Humanities Syria
Modern technology has ushered in a new era of information sharing. For the first time in human history we can now communicate with anyone across the globe almost instantaneously. In theory, this should help people realize that we are all citizens of the world. An engineer in China is no different than an engineer in the United States. Arbitrary geographical borders do not fundamentally alter the human experience, nor do they alter the value of a human life. In spite of this, I often see people treating an American life as if it is worth more than that of a foreigner. For example, many people oppose programs to naturalize illegal immigrants who have been here for years. They fail to realize that that person has often established an entire life here, and that moving them at that point seems unjust.The logic behind this boils down to the fact that they are a 'burden' on the taxpayer since they are not necessarily paying their share. This is fair, but it's not a justification to rip families apart. People need to begin valuing human lives more than the dollar. I believe people would start to do this if they communicated with those who they target more often. It's easy to develop an us and them mentality when you have never communicated with someone from the opposing group.
Another excellent example of such arbitrary weighting on the value of human life can be seen in the popular discussion on the Syrian Civil War. Time and time again I hear people saying that we should not get involved because there is no use on having American troops die in a foreign country half way across the world. This is a terrible argument because its basis is that the life of an American soldier is worth more than that of a Syrian citizen. This is blatantly untrue, a person is a person. You cant just value one more than another because of the location they were born. We need to start using the technological infrastructure we have created to dispel this type of thinking. Communicating with Syrians from either side of the struggle would help do just that. I would like to believe that people would not be able to maintain that American lives are worth more after having such an experience. Having the capacity to instantly communicate with people anywhere around the world should work to start alleviating this problem. Monetary reasons have kept computers out of the hands of many people, but as they get cheaper and cheaper we should to start to see more people connecting to the grid. This will hopefully make the world a smaller place where people are less likely to value one nationality over another.
This global network humanity has created seems woefully absent in governing bodies around the world. One of the reasons people do not want to get involved in the Syrian Civil war is the fact that there is no clear enemy, and there is no clear cut answer to ending the conflict. Thus allowing a humanitarian crisis to continue indefinitely. This problem however is not unsolvable. In the modern world it is easier than ever to facilitate a discussion about such things. If the US government hosted information about the conflict, and a place to discuss it I think people would find some very interesting solutions to the problem. Not only that, but it would also provide platform for spreading information about the conflict. It is easy to ignore a headline on the news, but such a platform could get people talking about the issue. Adding more people to the conversation is a good way to get fresh ideas, and it would get more people involved in politics because if nothing else it would get them to think about current issues.
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