Slashdot Mirror
How Technology Promotes World Peace
Hugh Pickens writes "Ayesha & Parag Khanna write in the Atlantic that there are many important differences between the U.S.-China relationship of today and the U.S.-Soviet relationship before the outbreak of the Cold War. One is that the U.S. and China are deeply intertwined through geo-economic interdependence, and the rapid and global diffusion of technology is accelerating these changes. 'As the global economy has become more integrated, states have greater interest in cooperating and less interest in conflict, which can lead to a kind of mutually assured economic destruction,' write the Khanna. 'If military power is inherently competitive — the stronger your army and the weaker your neighbor's, the more powerful you become — then economic power is more cooperative. After all, much of America's power today is economic, but that power would decrease if China's economy collapses.' This economic inter-dependence, the theory goes, promotes peace, but technological power is also cooperative in this way, perhaps even more so. For example, medical research crosses borders, as do the pharmaceuticals or treatments that research can produce. China can increase its power by developing better solar panels — perhaps in part by building on foreign technologies — then turn around and sell them to other high-energy-consuming states, making us all better off. Like economics, technology doesn't just increase cooperation, it is the cooperation. 'The increasingly integrated global system is shaping the states within it, much as individual powers shape the system. The question is thus not who controls technology, but the way in which we develop, guide, and control it collectively.'"
I am not a luddite, but I still gotta say this ...
The technologies that we have today have given us a lot of good things
It has made our lives "better", in the sense that a lot of diseases that previously can kill us, nowadays are not that lethal anymore
But, the consequence is that the world human population has exploded
20 years ago, there were less than 5 Billion people
Now, 7 Billion people, and, as we speak, the figure keeps going up and up
Our planet simply can't support it
Either we human completely depleted the planet and we die off - and in the process a lot of other plants and animals wiped off as well,
Or ...
There will be another full scale global war, that ends up cutting down the human population to more manageable size
In other words, the "world peace" that we have today is but only an illusion - our technologies are delaying the what will have to come, ultimately
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The same type of arguments circulated before WWI. Surely, in a modern, globalized world where German and English bankers could both own shares in Argentinian railroads, and where British citizens bought German paints and medicines, and Germans bought licences for British patented manufacturing, war could never break out.
Comments, A_Lee
Sorry, doesn't work like that anymore.
US is waging war with states they don't care about, economically: Afghanistan, Iraq. They would happily go after North Korea and most North African states are free game too. They're not getting anything vital out of there.
China is another matter. Imagine the US waging war against China: that would lead to total destruction. First all consumers would complain that they would not be able to buy clothes, DVD players, and many other manufactured goods, as the supply from China would stop and the US doesn't have their own manufacturing anymore. Soon after the US military would come to a grinding halt due to the lack of supply of spare parts for their weapons systems, parts that are also more and more made in China.
The US is at least as dependent on Chinese manufacturers as the Chinese manufacturers are dependent on US buyers. They can't survive without one another. China may even have the best chance of survival in such a war scenario, because at least they can produce the goods they need themselves...