Sunday, 25 November 2012

IT & Globalisation Part 2

As a continuation from the previous post, this post will discussed about the disadvantages of Information Technology (IT) and Globalisation. Although the IT itself does not really bring any negative value or disadvantage but it is the seed that stimulate the spawn of the Globalisation Era. Before begin discussing, it is important to state that the reason this topic is being separated into two posts. There maybe some speculation reasoning but the real honest reason is to help the readers understand this topic from a different and wider perspective. This is because by viewing an issue from many angles should help the readers to answer the question whether all these really do worth their price. It is important to not just view a story from one point but please search for the whole truth and decide for yourself. It is sad to see people just keep on being ignorant and accept what are being told to them without any effort to justify the truth. OK, sorry for the touching moment. Back to the discussion, globalisation too has it dark sides for those who do not know.

Globalization (Source: Google)

One of them is the usage of Earth resources. According to many sources, the rate in which the human is using the Earth resources has increase dramatically since the Globalisation Era. Many experts explained this situation as an unsustainable usage of resources. This is because as the human life become more complex with the increase in demand for all type of things and the dependability to machinery or technology, the rate in which we use our resources also increase in order to support those increases. This issue is becoming more and more common in nowadays media and in particular is about oil. Oil is one of many resources that the Earth provides to us but it is not infinite. The fluctuation in oil price is a direct result of the disability to produce enough oil that can cater the ever increasing demand. Below is a graph that illustrate the growing in energy usage throughout history while considering population growth.

Graph of Energy Usage According to Year and Population (Source: ourfiniteworld)

Besides that, the increase in the usage of Earth resources also bring another side effect of globalisation which is pollution. As the rate in which we burned our fossil fuel increase, so does the amount of harmful gas emissions. This situation get worse as more and more trees are being cut for various purposes because it reduce the Earth capabilities to neutralize or minimize the effects from the pollution. This situation is also becoming more and more common in the nowadays media such as about global warming. Thus, this creates an environment that in a way even hostile to life-forms such as in Chernobyl where the radiation level is too high or in many contaminate rivers around the world where the water is not safe anymore.

Some people who are optimists believe that human can learn from this mistake because they believe that people will only appreciate things around them when it is gone. It is unfortunately true that human nature works that way but it is also important to understand the severity of the problem when the environment is gone because we cannot live without a sustainable environment. This is not just a case of the environment, the Earth resources are also important for human survival. Some may argue that resources such as for generating electricity are not essential to human life but what about the supply of water and food or even worse air. Human and all life-forms cannot possibly survive without those resources. 

Globalization II: The Downside (Source: Youtube)

Furthermore, besides all the negative effects on the environment, globalisation also has change our social life as well. With the development of globalisation, a new social system has emerge. This new social system is known as individualism. Before globalisation, people tend to work and thrive as a community but now people tend to work and socialize as an individual. However, this does not essentially mean a bad thing because this way people gain more freedom and individual rights but there is still a bad side to this social system. One example is in the family organization where nowadays couples or husbands and wives are priortizing their own needs or ideas over the commitment of sharing together. It is believe that this is one of the reason to why the divorce rate is very high especially in the more globalized part of the world such as the First World Country. Thus proving the point that even in a good decision, there is still some bad effects. It is up to us to decide whether it is really worth it or not.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity"
Albert Einstein

Monday, 5 November 2012

IT & Globalisation Part 1

Most of us especially Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z in particular do not really know about the significance changes that the Information Technology really has brought to our life. This is because most people do not really try to understand how the world really was before the coming of Information Age and Globalisation Era. The beginning of the Information Age can be traced after the Industrial Revolution in Europe took place in the 18th Century. In order to really understand the present situation, we must explore the past. Please understand that before the Industrial Revolution, the average life-expectancy of a human being is only around 40 years which is only half of today and about 80 percent of the total human population are engaging in agriculture whereas in comparison to today, only around 8 percent to 10 percent of human population work in agriculture. These alone should give us the impression of how different our life have change.

Globalisation (Source: Google)

This different is cause by the different in the level of technology available in the period. In the past, about 80 percent of the population are needed to wok in agriculture in order to support the minor 20 percent. However, with technological innovation, less people are needed as machines are used to create a much more productive, effective and efficient agriculture. This has allow more people to wok in other sectors such as manufacturing. Besides that, the technological innovation in the early 1800's has also allow human to fight diseases and this is also supported by the increase in agriculture production where this mean that more people can eat sufficient food. Thus, this increase the life-expectancy dramatically and supported by the reduction childbirth fatality cause the exponential increase in human population such as shown in the graph below.

Graph of Population Growth Throughout History (Source: UN)

This increase in human population increase the demand for innovation even further as every country is struggling to meet the needs of the ever growing population of their countries and the challenges in the global condition. This creates a situation in the 18th Century where the countries particularly European nations are competing with each others in order to benefits from the new industrial and globalised world. This trend continues until the 20th Century with Japan and the United States of America (USA) entering the competition and the human population grow to more than 3 billion people.

Such as stated before, the increase in human population is a direct result of the improvement in the technological innovation and it is this growth that catalyze the spur in the R&D of Information Technology (IT). Great Britain for example in the late 19th Century has colonies in Canada, India, Malaya, Australia and New Zealand. This creates the need for Great Britain to establish a communicative system to interact with their representatives in their respective colonies and it is this need that allow the innovation of telegram and Morse Code. These systems are then even further developed to create an even more efficient communication network and it will later gives birth to the internet. 

Globalization I: The Upside (Source: Youtube)

Exclusively, IT and Globalisation Era has allow human beings to increase the quality of life very significantly compared to before where our life-expectancy have double, less fatality in childbirth, healthy population, more food supply and vast market availability. Therefore, it is without doubt that technological innovation and globalisation have help to support and make our life easier and healthier but it do come with consequences and this will be discussed in the next post.

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention"
Plato