we love technology. we use it every day to travel, communicate, live, eat, drink, have a nice life. but clouds are brewing over our consumer paradise. aren't we are all noticing that more and more of the products we hold in our hands are made in fewer and fewer countries? turn over any object in your home, how many have "made in china" printed on their back? there is much concern in the west that this means that one day we will no longer be able to compete and lose our jobs. i am more optimistic than that, and here is why:
so it seems that thanks to competition, the salt in the soup of capitalism, be it fair or unfair, you have a career. don't worry about technology passing hands. technology that exists is yesterday's technology that you just gave to your employer. it's the technology in your head and short time to market that gives you your livelihood, if you play it right. maybe one day, you will invent "amazing new product X" out of a combination of existing technologies that no-one else had the imagination and creativity to combine. will it be useful? YES! will the owners of those technologies want a piece of the pie? sure, but let your lawyers work out how to share the proceeds. they have families to feed, too. at the end of the day, all the bickering in the media is about which multinational corporation makes more money. do you care? or do you care about division of labor giving you the best product at the best price, and competition moving the market ever forward to give you new, amazing possibilities to enhance your life every day? and, who knows, maybe, just maybe, lift untold millions of people up to a standard of living that is enjoyable rather than the struggle they currently endure?
[that said, you should steer well clear of actually helping that natural process of dissemination of technology, as that would make you have negative value to your employer and you would be out of a career before you could even consider the legal implications. no, this post is not a call for action, it is to make you realize that you have nothing to worry about.]
UPDATE: for an interesting u-turn on the china blame game, check out this TIME article from Jan 2010 blaming foreign investors for american bankers' lack of discipline and, on the opposite end, this recent TIME article saying that china is doing what anyone would do. after all, if your trade balance is doing just fine, is your currency really that undervalued?
- what many forget is that this is nothing new. the ancient romans loved to rant about how their jobs were taken away by the cheap labor in persia...
currently, aided by smart joint-venture laws, it is china that is absorbing a lot of technology from the west.
does that make it ok to point the finger? well, only recently, way into the 20th century, the US loved to steal technology from germany (steel manufacturing, machines, chemistry, pharmacology [aspirin], or more recently, wind turbines). in the late 19th century, germany stole technology from britain (steam engine, steel, railroad) and finally, from the 14th up until about the 18th century, all europe just loved to steal technology from the americas, india and... china (agriculture, drugs, weaving, silk, porcelain, explosives). all civilizations had jobs and technology "stolen" from them at some time. was it really that which made people suffer? or was it perhaps bigger socioeconoic issues, industrialization, and the willingness of governments to go to war? in spite of this, did the world's civilization really stop? or did it instead move inexorably ever forward?
want to buy one? yeah, didn't think so.
[froogle.google.com] - will the world end or will we just adapt, innovate, and live happily ever after? as an educated, intelligent individual, do you want to invent once, then watch while your employer lazily makes a ton of cash with your invention? well, it won't happen, and that's unavoidable, if you like it or not. instead, you will need to continue innovating feverishly to stay ahead. and that's what makes your employer need you, that's what makes your career.
innovation.
[netflix.com]
so it seems that thanks to competition, the salt in the soup of capitalism, be it fair or unfair, you have a career. don't worry about technology passing hands. technology that exists is yesterday's technology that you just gave to your employer. it's the technology in your head and short time to market that gives you your livelihood, if you play it right. maybe one day, you will invent "amazing new product X" out of a combination of existing technologies that no-one else had the imagination and creativity to combine. will it be useful? YES! will the owners of those technologies want a piece of the pie? sure, but let your lawyers work out how to share the proceeds. they have families to feed, too. at the end of the day, all the bickering in the media is about which multinational corporation makes more money. do you care? or do you care about division of labor giving you the best product at the best price, and competition moving the market ever forward to give you new, amazing possibilities to enhance your life every day? and, who knows, maybe, just maybe, lift untold millions of people up to a standard of living that is enjoyable rather than the struggle they currently endure?
[that said, you should steer well clear of actually helping that natural process of dissemination of technology, as that would make you have negative value to your employer and you would be out of a career before you could even consider the legal implications. no, this post is not a call for action, it is to make you realize that you have nothing to worry about.]
UPDATE: for an interesting u-turn on the china blame game, check out this TIME article from Jan 2010 blaming foreign investors for american bankers' lack of discipline and, on the opposite end, this recent TIME article saying that china is doing what anyone would do. after all, if your trade balance is doing just fine, is your currency really that undervalued?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment