The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century
Abstract:
Getting flatter every day.
Body:
I decided to read Thomas L. Friedman's
The World is
Flat after watching several of his
documentaries on the Discovery Times Channel. I remember when
The World is
Flat came out and was a big best seller, but I
ignored it because I assumed it was just another popular book about politics or
economics. After seeing Friedman's documentaries, though, I thought maybe he
had some good reason to claim that the world is flat, so I downloaded the book
on Fictionwise and read
it.
When Friedman says "the world is flat", what he means is that globalization is, to use his metaphors, leveling the playing field, extending the horizon, and putting us into contact with people around the world like they are our neighbors. Dejargonized, that means that communications technologies, especially the Internet, have in the post-Internet-bubble brought the world together in ways that people weren't even considering as recently as the late 90s. Only in the last few years, a phrase he heard commonly while interviewing people for this book, have the technologies converged to allow a new level of connectedness. This means that people all over the world can now participate with each other as if they lived next-door.
Putting everyone in such close contact is having a tremendous effect on the world, sometimes in unexpected ways. Knowledge and some service work is being exported around the world to those who can do it at the best price to performance ratio. This is raising the living standard in places like India and Eastern Europe. But this takes jobs from people in Western Europe and America, forcing them to work harder to stay in the same place. And although this causes stress for people because they expected to be able to do the same thing for 50 years and retire comfortably, many of those people are learning to adapt and push themselves in new directions that benefit the world and themselves.
Close contact is not always good, though. The Internet is what has made modern terrorists organizations so dangerous, because they can easily raise money, spread disinformation, and attract recruits from an underground bunker where the leaders are safe from attack. As Friedman thinks, people in places like the Middle East use the Internet first to see how good life is in the rest of the world, then feel humiliated that life in their own country is not so good, and then turn to terrorism as a means to ameliorate that humiliation when they feel they cannot positively participate in the flattening of the world. Instead, they seek to unflatten the world to return to a time when they didn't feel humiliated.
These are all the teaser insights I can provide here. Friedman covers a lot of material in his book and says many interesting things about where the world is and where it's going. I highly recommend The World is Flat to anyone concerned about the future of themselves, the world, and humanity.
When Friedman says "the world is flat", what he means is that globalization is, to use his metaphors, leveling the playing field, extending the horizon, and putting us into contact with people around the world like they are our neighbors. Dejargonized, that means that communications technologies, especially the Internet, have in the post-Internet-bubble brought the world together in ways that people weren't even considering as recently as the late 90s. Only in the last few years, a phrase he heard commonly while interviewing people for this book, have the technologies converged to allow a new level of connectedness. This means that people all over the world can now participate with each other as if they lived next-door.
Putting everyone in such close contact is having a tremendous effect on the world, sometimes in unexpected ways. Knowledge and some service work is being exported around the world to those who can do it at the best price to performance ratio. This is raising the living standard in places like India and Eastern Europe. But this takes jobs from people in Western Europe and America, forcing them to work harder to stay in the same place. And although this causes stress for people because they expected to be able to do the same thing for 50 years and retire comfortably, many of those people are learning to adapt and push themselves in new directions that benefit the world and themselves.
Close contact is not always good, though. The Internet is what has made modern terrorists organizations so dangerous, because they can easily raise money, spread disinformation, and attract recruits from an underground bunker where the leaders are safe from attack. As Friedman thinks, people in places like the Middle East use the Internet first to see how good life is in the rest of the world, then feel humiliated that life in their own country is not so good, and then turn to terrorism as a means to ameliorate that humiliation when they feel they cannot positively participate in the flattening of the world. Instead, they seek to unflatten the world to return to a time when they didn't feel humiliated.
These are all the teaser insights I can provide here. Friedman covers a lot of material in his book and says many interesting things about where the world is and where it's going. I highly recommend The World is Flat to anyone concerned about the future of themselves, the world, and humanity.
Posted: Wed - March 29, 2006 at 11:18 AM |
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Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category: 104
Published On: Mar 28, 2007 07:09 PM
Total entries in this category: 104
Published On: Mar 28, 2007 07:09 PM