ignorance of historical developments. Both Roman society and later feudal society relied on a specific tacit understanding of human rights, appropriate to their level of socio-economic development; without such tacit agreement, these societies would not be stable. New possibilities brought by informational revolution require a new understanding and new formulation of human rights.

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Correspondence to Andrzej P. Wierzbicki .

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Wierzbicki, A.P. (2017). Threats to Sustainable Development. In: Zacher, L. (eds) Technology, Society and Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47164-8_19

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