Oil On The Brain

I found chapter 14 of “The World Is Flat” by Tomas L. Friedman to be very insightful. It talked of the “Age of Interruption” and how we have become overly indulged in media and electronics. We all have seen someone that cannot look away from their phone or computer, well you are trying to talk to them. This is not a thing of the past it has become much more overwhelming since the release of this book. Now children have become sucked into this sickening cycle of over indulging of technology. This has become very big problem in our lives, people can do so much more to stay updated on other people but choose to lose the real human contact. I really liked this chapter because it showed the down side of the use of technology. I felt that this chapter really showed that the book outlined both the ups and downs of the flattening of the world, and the side effect of the use of technology.

The building of a Dell laptop is the true show case of collaboration by working with nearly 400 suppliers from North America to Asia, and few others in between. The Dell computer company can have a computer built in Malaysia and sent to you with in four days. It all starts with you placing your order over phone and giving the exact specifications of what you want. Shortly after that you give your card info, and then the order is sent to the production system. After all your pieces for your computer are ordered by dell to its supplier they are than only given 90 minutes to fill it. Then after the orders are filled, they are dropped off and put into assembly bins, after this the inventory is then assembled by a team on site. Then the computer is sent to the software center for the download of the desired software. Shortly after this it is boxed and sent on a charter jet to Tennessee where it is taken to the factory in Nashville for additional external parts then shipped to the customer. This is all done in a very short time span which speaks to the power of their supply chain.

It’s very scary to think that al-Qaeda has a supply chain, but it is true they have found a way to benefit from something that we all love and benefit from. They are able to upload videos, find recruits and outsource their training. They use there supply-chain to distribute the needed supplies and the end result is pandemonium. The chain that is used all too often gives them the ability to communicate and work together like never before. The use of a there supply-chains has let them become a much bigger threat. This new flat world has made the small businesses much bigger with the use of supply-chains, groups like al-Qaeda are now been able to find that same niche. They are able to communicate with the other members across the world giving them the power of building a much bigger membership base.

The curse of oil is just a sad thing for all those oil rich countries, because of the money the countries make from the oil there is no taxation which mean no voices for the people of these countries. The oil  in these countries are almost all the governments revenue, this means there are not  many jobs given the lack of free trade with other countries, there is no need for the dictators to seek out ways to make money given there oil. I found this topic very interesting on the basis that we all feed into this sad fact by buying gas. I found this very similar to the saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life”. We are just playing into the dictators hands by buying their oil. But if we could get oil from somewhere else we could make those countries blossom into a much better place for their countrymen.