[Junior Summit Participants] Stefan Plantikow [Junior Summit Participant:Stefan Plantikow] Country: Germany Age: 17 Sex: Male School: Werner-von-Siemens Gymnasuim Magdeburg Title of Thesis: A Chance For Peace --------------------------------------------------------------- Summary: Many problems in the fields of economy as well as the society are caused by the intolerance and ignorance of people lacking in communications, and create the emotional distress which eventually leads them to war. GIS is the best recommended solution, in the areas of speeding up the processes of communication, therefore many matters can be avoided. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Our planet is a beautiful world, a marvelous place to live in. But this world is full of many different problems, which are often relating to each other in a vicious circle. Althought here could be enough food and clothes for everyone, a lot of people are very poor. Many people do not have enough food. They often don't know where to sleep. There is too much unemployment in this world. Families can't pay for medical services. Children can't go to school. They are driven into drugs and crime. This earth owns lots of resources, but they are limited. I think, that people should care much more about their living space, but they don't. In fact, there are many ecological problems. A lot of people are willing to end this, but especially poor countries lack the money needed for the effective protection of environmental resources. Watching the news on TV, I often think we still haven't learned to accept other's opinions in a non-agressive way. We aren't able to avoid wars. People are fighting each others only because they belong to different groups. In eastern Europe, after the fall of the Wall, people start to remember on problems, that had been forgotten a long time ago and are at war from one day to the other. In western European countries, extremistic and terroristic groups are getting more and more members. Around the world, dictators take over democratic governments. But one does not have to look at things from the far, also inside countries, there often is minority discrimination. If I would be the leader of the Global Society my vision would be, that all this problems had to be removed. But I want to concentrate on social and political topics, following below. As mentionted above, there are still lots of agressive conflicts in the world. But before solving this, there has to be found out, what causes people to do this. There are several reasons for that, but however, in my opinion, in most cases people are just intolerant. And this can be caused by several things: Disinformation. Meaning people can't or don't want to get the correct information. They judge others without having the facts. They have prejudices about minorites witthout knowing them personally. They relate people's value with outlook or behavior. And worst of all, they take one member of a group for all the others. E.g. A white pupil calls an Arabian boy, a terrorist, just because he saw on TV, that there are terrorists in Lybia. Fanatic religion/ideology. In some cases people aren't just disinformed. Then someone prevents them from being taught on a broad base. They are manipulated to help a leader in fullfilling his targets in this way. This is one of the worst cases, because people are being used so badly. Usually the leader uses their wishes and promises the solution to their problems, if they will obey him. If they are taught in the rules of the group from childhood on, they often even don't know alternatives of acting and are driven to do things which they wouldn't do normally under other circumstances. Examples for this are terroristic moslem fundamentalistics or political extremistic groups. Frustration. But not all learn ideologies from childhood on. In fact, many people join such groups later by free will. Also there are lots of intolerant persons which aren't members of any group at all. Frustrated about something, they often make minorities responsible for problems they can't solve. Reasons for that can be very different. Unemployment, unsatisfaction with political issues and jealousity can make people intolerant. If they are feeling very lonely, this can increase the which to enter a group, where they can find acknowledgement. That means intolerance plays a key role in solving social problems. But especially the frustration of people is very much related to other problems, like issues of economy and ecology. Of cause, reducing intolerance is not the medicine to everything, but it could decrease the potential of a lot of problems and help making the world a bit more friendly. So increasing tolerance is the task to do. For accomplishing this goal, the different forms and causes of intolerance have to be removed. I would suggest the following three things to be done. Reduction of control over the free will through the enhancement of information supply. Providing everyone with better information is one of the most important tasks, for it would make people less ignorant. If poor kids would be educated better, that could help them in finding their way in the world. it would enable people to live more independent from social and historical customs. With more information, they could know many different lifestyles. And better informed persons are less easy to control. This would turn out to make some of them more tolerant, because now they couldn't look away any more from the facts of minority discrimination. This benefit of information supply enhancement, could be supported well, through more international sanctions against agressive countries. It could also help, if the people would more openly disencourage groups which are trying