TAIMUN 12th Press 2014

 

   I remember reading through Ray Bradbury’s short story: The Pedestrian. Images of frightening, undesirable qualities of a dystopia were portrayed in front of my eyes, leaving a lasting sensation of chaos. If we ought to picture what chaos looks like, maybe you will come up with numerous casualties that are lying on the grounds from the devastating warfare in historic novels or the dehumanized, bloodlust Macbeth that killed according to his will. However, this type of chaos was not what Bradbury wanted to convey to the readers, instead it was showing how the ubiquity of televisions drove the society to a cataclysmic decline in the value of our society.

 

     In the year 1951, when technology was not advanced yet, where most countries began to experience modern economic growth, Bradbury’s literary works suggested that technological advancement might end up blowing our whole society up. Truly, I would claim that through creative destruction from the non-stop innovation of our society, we have paid a great deal of opportunity cost for the condition we have right now. It is logical to weigh both sides of the pros and cons in order to determine its worthiness. We probably would doubt that if the current dominant species of our world, Homo sapiens, through all this progress would have the evolutionary advantage or not.

 

     Going for a little more background, we can see that our world has changed drastically in the most recent decade. Take the simplest example, pictures and videos. When I take out my childhood picture and compare it to the over 20 megapixels high quality digital photos we have now, I saw a huge difference. But think about this, if you had a time machine from the renowned Doraemon, would you like to go back in time and live in the time once again? Will you redo some stuff to make something better? The results may vary people from people depending on your current living standards and your personal beliefs. But here's the real issue: over a few decades difference, how have we progressed? Did will create a better-off society?

 

     Since culture existed, we have been using a resource really extensively. Yes, it is our environment. We cannot ever put a value to our Mother Nature. People usually say that we have something so called external costs from our production. And yes, producers do take the environment as for granted, thus we have to care about the environmental issues such as the overwhelming pollution that has never been really solved at any point since the industrial revolution. Take the Kyoto Protocol for example, it has been a summit for emphasis for the protection of our world, yet the economic powerhouses of our world do not merge consensus on lowering carbon gas emission levels. But the issue all comes back to thinking that did they even stress the vitalness of long term conditions?

 

     If we think about the most productive invention in these few years, probably it is the birth of high quality smart phones. Let’s take a look at how the raw materials were obtained. Congo, although possessing eighty percent of the world’s Coltan resource, they have been using these minerals for horrifically violent wars since the mid-1990s. These wars have been continuing as the price of Coltan increases due to the rising demand from foreign electronic productions. The conflict causes poverty due to redirecting the expenditures for military protection rather than purchasing food. 5 million of these people in Kinshasa have died due to the conflict. In the Eastern Congo mining center Goma, we perceive improved working conditions in the mining hills but still requiring soldiers around for protection. In my perspective, electronic device companies need to take great responsibility on keeping rebels out and declare usage of conflict minerals. Using deductive reasoning, the short-term interest of modern day companies has raised the fundamental problems we have today.

 

     Take something about stagnant policy making into consideration. The reason why we have today’s economically improved countries is mainly due to a successful start in the 1950 modern economic growth period. And if you missed this period, basically, to some extend you are way behind. Fortunately, we have a World Bank in our world which goal is to support developing countries in funding their basic infrastructure assets to ensure long term sustainability. In some way, you might think this is an optimistic outcome, but you probably forgot about dependency rates. For every control that has asked for aid since the 1900s, their need of aid has not yet gone through a diminishing rate, but on the other hand, it is increasing as time goes on. The dependency comes from a lack of incentive to work, which ties to the psychological aspect. Another thing is that there is a high percentage of politically unstable countries that demand aid, these financial support don’t go to the people’s hands; however, to the governments. Without any support from the global community, will these countries have the ability to survive?

 

     It all comes back not to international issues, but to domestic, intranational issues. Consider the casualties and civilians that are affected by the government’s decision. The people do not interfere in politics but to do their job in order to sustain the country’s economy - or say to have a living. Survival is why humans continue to work for a living, and that creates the evolutionary advantage. But if our globe turns bad, “HOW are we supposed to live”?

 

     At this point probably you’d be thinking about how to solve the problems in our world. Two things come to my mind: Sustainability and a Conscience. I believe these two most fundamental “needs” of our society is not yet established. The ultimate reason on why we have a bunch of issues in our world, to my point at least is due to our self-interest goal of a sole win. Economists might say that over time we have increased our labor productivity over time and thus contribute to the rise of per capita income. The incentive is what pushes the economy to its perfection. But if each and every single country, or let’s just say person, takes the same action and continues to pursue their own interest without considering the righteousness, it would be hard to think how our world is going to be in a few decades, or even years. I’d say whatever value we put worth to opportunity costs, we are ultimately underestimating it. It is how to sustain the environment while pursuing growth that will bring a long term success. Also, the last point is having a conscience. It is the concept of knowing when to go for it and when to say no. The result of the two responses leads the two diverse ends. Our decision determines the fate of our future for sure.

 

     To be honest, it is just hard to really draw an end to this article. There is just too much to say.