Ask A Genius 983: East and West Might be Myth
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/06/29
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With the increase in communication technologies, the speed of travel, and the progression of these systems, do you think the concepts of East and West make much sense anymore?
Rick Rosner: No, I always go back to Cory Doctorow, who writes about this among other issues. As technology increases the ability for people in different parts of the world to transact with each other, it weakens the political force that binds people together in nations and states for the common good.
While you can have a big country, almost every country is geographically compact, centered in a land area, not distributed throughout the world. Large countries like the US or China have outlying islands and territories, but are mostly big swaths of land. It makes sense for people to unify for common purposes in those areas, but that gets eroded when people can do things instantaneously across the world. Especially when national governments are increasingly incompetent.
Doctorow also talks about people turning to private coalitions when governments fail to meet the needs of their citizens, especially when those needs can be met via technology. This is happening to some extent, though we’re still in the early days of that. The US shows few signs of becoming more competent.
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