to to manipulate people badly. Reduction of frustrating situations. This topic contains many different tasks. One would be the creation of new jobs. This would provide people with more money and give them the possibility to comply themselves wishes more often. Another thing could be the solution of ecological issues, like pollution. More investments should be done in science, because its results are most likely to become long-term benefits for all. More cultural activities would allow people to experience new things more often, which could make them feel happier. More social activities. This could be a very important point. As studies show, in industrial countries, there is a big trend away from families towards lonely living singles. We seem to have forgotten that the human being is dependent on the existance of others. We seem to have forgotten, that we need each other. Singles often feel very unhappy and are wondering what the reason for that might be, therefore it should be prevented from spreading. The causes for that are different, but one of the reasons is the unpersonality of the community. Another could be the disinteress in other people's life. Perhaps some of these tasks could make the future look more brightly and in this way reduce the number of people which have a no-future opinion a little. Until now, there have been mentioned a lot of different tasks, which have to be done in my opinion. But at this point someone might ask: So far, so good. But how shall we do it? I'm Sorry, but the answer to that question is depressing: It is not possible. We can't do this under the current conditions. As far as I see, there are different reasons for that. First, there is no universal information service available yet, meaning the necessity for better information supply can't be solved. Another reason is, that many countries are heading for the same targets while struggling with each other. Additional, right now, there is no receipt to remove the main cause of frustration - unemployment. And besides that, many countries lack the needed money for the tasks that had to be accomplished. So the future seems to look dark, but I think there is hope. After my thesis, the chance of creating new jobs and getting the money to accomplish the tasks needed for the reduction of intolerance, lies in future technologies. And the technology that will arrive most recently, is the world-wide-communication industry, which will create the Global Information Structure, the GIS. Setting up the global network, is not like any other development of modern science for it goes beyond the earning of money. Through the avalability of a huge amount of fast changing information it could speed up the development of other future technologies, like biotechnology, enormously which in exchange could help in removing economical and ecological problems. In this there lies the chance of breaking through the vicious circle of problems related to each other, because creating the GIS, will reduce intolerance on the one side while economical, and perhaps ecological issues will be solved on the other. And with this, the vicious circle can be used to speed up the whole process by itself. But how could that be done in detail by the coming of the global online community, and what kind of global information structure will be needed? Surely, for reducing intolerance better ways of communication will be needed. But this will also mean having many side effects, which will carry us to a future which can't be foreseen by now. But one thing's for sure: The necessity to get and to have the latest information will cause a major impact on the whole earth's culture. But there is still a long way to go. The Internet offers a lot of possibilities today, but for tomorrow's needs this planet requires a huge global network. Millions of computers connected with each other in many different ways. A net of unimaginable complexity for delivering information beyond the capacity off all libraries ever built. This GIS should provide communication services for everyone all over the world. No matter if she/he's living in LA, Berlin, Sydney or Zaire. It will have to provide access for the rich countries, as well as for the poor. Covering that, will be one of the most dangerous and difficult tasks in creating the information society. Because in future, not having access to the GIS will mean being born dead. This could mean the negation of the negation, because one of the solutions to intolerance might here create frustration from being excluded, a motive for ignorance instead. Therefore no GIS will be compete, when half of this world's cultures will not be able to gain access to it. So avoiding the creation of society of a communication elite and a group of non-global-communicating people in third world countries should be a primary target. But providing access everywhere on the world, can't be all. Another main social requirement could be increasing the acceptance of online mediums. It's not enough to make the GIS available all over the planet. The task is done correctly only then, when people get connected to and use the GIS. So educational work has to be done, yet. But not in third world countries only, also in industrial nations people will have to learn using the GIS. In my own family, I have experienced that problem as well. Especially order generations have to be taught to use that new medium. Of cause, the GIS will have technical needs beyond those of today. For acting in real time, it will have to be fast and synchron. This will help focussing on what has to be done instead of waiting for the next data package to be transmitted. With the exponential increase of multimedia hard-and software available to average PC users, the need