The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Importance of Disagreement

• Main Author: Alex Broadbent
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Johannesburg 2020-03-01
• Series: The Thinker
• Subjects: fourth industrial revolution; disagreement; south africa; higher education
• Online Access: https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/article/view/229/184

In healthy dialogue, there are always people who disagree, even if they are eccentric flat-Earthers. Something about human psychology seems to require that some people always take up a contrary position to the majority on any substantive idea, and empirical evidence always permits this, because it always underdetermines the conclusions we draw from it. When there is no disagreement on a certain idea, therefore, we have to consider that we’re either not assessing the idea properly, or not entertaining all opinions. If we were, some of us would come to different conclusions. My concern is that there is too much agreement about the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which is far less well understood and confirmed than the idea that the world is round. We’ve heard so much about what’s going to happen, and why. How carefully have the bases of these claims been tested? How seriously have we asked ourselves about the most likely scenarios in which the 4IR does not happen— because it is derailed, or because we have “topped out” already in our latest phase of industrialisation, or for some other reason? In short, have we asked: what could possibly go wrong (Broadbent, 2011)?