Christian Lopez
It is reasonable to say that times are much different
now than they were 500 years ago. It’s just like Friedman said, “Right around
the year 2000, people all over the world started waking up and realizing that
they had more power than ever to go global as individuals”. That being said, it
isn’t farfetched to say that the differences between Globalizations 1.0, 2.0,
and 3.0 are vast. The amount power we hold in the palms of our hands today, the
people of the past couldn’t even begin to imagine, and to add insult to injury,
we don’t appreciate it one bit. It could be this lack of appreciation that the
state of our people seems to go down with every Globalization, and that we
become more unstable with each passing moment.
It seems that with each new thing, or progression, we as
a race get worse and worse. Some people don’t understand that the technology
(internet, computers, etc.) we use to progress and learn can also damage and
hurt us, our children, and future generations- just a little something to turn
over in the mind. My statement may seem firm, but I’m not saying that
technology is a bad thing. However, there are many flaws in all the technology
we use, the most notable being the internet. We post everything on the
internet, from our thoughts to our bank accounts. In a way, it’s a really
unnerving thing, the internet. There are many bad people in the world, and
using the internet, the majority of the can remain anonymous. These are the
money sharks, the ones who will find a way into someone else’s bank account,
and drain it dry, and do it without a trace. Some of these people choose to
take on new aliases by stealing other people’s identities. Even though it may
seem like a precarious cesspool, the internet also does good, as it helps us
learn, progress, and prosper, one small example being that major companies can
hold meetings online with employees across the world. For the stock market, the
internet holds records of stocks. It’s reasonable to say that as much damage as
the internet does, it also does as much good.
Regardless of my rambling, there are differences in the
different Globalizations that must be addressed. 1.0 is the power, strength,
and muscle that someone, usually a country or a kingdom, held, often inspired
by religion as well imperialism. 2.0 was of global integration, such as market,
labor, telephone, fiber optic cables, etc. It was the gateway to the next
Globalization, as it developed the technology that would be needed for it to
prosper. 3.0 was about power to the people, or power to the individual, a more
social Globalization than the others. Through this Globalization, people around
the world truly could begin to connect with each other, be it in the United
States of America, to China, to Russia.
One part in the book
that caught my eye was when Friedman was with the marines at their camp, and he
was wandering around and found the command. As he walked inside, he saw a huge TV,
and on the screen was what appeared to be a high powered camera that was
watching people over in Iraq. One military official said it has made the
military “flat” because it’s giving all these low ranked soldiers a lot of
classified information that in reality they shouldn’t know about, or even speak
of.
Another part was
when the Berlin Wall fell and had holes puncturing it, and it was still a nasty scare between both
sides. Friedman went to Berlin on Dec 1990, for the Secretary of State James A.
Baker III. Granted, if I had the opportunity he had back in the day, visiting
the country would be a surreal experience. Friedman really did think about
things very seriously, as he looked at things and ways that nobody else would
look the ways he did. He brought home some chunks of the Wall home for his
daughter, which is now a piece of significant history. When the wall fell, it
opened so many opportunities. The east that was finally free, and people
finally got what they wanted; freedom. Friedman said, “we could not think
globally about the world when the Berlin Wall was there”. What I believe it meant
to him was that when that Wall fell, things economically started to run the way
they should have ran, as well as communications, marketing, and sociality. To
him, it seemed like the Wall had to come down at one point and when it did, it
made a really big impact on how people thought things through.
Moving on, Netscape
started out being communications company, and from there began to grow, and
eventually grew to a commercial browser in 1994. When Netscape was out, and the
people began to like it, Marc Andreessen, a brilliant computer scientist, said
“If you can afford to pay for it please do so. If not, use it anyway”. His
logic was spot on, because although some people weren’t paying for it and they
were downloading it for free, Andreessen and his company were getting attention,
and profit. Although a majority of his users were downloading the free 3 month
trial, the users liked it, and eventually bought it because of its
universality.
One final example is
through Henry Schacht, a veteran industrialist, who had a company by the name
of Western Electric. This man’s knowledge and the power of the optic cables for
communications he used went well together. They switched the copper they used
for the old communications for fiber optic cables. Evidently, this new system
worked out much better than the old, as eventually, they had laid down so many
fiber optic cables, they were scared they were going to war, which in my humble
opinion seems illogical, as it wasn’t hurting anyone, but that’s simply my
humble opinion. Overall, this new technology seems to have been working out
really well, as it does the job, and then some.
