Unit 9

            The process used today to make a Dell Computer came as quite a shock to me when I first read it.   Not only are multiple countries involved in each individual part that goes into the complex machine, but also they are all collaborating on a seemingly minute-to-minute basis to “make just-in-time deliveries of goods and services…(Friedman 587)” Once an order is placed Dell sends the order specifics to one of its suppliers. (They have multiple suppliers simply for backup, so they are never telling a customer they cannot meet their demands.)  Once their orders are sent within a few short hours parts are delivered and the computers can then be pieced together.  Once it is one whole component the programs recommended by the buyer are loaded onto the computer, and it is finally shipped off for final delivery.  Needless to say the process of making a Dell laptop is the perfect example of how flat the world really has become.  Pieces of each country are shipped to a common destination (because of the new ways of simple, easy communication) and combined to make a wonderful machine, which will allow more opportunity to communicate and flatten the world out: one Dell laptop at a time. 

Al-Qaeda:  I find it difficult to relate to a country such as Al-Qaeda.  From this week’s reading I have come to learn that the only way to gain an understanding of the culture and the people there is to think of the opposite of America.  I say this for many reasons, however, mainly because we have freedom of thought and their minds are behind bars; this seems to bring them comfort because that is all they have ever known.  They have no opportunity to freely create new ideas and interpret literature, art, and other means of communication because their government is so afraid if their people have the ability to get outside of the box they will be overpowered.  Their culture is such that new ideas are unwelcome.  They strive to live in the 17^th century while everyone around them has progressed forward at such a staggering rate; the only way to live is by depending on others new ideas, just what al-Qaeda has been avoiding, for its citizens anyways.  The rulers of al-Qaeda have creepily manipulated the concept of supply chaining.  They “use the Internet-not only for easy, cheap, global command and control but, even more important, as a global megaphone to radiate ideas (Friedman 598).”  The fear they have placed in Americans alone has come solely from their use of the Internet.  The videos, images, and messages they post are full of threats and disturbing scenes.  What was once simply entertainment you could find only in a movie theater is now real-life news media coming to us live from unsettling networks such as al-Qaeda. 

If you ponder the true, deeper purpose of government it would be to provide a better life for the people-this notion comes from the mind of a citizen.  From a govern mentalist it would simply be to provide life for the people.  Not necessarily ‘better’ life, just life.  In order to fulfill their purpose, from their perspective, all they need to do is create jobs.  Rather than using the natural talents of the citizens, they use the natural resources they have been given.  This doesn’t sound too bad until we realize that, “(t)hey can use oil money to monopolize all the instruments of power-army, police, and intelligence-and never have to introduce real transparency or power sharing.”  Whenever there is no pressure to innovate there is no development.  Just as a group of seventh-graders would play outside at recess all day if they were not pressured by a teacher to stay in and develop their young minds, communities that are not challenged to meet the demands of a developing world would simply do the same old jobs they were required to do since they were teenagers.  Where there is challenge there is growth, and where there is growth there is success.