get your technology stolen - and make a career of it

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:

1. 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]



2. 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?

i matter, and so do you

no, this is not about a new product called iMatter. :) you know what it's like - you get a youtube link in your email or see it on facebook. it is a presentation of interesting facts that you haven't seen in this combination yet, and it gives you pause to think. i want to discuss a perspective popularly used in these videos. in particular, i have a beef with it.

this example is titled "did you know". on the surface it sums up the awesomeness of existence. at the end of it though, it doesn't sit well with me because it leaves me feeling a little overwhelmed and powerless.
well, "did you know" that more than 50% of the statements in this video are either unsubstantiated or just plain wrong? have a look and read on to see what my take is on it.

"did you know"

why do i bother writing about this?

i think the video tries pretty hard to make us feel insignificant, and i think this is misleading. there is much that every one of us can and needs to do. we need motivation to start doing something, not an awe-inspiring argument suggesting that that would be pointless. because we seem powerless, are we now free to feel good about our inaction? no, we need to act, get involved in all of this.
each of us matters. i matter. you matter.

am i being too earnest? isn't this video just harmless fun? advertising works by repetition, and if a point is just repeated enough, we start believing it. i think we need to be more critical with entertainments like this because they do transport a message. we should be careful not to take these opinions on board, because that's what they are.

have you had similar experiences? have you used something for entertainment and later found out that it was much more than that? i'd like to hear of your experiences, email/message me, or comment below if you want.

read on if you are interested in a scene-by-scene discussion of the statements made in the video.

my comments in detail

1. "china will soon be the #1 english speaking country" - that would take 25% of chinese speaking english. while so many might have had english at school, i doubt they speak it with any fluency.
2. 
   Hyderabad street scene
   "india has more honor kids than america has kids" - this statement contains a number of logical fallacies. #1 - IQ and education are not the same thing. #2 - we don't know what 25% means in absolute numbers. sadly, US honors level is likely reached only by the top 5% or so in india (my estimate). after all, fewer than 40% of adolescents in India even attend secondary schools, and illiteracy is still common in rural areas.

are we supposed to feel threatened here? india and china were the first to suffer in this crisis economically and they are still developing educationally as well as industrially. china tries desperately to outgrow rising unemployment caused by urbanisation. india has barely started this process. if you remember the 80s, remember how everyone thought back then that japan was taking over. this was followed by twenty years of japan's problems catching up with it. natural resources, education, and business infrastructure simply can't keep up with 10% growth rates. i have no doubt that they will level off.
both countries need western nations' support to grow their economy and educate their population, without repeating our unsustainable mistakes.

3. "if myspace were a country, it would be 5th largest" - put it in perspective; if the customers of unilever were a country, it would span the entire world. the same goes for most consumer products. does that mean there are many worlds? no. the impact of the internet is still comparatively small. if a youtube video generates 5 million views in a month, it is a blockbuster. in comparison, let's say only half of the american population watch the news twice per day. that's 300 million views per news item - in only one day! in the same vein, by the way, i have no illusions about the number of views i get with what i'm writing here... :)
4. 
   logarithmic graph of inventions
   "we are living in exponential times" - always have been, since the day stone tools were invented. new technologies struggle at first, coexisting with their predecessors, then grow exponentially until they explode into view and finally are everywhere. this was true for agriculture, architechture, book printing, the railways, the automobile, hence also the computer. it's nothing special, and the facts listed later in the video are mere consequences of it.
5. "exabytes of unique information" - mostly in video and audio. that's been around since the 19th century, the only difference now is that it is digitized and hence you can now count the information.
6. "half of what [students] learn learn in their 1st year ... is outdated by the 3rd" - that would be a very poorly designed class. a good lecturer makes sure skills are taught, not technical manuals.
7. "supercomputer with brain power in 2013" - maybe with as many transistors as we have neurons. but the power of the brain is not in the neurons, it's in the network. every neuron is in itself a powerful analogue circuit, and has 10000 connections. we are very far from such capability.

now these are just trying to make me feel inadequate. i can keep up easily, thanks very much, because at the end of the day, technology is for me, not the other way around. if it doesn't suit my needs or is too difficult to operate, i can do without it. history is full of technologies like that. 95% of the data avalanche will be forgotten, the important thing to remember is to ignore it. :) remember that famous singer from the 1890s? neither do i.

8. "X songs were downloaded illegally during this presentation" - whatever. all estimates along the lines of "music industry lost trillions" are bogus anyway because those who download songs either can't afford to buy them or just want to have a listen before actually going out and buying them anyway. in the 30s, records were free, as promotion for live concerts. in the 80s, music videos were free, as promotion for records. today, both are sold, in spite of technology. the music industry should quit whining and come up with a viable business model. and no, they can't keep growing to the point where everyone spends 50% of their income on their ringtone-ready products, there are other things in life.

as a scientist, i know that, for all the available computing power, we still struggle to understand some of the most basic processes in nature, since we lack even more computing power, and smart ways to use it. so bring on the "human brain simulation", i might actually employ it for something useful.
as a layman, i object to the assumption that other countries will take over. remember trade for mutual benefit? everyone can do better in the future, if things are done right. there is no reason to feel threatened - unless you want to rule unilaterally, that is.