The World is Scary
I found myself caught with nothing to read and no laptop juice yesterday afternoon during an airport delay. After getting bored with Twittering and Facebooking from my Curve, I went in search of a book.
It never ceases to amaze me how much vapidity is for sale in airport newsstands, but (insider tip) SJC has something that passes for a bookstore way down at the end near A10, and, choosing among slim pickings, I came up with a copy of The World is Flat, which I’ve heard much of, had never read, and seems to be in release 3.0.
So far, the thesis is interestingly woven if unsurprising. But it’s the little details that scare me — Indian citizens referring to getting good jobs “at a multinational”, and then attending “accent neutralization class” to learn how to articulate their t’s poorly in order to sound less alien to americans.
Here’s another choice passage:
When you look around at 24/7’s call center, you see that all the computers are running Microsoft Windows. The chips are designed by Intel. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke.
August 2nd, 2007 09:52
Does this scare you because you do not think it is sustainable?
Alex
August 2nd, 2007 10:04
Thanks for challenging the point. What I find scary is not the issue of economic sustainability, but rather the cultural hegemony of “multinationals” and the imposition of banality over distinctive places and identities. The idea that a person in India could help my child with her homework is very exciting to me and seems like an opportunity to create cultural engagement - why would I want a tutor to fake a midwestern American accent and change her name from Deepa to Debbie?
When I think about what has always excited me about the internet, it’s the idea of opening powerful tools and markets up to the individual and the distinct. So anyone on ebay or craiglist can reach the entire internet with their unique offer. Any programmer can build on widely accepted standards and platforms (etc. and other variations of the long-tail theme). “Maker” culture has been completely reborn as a consequence of the distribution now available, and, imho, is having a great impact on culture; there has been a similar renaissance in personal expression and individuality empowered by the MySpaces and Facebooks of the world.
But serving water bottled by Coke to workers taking accent neutralization classes in Bangalore, while presumably efficient from a consolidated supply chain standpoint, bugs me - it is the opposite of Etsy.