The Future of Globalization

Since the middle of the 20th century, the globalization of the world economy has been creeping onto the world stage. It began with corporations outsourcing low-skill jobs to poorer countries such as India and Bangladesh, and slowly escalated to outsourcing technical engineering and design work as well. Today, Apple outsources the vast majority of it’s work, and doesn’t feel those jobs are coming back. There simply aren’t enough qualified people in the USA, whereas rapidly developing countries in the far east are teeming with technically skilled workers, as well as a massive workforce of low-skill laborers. Though globalization has allowed the world as a whole to be far more productive, it is often criticized because of the imbalance it causes. It is not unheard of for employees doing outsourced work to be forced to work 20 hour shifts, while earning less in a day than most Americans earn in an hour.

But technology is going to change that.

In the last decade, the world has seen the explosion of  media facilitating collaboration and group-forming. Nearly anyone in the world can start a blog, connect to social media such as Twitter and Facebook, work together on Google Docs, share videos on YouTube, or all of the above.

At the same time.

With all their friends.

During the last earthquake in China, news stations caught first wind of the event via social media. Chinese citizens subsequently leveraged that same media to put pressure on the government for not building Chinese schools up to code, thus allowing the deaths of so many Chinese children. A million individuals complaining alone are no threat to government or business, but when they all use modern technology to express their complaints together, suddenly their millions of voices become one thundering roar. When individuals who are most hurt by globalization discover this voice, the world will change. Reform will occur, and globalization will either fall apart, or begin to balance itself out.

I’m a Mormon

My name is Ben Draut. I’m an undergraduate computer science student, I love playing racquetball, and I’m a Mormon. Heard something like that before? Almost three years ago, the LDS church launched a new media campaign in connection with mormon.org in which hundreds of individuals were interviewed and recorded, giving short snippets like the one above. Thanks to the ever increasing ubiquity of technology and social media in our lives, the LDS church has been able to further expand its already impressive missionary efforts, as have other groups. Technology is changing the lives of individuals in unprecedented ways, not the least of which is by strengthening their faith in a God that so many have chosen to distrust.

Progressive Programming

The open source paradigm, though imperfect, has proven itself repeatedly to be a feasible development model for major software projects. Despite opposition and quiet failures, it continues to grow in popularity in the software world, boasting a passionate community and freedom from unnecessary bureaucracy. With nearly Utopian success stories, it’s difficult to imagine a project that wouldn’t succeed in a healthy open source environment. The advent of services such as sourceforge and github only add momentum to the open source movement, further pushing the software world in that direction. As more skilled and passionate individuals enter the industry, open source projects will continue to multiply and grow, rendering their commercial counterparts obsolete.

Using Technology to Serve

I used to struggle when considering career paths. I both enjoyed and excelled in technical subjects, but also had a strong desire to contribute somehow to the improvement of mankind, to do something significant. The overlap seemed slight. As a Latter-Day Saint, I believe that we, here in mortality, may perform vital ordinances, such as baptism, for our deceased ancestors; thus enabling them to receive blessings they were denied while living. The LDS FamilySearch system provides the scaffolding for this vicarious work, which allows members of the church to collaboratively discover and organize their ancestry prior to performing ordinances on their behalf. As my awareness of the these services grew, so did my interest in putting my skills to use toward them. I believe that providence inspired the development of many technologies in part to provide the opportunity to receive these ordinances to all of his children. I am thrilled at the thought of utilizing the skills I have developed to further what I believe to be of eternal significance.

Patents: Protection vs. Prevention

The increase of patent-related lawsuits in recent years has led to debate over whether or not patents are actually stifling creativity and preventing innovation, rather than serving their original purpose of protecting it. They ought to be done away with. Patents allow people to claim ownership of an idea, and prevent others from infringing on the profits they make using that idea. In principle, this sounds appealing; however, it quickly deteriorates into a childish argument over who thought this or thought that first so as to enable one party to be secure enough to be lazy. Inventions or other artistic creations can be owned (copyright), but ideas cannot be. If patents were abolished, individuals or businesses would have to improve the quality of their products as well as their service in order to garner customers, rather than customers having to default to the only low-quality option who will sue anyone that tries to compete.