for broadband transmission will grow. So the GIS will have to be advanced for these greater requirements. It will have to transfer several full screen video channels for every user at once. The necessity of rather sending videos in some 3-dimensional format than in classical TV-2D will appear. Maybe possibilities to record emotions, sensoric, smell and taste senses beside the typical audio and video will be found. If so, the GIS will have to transmit this data, too. But how will it be possible to coordinate the construction of this and should it be coordinated at all? Someone will have to care about these FFDI cables, becoming the standard for communication by now. These requirements will still need some time till they are established, but I'm sure that they will be realized. And with this process, there might come the reduction of intolerance. in the following section, I want to give examples on how the new information structure could be used to solve its causes: Enhancement of information supply. Meaning people could use the GIS to inform themselves very broadly. They could talk to people of different nationalties and with different oppinions. They could choose there lifestyle out of an enormous mass. They would be used to speak with minorities. They often would get to know other people and start to like them, before they would realize, that these people belong to groups the normally discriminate. This is unlikely to happen under normal conditions. If the GIS will be established, it could be that the kids of a new generation won't be able to think in terms of minorities anymore. While surfing on the net, I have experienced that myself. There is just no racism out there in most places. And when it occurs, the community normally regulates that by itself. No one who has penpals around the world can discriminate blacks because of their skin color. No one. Reduction of unemployment through forcing of the development of future technologies. The GIS will surely create a lot of jobs. Publishers, server administrators, their support staff and their conveyors. But not everybody will find a job in this emerging business. So how can we reduce unemployment? The tricky spot is, that with people being informed better than today, the information flow is much faster. Sure, the Internet is used by scientists nowadays. But with all people being online, talents could be found faster and their would be more ideas. This should speed up the development in science a lot. Of course, we can't know the results of that by now. But it will carry us somewhere. And this somewhere just might contain the jobs and possibilities a world on the verge of collapse through over-population, pollution and unemployment in the year 2010 might need. Removal of other causes to frustration by the creation of a new information age community could reduce intolerance a lot. The decreasing of unemployment should raise the average income, which would in exchange give the people more money to spend on freetime activities. They could be prevented form feeling lonely by memberships in different clubs. Also the GIS will lead to the creation of a new online community culture based on many different fast changing sub-cultures. This will set up a whole new age in history. As with science, the development, exchange and creation of arts could be speeded up by the GIS much more, too. And the feedback to the artist will be much more frequent. This effect even can be seen on the Internet today. There are many areas dedicated to the publshing of art. I've been setting up some web-pages for our school myself. In real life, normally the people get a brochure and perhaps some of them write back or phone us. But with the web-pages people just have to hit a feedback buttton and drop a few lines. In this example one can see another advantage of the GIS, the reduction of time needed to accomplish tasks. And time is one of the most valuable resources of the future. This advantage could in exchange give the people more freetime, which could be used for hobby activities and decrease frustration and intolerance again. But in this benefits of the Global information Structure are a lot of dangers through misuse, too. So the issue of law and control on the net, which surely is a difficult topic, will have to be evaluated. In today's Internet communities most cases of misuse and bad behavior is regulated by all, because people feel responsible for their Net. If annoying letters are written to frighten someone, the author will usually be removed from the Net. But this mechanism seems not to work in all cases. For example, it could be possible, that people can write such annoying letters through anonymous telnet-accounts. Another problem is, that there are web-pages with x-rated of terroristic content, which can be accessed by everyone. The arguments against a Internet controling instance say for this case, that if one doesn't like, he does not have to go on these pages. But what about kids stumbling in such areas by accident? A last issue, which I'd like to discuss, is the topic of copyright laws on the Net. If that problem won't be regulated, the upspeeding of arts and science could be hindered heavyly. So the hot question is, how the mechanisms of a self-regulating community should be traded for a regulating instance? In my opinion, that difficult task should be carried out, as following: The Global information Structure, as the information age, is a global trend. Both will help creaing the global village. Therefore it can't be of any use, if every country will regulate the law on the net by itself. Such an enormous content censoring task on every borders can't be done with our technical abbilities. So for regulating global issues we need a