August 2, 2008
-
What Will We Probably Do?
This is a sort of open-ended Socrates Cafe question for this week.
There is no doubt that the world will continue its present direction of change and that these changes will impact us all.
I can make an educated guess about the nature of the changes:
1. As world-wide communication has so drastically improved, more and more of us know more and more of the entire world's condition faster and faster.
2. Part of this globalization of communication has led to a rising understanding and adoption of universal basic values.
3. These basic values tend to call for more and more global responsibility and closer associations among nations.
4. The UN and its agencies are, for example, much stronger and more active than any previous international association.
5. There seems to be rising concern about the collective future of the world and more willingness to try to direct changes in a number of areas such as environment, economics and to some extent national governments.
6. There is a rising group of objectors to these movements who will not give in to the inevitable globalization quietly - the Arab world is the obvious example here.
7. The direction and movement of change is inevitable but adjustable - it corrects itself continuously.Is this a good thing?
Comments (5)
Hmmmm... I've linked you
Uhm... Socrates, you are always so fast to link Tychecat's posts!!
I think that globalization is fake. Because it seems to me that the control of economy is always in the same hands, which makes better money if his products are sold worldwide and if there is protectionism of his business to competition. That's what's happening. Wars to protect Western economies but world organization to allow Western economies to expand allover the world.
About informations... mmmh... do you really know what's going on in India, or in the middle east? I try to get informed everyday, but i see that i cannot!
Dario, Stop that!
It took me at least two minutes to link this. I had to change hats
hmm. i think globalization in general leads to a better future (more information and such is always good), but in the sense of our current world affairs (as in, going down the collective toilet) i don't think its so hot anymore. I would imagine that it will basically lead to more harm done (my economy goes down, you hear about it and your economy goes down- next thing you know we've sent the world into depression). In fact american stocks came crashing down quite a bit awhile ago and our saving grace was that the chinese and japanese markets went up a bunch the next day and our investors took note and bought more. i see more of the same only in the negative light.
There are negative aspects to globalization. Mostly these negative points are the fact that humans are in uncharted waters and the unknown is always frightening, but this is hardly an excuse to hinder the process or discourage it. If humans are to continue to develop they must do so in a way that stresses the similarities of their species and not the differences of their cultures. But humans will never live as one as long as the world population does not all know a common language.