Thursday, June 16, 2011

Summary

In this post I will answer the main question of this unit.

"To what extent should I, as a citizen, respond to globalization?”  


I think that as a citizen I should be aware of issues going on around me. However I should not be overly concerned with the things that I can see but not change. When I listen to or look at the news, I need to have a filter on my brain as to not believe that everything is the way the news makes it out to be. I need to realize that they focus on the WOW stories cuz otherwise they would get no 'likes'. They also seem to focus on one side of the story and not show anything else. For example, the uprising in Libya. We only saw one side of the story. We didn't see the side of the Libyan government, just the side of the rebels and the Canadian 'peacekeepers'. If you have friends in the countries, it is a much more reliable source. They can tell you what is really going on in their country and then you get the inside scoop. This is a good thing about globalization because you have an better chance of meeting them in the first place!




Because of globalization, the whole world is going to see what happened in Vancouver last night. Here the Canucks played to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup, beating the majority of the teams in the NHL. Just because they lost one game, doesn't mean they are a bad team. They are still an AMAZING team!!! But (contrary to the beliefs of every single adult in the world who says 'everyone's a winner') someone has to win and someone has to lose. So just because Canucks didn't come into possession of a hunk of silver doesn't mean they are a bad team. But there were people in the streets of Vancouver last night who completely came unglued! And now we are just like Libya or Egypt but over a piece of rubber going in a net instead of government issues. Now, because of globalization, everyone all over the world knows about it! Without globalization, people all over the world wouldn't know about the whole thing. It would just be Vancouver and area (like if you were playing a board game with your family and lost to your dad by seven dollars and then you could riot but not for something stupid like hockey! But at least the whole world wouldn't know about it!). And we, as Canadians, have a bad rep because of it. Whereas before countries were reluctant to let in Americans and they welcomed Canadians with open arms. But now, Canadians will be the ones who will be sceptisized because people will think they are violent or rebellious against all common sense. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not say anything about expressing your feelings in a way that hurts public or private property.


In summary, I think that globalization can be a good thing cuz it puts us in touch with other people around the world, and lets us know what is really happening. On the flip side, it can be a bad thing, because when something bad happens, it is instantly displayed around the world and everyone knows about it before the day is over. 

Global Connections

The world that we live in is very inter-connected. The internet plays a big part in the connection between countries and people all over the world. It allows very quick and very easy communication. Most large corporations are global and do not just deal in one country, but in many. With the invention of the internet and such extensive and high-tech technology, corporations can  operate as one location even though they may be in 5 different countries. For example, an accounting firm can have maybe an office in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong and all the offices could run together in unity and any one of the accountants could access the files in any one of the other offices. Like a client in London could actually have an accountant dealing with them from Hong Kong! There is however, a negative side to this in that one of those accountants could go into the files and completely ruin the company's reputation by committing identity fraud against one of the clients.  


Also, people are globally connected in their everyday life as well. More than one twelfth of all the people in the world are active facebook users. This causes a great amount of connection with people from all over the world. The other day I was talking to a girl from work and she said that she has friends on facebook from all over the world. Like Australia and places such as that. This could be a good way to get to know people but it can get very dangerous. There are a lot of creepy people out there who do not have very good intentions so a person should just be very careful when adding people as friends on facebook. And also think about how you sound on facebook too...