global instance. An United communicating Nations Organisation (UCNO). I would suggest that every nation has equal rights in this institution, depending on the number of its residents, which take use of the GIS. This organisation should force its members to carry out the obeying of UCNO-orders. With that, all of the above mentioned topics could be regulated. For example: Frightening/annoying letters. Members agree to forbid access to the GIS to anyone who writes such letters to any other user of the Net. Second, anonymous sendmail service will be forbidden for private servers. Instead a local instance could carry this out. Every letter, which contains annoying content will just not be sended and the author will be informed. But the anonymity should be carried out in any case and no one should be charged. Terroristic X-rated content. In these issues are lieing many dangers. Because herein the benefits of more information could be negatized into more disinformation. So the UCNO should form an instance which forces servers to check it's users age before providing access to such content. Absolutely unappropriate content should be removed if it's located physically in a member country. Copyright law. This issue should be handled according to the existing international treaties existing for the real world. Copyright for any content should be granted to everybody toll-free if he just sent in his work, which aren't allowed to contain unqouted art of others. Capacity extension. Nowadays international Internet lines are on the limit of their capacity. So there is a need in extending them. The required money could be got easily through the UCNO by charging member countries on a procentual base according to their voting rights. Al.The technology nowadays doesn't provide artficial intelligence of any dangerous kind. But with the upspeeding of science, this, maybe, will change. If that happens, the UCNO could be an already existing net-watching instance, which could control such artificial persons. Of course, such an organisation is assigned to fail through misuse and too much control. So it should regulate the specified topics only in cases where it is really necessary. All other typical faults still should be governed by the information society. In case of misue, there should be the option of a voting of users for special topics, possible for both global and local issues. You, the reader have by now nearly reached the end of this essay. I think at this point,I should sum up all the said things. So again the question is, how will be Global Information Structure and it's community help to solve the problems of today's world? We are facing many difficulties today. There are problems in economy and ecology as well as in society. There is sill minority discrimination and war in this world. After my thesis, the main reason to the problem's of society is intolerance. So reducing intolerance could help in solving these problems. But to do so, it's causes have to be removed, which are disinformation, fanatic religion/ideology and frustration. This could be dane by the reduction of control over the free will through better information supply, the removal of causes to frustration, especially unemployment, and more social activities. But these tasks cannot be accomplished under the current conditions. The reasons for that are different. The main problems are that there is no world-wide information service availible to everyone, there is too much struggle between the counties instead of heading together for the same targets and there is no current solution for reduction of unemployment--a main cause to frustration. Also many countries lack the money to accomplish tasks which would increase social activities or reduce ecological problems. But there is a solution to this, the construction of the Global information structure. This could be an easy way to enhacement of information supply, the reduction of unemployment by forcing of the development of future technologies and the removal of other causes to frustration by the creation of a new information age community. This holds the possibility to inverse the vicious circle of problems related to each other. But before this is likely to happen, a lot of technical, social and political requirements have to be solved. Also, issues of law on the net have to be evaluated. I would suggests for this task an United Communicating Nations Organsiation, which could care about terroristic/x-rated content, frightening/annoying e-mails, copyright law, capacity extension of the net and perhaps furthermore handle problems with artifical inteligence. Our world is on the step into a new millenium. The next century bears many problem's, as it is unlikely that we are able to solve therm today. But it bears also a chance for mankind, a chance for peace. With the coming of the Global Information Structure we have found a tool which will speed up all processes of communication. Of course, the new information age will not be only a tool we can use, it will in case also influence us very broadly. The effects of this cannot be foreseen by now, they can only be guessed slightly. But one's for sure-the stream of information flow will carry us somewhere. And this somewhere could contain a new way of thinking and living. Surely, this will bring many risks and dangers. But we may find a street out of stagnation, into something new, into an undiscovered country. What did Hamlet say so truely? "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns--puzzles the will, and makes us rather gear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of" In this sense, there is much work to do, let's face it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [clickable navigation bar]