Global Dominance: Money, War, Love

Money
China is definitely the world’s exporter of manufactured goods, from plastic ware to electronic gadgets, everything seem to be “Made in China”. This is only possible because of the cheap labour, favorable exchange rates, available amenities and technology, and even a relaxed regulation on pollution as the government prize exports over environment. I believe even if China did not have the most powerful economy as stated by the CIA Factbook, “The US has the largest and most technologically powerful economy in the world”, it is able to affect the world at the rate of its economic growth. An interesting article by The Washington Post on the Five myths about China's economy states that the GDP of the United States is $14 trillion, almost 3 times more than China’s $5 trillion economy in goods and services. Although true statistically, I believe that if China continues to have an open perspective and is hungry to boost its economy, it would overtake the US in the near future by judging how it grew from the 1970s till present day. There are other interesting topics on the website debating whether or not China is able to hold Washington hostage in economy negotiation with its vast holding of US treasury bonds. 


We also discussed on the Rising Star and Falling Star theory which I believe hold true in many circumstances. However, there are many other factors that contribute to the rise / fall of a nation which cannot be simply characterized by a few traits. For example, a student may be hardworking, and being hardworking is a trait that contributes to his grades. However he might still get an average grade due to other factors like studying the wrong topics for long hours, or another student who put in less hours studying but is intelligent, a faster learner or has prior knowledge might do better. Countries like Brunei might have the characteristics of a falling star, but they are doing well in terms of GDP per capita due to its oil exports.



War
Session 2 has several guest lecturer, and Dora touched on the topic of "US hegemony and transfer of guided missile to NATO during Cold War". I believe this is true in most societies, especially in the arms race where the United States has been in the lead for so long. In order to be established as a leader, US have to show that it is able to provide the rest of the followers with something they don't have,  the edge in technology that show its superiority. Although it may not be a wise move as the Soviet Union is able to obtain the technology from its spy network, it allows the US to have an influence over NATO. Setting the platform on the NATO countries will aid the US for future benefits. 


Love
The millennium development goal is a topic that branched of the Human Happiness Index (HHI). What is the Human Happiness Index? It's a study on the happiness of human in society with their lives. Personally, my goal in life is to reach out to society. As noble as it might sound, I do believe in this quote that I came across - What you do for yourself dies with you, what you do for others remain immortal". In a way, it would fulfill my quest for immortality, just like the pharaohs of Egypt that lived 5,000 years ago (might be seen more as selfish than noble now!). When I was very much younger I always wanted to have my own nature reserve that preserves and study wild life, and I still want to contribute to society up till now. I guess when people are able to attain their ultimate goals in life, they would be the truly happy people, with the HHI off the charts.


The millennium development goal is also for a noble cause, aiding the human population with basic necessities and closing the gap between the rich and the poor. I find that human has a trait that acts like a double edge sword - competitive. Although human thrived by being competitive, always improving themselves for the better, it also has a side effect which is selfishness. Constantly improving ourselves with the main motive of being better than the rest, we are not willing to share our technology (or land or wealth or anything else) with others, and thus the big gap in society. If only the leaders of the world see themselves as a united human population, with no borders to separate, with no different language and currencies, we would all be able to lay down our arms and channel all the military budget to R&D to improve the human population as a whole and providing aids for our fellow people. The goal is by 2015, i guess we need time extension.


Final Note
I was a little disappointed when our readings were not actively discussed in class. Reading 2 has an interesting insight on human and technology, stating that advancement in technology is only in the area where it is applied for the creation of wealth. For example development of phone, automobile and other machines can not only help our daily lives but also make money in the process. However i disagree with that, even it is more prevalent now in our present society. In the past astronomers and scientist do what they does in the name of science, but now R&D is only in fields where it has the most returns. Our present day, there are still scientist doing research in the name of science, like NASA where huge amount of money is pumped in to study the universe. They would have commercialize or privatize space travel if there were to make money from it. Even launching satellites for commercial use doesn't make NASA a big money spinner, it's mostly funded by the government. Other areas like paleontology and study of plants and animals are also for the quest of knowledge. I still believe that science is not all about money making and commercialized.  

Primordial Soup

I wouldn't consider myself much of a thinker, but I have always been fascinated by Science and Technology. I have always wondered how man ever converted sand to skyscrapers, ore to objects and taking flight without wings. We are, after all just one of the species the animal kingdom. 

I do admit that I have heard about TWC but much of those preconceptions have vanished after this first session. I truly enjoyed the first lesson, accompanied by our professor, Dr. Gurinder Shahi who is both knowledgeable and humorous. I hope the workload is not too heavy considering Prof is a physician with training in molecular biochemistry (if I am not wrong); he is going scrutinize my work. And that’s no rocket science.

There was a video on Shift Happens, and it’s basically statistics on issues around the world, skewing towards technology and human trends. We are indeed living in exponential times, and I have realized that a while ago. Here is an interesting story: I was on vacation in Hong Kong travelling to China to visit the Great Wall, where I was hospitalized for suspect of H1N1 as I had a fever. During my stay, I requested for an English book to read, and the only book they had was an old geography text, published in 1938. One piece of information that really caught my attention is that it says “the world’s population is 3 billion”. Then I wondered to myself, for the past 2 millennia the world’s population grew to 3 billion, and within the next 60 years, it doubled. It is more prevalent in technology, as new ones are built upon the old, doubling every few months. With the current equipment, information sharing is made easier worldwide; giving men the ability gain access to information they would otherwise need time to develop on their own.

There was another video on Gun, Germs and Steel. Immediately I thought of the Spanish Conquistador that swept the natives of America. I played games like Civilization and Age of Empire, and I have always emphasis heavily on research, because I always believe in the saying “knowledge is power” and power is, dominance. Why do white men have so much cargo? I believe that is only applicable to the New Guineans, where they are isolated from new ideas and information. In many ways, trade and war has pushed research to all time high by countries that are connected by their geographic location. New ideas and technologies are shared during trade (reverse engineering for China), and developed in times of war to have the edge over the enemy. In a way the New Guineans didn’t develop much from the past with their closed doors and comfortable lifestyle, getting little of what their land can offer. Without either competition or trade, there are low demands for a change or innovation to produce the “cargo” that white men possessed.

“Technology is easy, people is hard”. I agree that people is hard, however technology is never easy. We have come a long way till today’s technology and it seem easy only because comparatively from the past, technology seem to develop at a faster pace. I believe the phrase is referring to technology is easier to implement as to having people to adopt it. Technology is like fire, which can help or hurt you. People will adopt or abandon it depending on the benefits they get. Even if an organization were to adopt a new technology, change is always difficult with people. To have the employees stepping out of their comfort zone and learn a new skill, doing things out of the normal routine, training, people tend to only see their immediate benefits rather than for the whole organization, the big picture.