camelism

I just read an article in the Economist (Number 8566, Feb-9th-15th, p12) about technology and the development, following a recent report published by the World Bank regarding the impacts of new technologies. In particular it refers to the aspect – which might actually sound quite obvious – that new technologies are relying and dependent on the presence of old technologies. The philosophical battle would be the question of whether a society can immediately enter a postmodern conscious by simply skipping the modern state of mind, but in this case the question seems to be slightly more delicate. In many areas of the world, which are considered as less developed regarding their economic standards and infrastructure, devices like mobile phones or laptops (eg the legendary 100 $ notebook) seem to become increasingly popular. It is questionable, however, to assume that eg African countries can – though probably engaging with new technologies- have overcome times of struggle in the face of famine or insufficient infrastructure (for example issues like access to hot water, health care…)
The article mentioned an Ethiopian project, which intended to provide Internet access in every local hospital. Eventually the project was abandoned with the argumentation that Ethiopian hospitals probably have greater problems to deal with than the lack of Internet connection.
Manuell Castell, on the other hand fears that through new technologies and the overall tendency of globalization there is the treat of constructing something like a forth world. This world consists of those billions of individuals which can’t afford, because of which ever reason, to participate in this global networking process.

This is a somewhat counter argument to the Economist article. I definitely what to emphasise on the fact, that African countries do have greater worries than checking their Facebook entries. The aspect I want to point out however, is that by not knowing how to use these new technologies, by not trying to teach these countries how to engage with these technologies, or world order is very unlikely to change. Rather it seems, that these countries, then, will be simply neglected and excluded from any outside interaction, as if they don’t exist. Which brings me back to my recent post, in which I aimed to stress the necessity that new technologies can be very beneficial as long as they are accompanied by relevant education.