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Or do you think the trend will eventually stop or even reverse? The Internet may connect us all in theory, but I don't think it will ever completely homogenize culture, most people still don't travel that much and focus on their local area more than anything.
The Internet is a tool that different cultures utilize in their own subtly different way. Let's use Facebook as an example. Among white Americans, people normally use their real names, or their real first name and an initial (or a fake last name). Black American users often insert a creatively-spelled adjective or noun or phrase into their names, like "Dewayne swaggggtastic Williams". The Mexican friends I have on Facebook tend to use fake names, or names without the original spelling. One friend of mine, whose first name on Facebook is intentionally misspelled, told me this is (partly) due to fear of kidnapping. It's rare to see a full Mexican name (two first names, two last names) on Facebook, so you might see "LuZZiaa Hdez". Another uses her nickname and the initials of the university she went to.
Or do you think the trend will eventually stop or even reverse? The Internet may connect us all in theory, but I don't think it will ever completely homogenize culture, most people still don't travel that much and focus on their local area more than anything.
Not forever, but for the next 20-50 years or so, globalization will continue to make everyplace somewhat the same, having a gas-powered consumer culture taken straight from the board rooms of the largest international corporations.
But then due to resource scarcity, and other threats to this way of life, we will return to a more local, provincial way of life. It will utimately be a good thing but there will be alot of pain along the way.
Globalization will go on until the people of the world recognize that they are trying to emulate a failed model, and then even more military force will be necessary in order to enforce globalization, and the world will again break apart into distinct and probably warring factions. unless a superpower enforces a police autocracy.
Economic wealth cannot grow forever for everyone. The luxury lifestyle of the rich is only possible when low-wage workers produce the goods and services. This truth will soon become obvious. If there is an increase in the "middle class", that can only be accomplished by contracting the upper class and the lower class. Which means the oligarchy will be in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and the army of grunt workers will become too small to reach required productivity.
I'll give it a few more years, until we start seeing scarcity of oil and water and you start seeing a movement away from globalization and back towards nationalism again.
My expectation is that we are all moving towards a mediocre middle (has happened before in human history in expanding empires on scales smaller than global): those of the countries of early industrialization downwards, those of the emerging countries upwards, meeting at an average standard of living that is very probably below the peak enjoyed by the average in the countries of early industrialization in, say, the 1990s-early 2000s.
I also agree with others that potential disruptive factors could come to the fore, such as water, food and energy shortages, war, etc.
The main constraint is energy.
jtur88 makes a great post, read it carefully. In my view, that potentially failing model is US-style consumer-oriented suburbia, currently wobbling and its future is swinging in the balance, as the saying goes. I see others trying to emulate it, and they may be in for a nasty surprise.
Quote:
jtur88 Globalization will go on until the people of the world recognize that they are trying to emulate a failed model, and then even more military force will be necessary in order to enforce globalization, and the world will again break apart into distinct and probably warring factions, unless a superpower enforces a police autocracy.
Economic wealth cannot grow forever for everyone. The luxury lifestyle of the rich is only possible when low-wage workers produce the goods and services. This truth will soon become obvious. If there is an increase in the "middle class", that can only be accomplished by contracting the upper class and the lower class. Which means the oligarchy will be in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and the army of grunt workers will become too small to reach required productivity.
For those who can, probably the best strategy is to hedge both global and local investing in productive enterprises and real assets in urban environments close to local agriculture.
You put the issue in cultural terms. To answer your question directly, then, to be sure the world still offers cultural differences that indeed make life on this planet that much more meaningful, if it is meaningful, and I hope and expect those differences to continue in any case. The question then is degree of difference and balance between harmony and conflict.
The Internet is a tool that different cultures utilize in their own subtly different way. Let's use Facebook as an example. Among white Americans, people normally use their real names, or their real first name and an initial (or a fake last name). Black American users often insert a creatively-spelled adjective or noun or phrase into their names, like "Dewayne swaggggtastic Williams". The Mexican friends I have on Facebook tend to use fake names, or names without the original spelling. One friend of mine, whose first name on Facebook is intentionally misspelled, told me this is (partly) due to fear of kidnapping. It's rare to see a full Mexican name (two first names, two last names) on Facebook, so you might see "LuZZiaa Hdez". Another uses her nickname and the initials of the university she went to.
Makes sense, using one's real name anywhere online (except on https sites or in e-mails) is crazy.
Eventually there will be too many people and too few resources. When that happens globalization will die, nationalism will take over, there will be wars over resources, and the world population will rapidly decline due to a combination of unaffordable cost of living and resource wars.
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