Finally! He admits that he embellished many of the flatteners of the new contemporary world. He has been also contradicting himself throughout the whole book! That's what you get for writing a gazillion page book. Anyways as you all know Friedman admits that the world is not flat, and that he thinks of himself as a technological determinist (Whatever that is). He finally says that everybody cannot embrace this new world, when yet he said some 3 billion people are now waking up. But I will give him some respect for playing the devil's advocate on himself. You do need to show the pros and con's to every situation. In this chapter he tells of some of the reasons why flattening could go wrong.
The section of the world that will have a hard time coming about is the "too sick" people. Which is the poor in the developing nations. This is common sense of course. Diseases like malaria and AIDS are to rampant in these countries and there is no support on how to prevent this pandemic. One bad feature about this is because of a flattening world, these diseases could spread a whole lot faster and we would have another plague on our hands.
The second group of people is the "too disempowered", or also known as the half-flat people. These are lower class citizens and people in ravished nations. Friedman talks about trying to improve local govt, infrastructures, and education. Also their lack of opportunity to be apart of this new world. Places that have communist leaders and dictators is a great example of this. Look at Cuba and Castro, having the government control every move you make. Cuba could be a thriving country even with its small size.
One of the biggest set backs to me is terrorism, which Friedman hits on a little bit. The Arab-Muslim world today caused so many barriers with their violent Islamist fringe. Groups like al-Qaeda and their attacks on 9/11 have brought tighter security measures and built protectionist walls. Americans don't want to do business with people that want to kill us or who we are at war with. Who really wants to go to a business meeting or work over in the Middle East. Its to bad too, because places like Dubai are one of the fastest growing nations in the world.
The section of the world that will have a hard time coming about is the "too sick" people. Which is the poor in the developing nations. This is common sense of course. Diseases like malaria and AIDS are to rampant in these countries and there is no support on how to prevent this pandemic. One bad feature about this is because of a flattening world, these diseases could spread a whole lot faster and we would have another plague on our hands.
The second group of people is the "too disempowered", or also known as the half-flat people. These are lower class citizens and people in ravished nations. Friedman talks about trying to improve local govt, infrastructures, and education. Also their lack of opportunity to be apart of this new world. Places that have communist leaders and dictators is a great example of this. Look at Cuba and Castro, having the government control every move you make. Cuba could be a thriving country even with its small size.
One of the biggest set backs to me is terrorism, which Friedman hits on a little bit. The Arab-Muslim world today caused so many barriers with their violent Islamist fringe. Groups like al-Qaeda and their attacks on 9/11 have brought tighter security measures and built protectionist walls. Americans don't want to do business with people that want to kill us or who we are at war with. Who really wants to go to a business meeting or work over in the Middle East. Its to bad too, because places like Dubai are one of the fastest growing nations in the world.
3 comments:
Yes, 3 billion people are just waking up to the flat world, but there are 3 billion more people that live on less than $2 a day. (Really, I’m not making that up). You could be right, but from MY understanding of reading this chapter, I gathered that he did not embellish any of the 10 flatteners. I felt that his statistics and experiences were well documented and backed up. I think what Friedman said in the book was that he titled the “book “The World Is Flat” to draw attention to this flattening and its quickening pace because I think it is the single most important trend in the world today.” The single, most important trend today deserves a little “embellishing.” But please do tell me legitimate examples of how he has been a hypocrite, because maybe I will then need to reread the chapter to gather the information that I must have missed in my initial reading.
Yea, the title for this book is fake because it is not true for all. Or he should have said "The world is flat... for some people." He got me thinking that he was pretty much right, and just when he changed my opion almost, reality hit again and there is no way the world will be flat for everyone. Think about the people starving in Africa. They are sadly not really connected to the outside world. The only "flattness" they benefit from is from a few good people who come to help them and feed them. However, how will they be a part of the "flat world" if they are so far behind on technology? I do not think that this will ever be possible to acheive..
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