Globalization and the Expansion of the World

       In our last seminar, we were shown a really interesting video titled (link below). This video in it's entirety is very interesting and is a fun way to learn a bit about globalization. Anyhow, this post isn't about this video itself, but just a thought that occurred to me while watching it.
       "(...)an individual's access to diverse cultural experience has never been greater." is a phrase said in that video. It's not really something that hard to see, but it made me think of a Japanese game I have played some years ago, it's English name is "The World Ends With You".

       The protagonist of the game is an anti-social boy and throughout the game, as he interacts with others to overcome hardships, he comes to realize that the one responsible for the small, suffocating world he used to live in is none other than himself; that as the only things that exist in the world to you, are the things that you know of, the size of the world depends on your experiences; he comes to realize that “The World Ends With You".

       As I remembered that game while watching the video, I couldn't help but think of how the new technologies that have shortened distances made the world smaller, and in turn, this smaller world has permitted the expansion of our own individual worlds. This line of thought gave me a feeling of happiness and pride in what humankind has achieved.

       However, this shortening of distances and easier access to information, sometimes affect people in ways that, to me, are negative. While it increases the amount of knowledge that we have, sometimes it increases even more the amount of knowledge we think we have. That is because, the internet gives us access to nigh infinite knowledge, but that's it. Access. And many people, including myself, sometimes fail to realize how little we actually take advantage of that accessibility, and end up thinking they know more than they actually do.

       
       For instance, one year ago I used to think that all over the world, any country that was similar to Brazil economically had the same problems, poorer countries had these problems in a bigger scale, and the richer it got, the lesser they would become.

       But it is not that simple. I have recently travelled to some Asian countries, and was surprised how much safer it felt to walk the narrow, twisted little streets of these places with absurd social disparity (and apparently no traffic rules) than to walk in any scooter-free side walk of a well lit avenue in my home city.

       Is there any conclusions to take out of this? Well, no. At least not for now, I can't really think of anything to conclude out of this, besides I don't really think a conclusion is necessary here.

Sorry for exceeding the instructed number of words, and for posting so late!

Mentioned video:
http://youtu.be/5SnR-e0S6Ic