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"For most people in country life is getting worse" - % Agree / strongly agree (2006)
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Definition: Societal progress is a normative concept and can be defined as the change or advancement of major conditions of societies and people's lives in a direction considered to be desirable based on prevailing values and goals of development. Thus, in the retrospect progress means that present conditions of life and society are considered as a...
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... this background, it is perhaps not too surprising, that considerable parts or even majorities of the populations in many European societies recently assessed the changes of the social situation in their countries in a way that 'life is getting worse', perceiving a decline of their quality of life rather than improvements and progress. Results from the European Social Survey 2006 suggest, that more than 50 % of the respondents in eleven of the 23 nations covered 'agree' or 'strongly' agree that "for most people in their country life is getting worse" (Figure 1). In some countries this percentage even extends 80 %. ...
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... That is, with the advancement of the conditions of urban society and how people live in it based on prevailing norms, values, beliefs, and goals. Societal progress entails that the current conditions of society are improved compared to the past, and that these conditions are envisaged to be better than those of the present (Noll, 2014). ...
The emerging phenomenon of platformization has given rise to what has been termed "platform society, " a digitally connected world where platforms have penetrated the heart of urban societies-transforming social practices, disrupting social interactions and market relations, and affecting democratic processes. One of the recent manifestations of platformization is the Metaverse, a global platform whose data infrastructures, governance models, and economic processes are predicted to penetrate different urban sectors and spheres of urban life. The Metaverse is an idea of a hypothetical set of "parallel virtual worlds" that incarnate ways of living in believably virtual cities as an alternative to future data-driven smart cities. However, this idea has already raised concerns over what constitutes the global architecture of computer mediation underlying the Metaverse with regard to different forms of social life as well as social order. This study analyzes the core emerging trends enabling and driving data-driven smart cities and uses the outcome to devise a novel framework for the digital and computing processes underlying the Metaverse as a virtual form of data-driven smart cities. Further, it examines and discusses the risks and impacts of the Metaverse, paying particular attention to: platformization; the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing non-spontaneous "normality" of social order; corporate led technocratic governance; governmentality; privacy, security, and trust; and data governance. A thematic analysis approach is adopted to cope with the vast body of literature of various disciplinarities. The analysis identifies five digital and computing processes related to data-driven smart cities: digital instrumentation, digital hyper-con-nectivity, datafication, algorithmization, and platformization. The novelty of the framework derived based on thematic analysis lies in its essential processual digital and computing components and the way in which these are structured and integrated given their clear synergies as to enabling the functioning of the Metaverse towards potentially virtual cities. This study highlights how and why the identified digital and computing processes-as intricately interwoven with the entirety of urban ways of living-arouse contentions and controversies pertaining to society' public values. As such, it provides new insights into understanding the complex interplay between the Metaverse as a form of science and technology and the other dimensions of society. Accordingly, it contributes to the scholarly debates in the field of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) by highlighting the societal and ethical implications of the platformiza-tion of urban societies through the Metaverse.
... A European study found that while over 80% of people were satisfied with their lives in all but two of 15 countries, less than 50% were satisfied with society in seven of the countries (with scores ranging from 85% to 25%) (Noll, 2008). Another study of 23 European nations found an average of 50% of people agreed that, for most people in their country, life was getting worse (with scores ranging from 86% to 13%) (Noll, 2014). notes that in a pervasive wave of pessimism, perhaps the longest in American history, ' Americans believe their country is heading in the wrong direction, that [their] values are weathering, that their generation is worse off than their parents' generation, and that their children will be still worse off ' . ...
Scientific and political interest in measures of human progress and development is increasing, but the indicators are far from capturing all we need to know. They place Western liberal democracies at the leading edge of progress, and present them as models of development; Western nations typically occupy all but a few of the top 20 places in progress indices. However, indicators are measuring modernisation rather than optimal quality of life or wellbeing; modernity’s benefits are counted but its costs are underestimated. In particular, the measures do not adequately acknowledge the ‘psychosocial dynamics’ of human societies: the complex interactions and relationships between the subjective and objective worlds. Unless we pay more attention to these dynamics, we will not develop solutions which match in scale the problems they are intended to address. Indicators need to allow a transformation in our worldview and beliefs as profound as that which gave rise to modernity.
Science and technology transform the frontiers of knowledge and have deep and powerful impacts on society, demonstrating how social reality varies with each era of the world. As a set of fictional representations of technologically driven future worlds, the Metaverse is increasingly shaping the socio-technical imaginaries of data-driven smart cities, i.e., the outcome of radical transformations of dominant structures, processes, practices, and cultures. At the core of the systematic exploration of science and technology is the relationships between scientific knowledge, technological systems, and values and ethics from a wide range of perspectives. Positioned within science of science, this study investigates the complex interplay between the Metaverse as a form of science and technology and the wider social context in which it is embedded. Therefore, it adopts an analytical and philosophical framework of STS, and in doing so, it employs an integrated approach to discourse analysis, supported by a comparative analysis of the Metaverse and Ambient Intelligence. This study shows that the Metaverse as a scientific and technological activity is socially constructed, politically driven, economically conditioned, and historically situated. That is, it is inherently human and hence value-laden, as well as can only be understood as contextualized within the socio-political-economic-historical framework that gives rise to it, sustains it, and makes it durable by material effects and networks. This view in turn corroborates that the Metaverse raises serious concerns as to determinism, social exclusion, marginalization, privacy erosion, surveillance, control, democratic backsliding, hive mentality, cyber-utopianism, and dystopianism. This study argues that, due to the problematic nature of the Metaverse in terms of its inherent ethical and social implications, there need to be more explicit processes and practices for enhancing public participation and allowing a more democratic public role in its shaping and control, especially early in the decision-making process of its development—when the opportunity for effective inputs and informed choices is greatest. The novelty of this study lies in that it is the first of its kind with respect to probing the link between the Metaverse and data-driven smart cities from an STS perspective. The main contribution of this study lies in deepening and extending social scientific critiques and understandings of the imaginaries of data-driven smart cities based on the analysis and evaluation of the Metaverse and the warning signals and troubling visions it conveys and animates in order to help construct desirable alternative futures for the greater good of all citizens. The ultimate goal is to structure the Metaverse in ways that are morally acceptable and collectively the most democratically beneficial for society.
Despite the recent boom of happiness research and a long history of scholarly work on subjective social indicators, assessments of their usefulness for policy making purposes continue to be controversial. Aiming to put the articles published in this special issue into a more general context, this introduction first of all presents a short review of the history, characteristics and relevance of subjective social indicators for the measurement of quality of life and addresses some of the general reservations against their usage in policy making. Focusing more specifically at the current debate on indicators of subjective well-being, key issues of this debate are being discussed and arguments in favor as well as against the usage of this sort of indicators presented. The final section of this introduction briefly presents the ten articles assembled in this special issue, which are discussing and assessing the potential benefits of subjective indicators as well as their limitations for policy making purposes in different ways and from different angles.
