The Silent March of Progress

While reading “China’s plan to run the World ” I started thinking about electrical outlets. Specifically the difference in electrical plugs around the world. In the 1900’s when these technologies were being created, it seemed that each country had its own ideas about power and what would be standard. It seems that there are 12 different types of electrical plugs in use in the world today. In India, they use the plug that the British used when India was a colonial power. The Brits updated their plug in 1946 but it wasn’t adopted by India when they gained their independence in 1947. In this way, the number of “standard” plugs grew to what is now 12. It seems as China expands its influence, building it brings its idea of technology and progress to the world- it sets themselves as the standard of what is progress, what is good and worthwhile and what is not.
Some years ago I heard an interview with a man who walked the equator. When asked what was the most influential thing he saw in his travels, he recounted how in the smallest, most technologically challenged area, there was a generator, a VCR and a television and each night, people would sit around the television and watch whatever movie they had access to. The idea that what they were watching was some sort of standard idea, of what everyone should have, was the most powerful and influential thing he had see in his journey.
Technology not only brings change, it brings ideas and in this new global village, nothing moves faster. What will we do when everyone wants what we have or when everyone else wants something else?

China, technology,


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