Transcription
Hello, welcome back to Anti-Social Studies. I'm Emily Glencler, and today is our last video of our unit overviews. Oh my gosh, I can't believe we did it. Uh, well, I did it, but I can't believe that you did it with me and watched.
So today, we're finishing our series on Unit 9, Globalization. And really, our guiding question for this whole time has been trying to explain the extent to which science and technology have brought change from 1900 to the present. And my argument has been, like, yes, it has. It's brought in a ton of change. So in Part 1, we talked about societal and cultural change. Part 2, we talked about the growth of this truly global economy. And today, we're going to focus on international problems and potential international solutions.
So essentially, the world from 1900 up to today is now so interconnected, thanks to technology, that our problems, but also our potential solutions, really go beyond national boundaries. Like, borders are not as relevant, really, as they've been in previous times in history.
So one issue is that different states have dramatically different problems that they're facing. So because in the last video we talked about this sort of global hierarchy of states, you now have these so-called advanced states, which are the highly industrialized, sometimes even knowledge economies, that are so technologically advanced that now some of their biggest problems are, for example, diseases associated with longevity, like cancer or Alzheimer's or heart disease. Whereas in other parts of the globe, you have other states that are still struggling to tackle diseases associated with poverty, like malaria or tuberculosis. And that makes it really hard for those two states to come together and work on problems because some of the problems they're facing are, you know, on different ends of the spectrum.
However, there are also these global problems that are literally crossing national boundaries. I mean, the most obvious example of this is climate change, right? You have one state, like the U.S. or China, that are emitting most of the CO2, but every state around the world is having to deal with the impact of climate change, right? And so how do you solve that problem when you can't isolate the problem just to, like, the borders? It's not like the CO2 stops at the border between China and another state.
Other examples of this would be water. Like, we talked in the last video about how water scarcity is going to drive conflicts. And so especially when you have more powerful states, again, like China, who are able to build the Three Gorges Dam, for example, and they're able to kind of take a lot of the water upstream, and that's going to then deprive other smaller or lesser states downstream. Like, you have all of these global problems now where when we're fighting over just literal natural resources, it's going to be a lot harder because the more powerful and technologically advanced states are going to be able to dominate those natural resources, and they're going to leave other states kind of in the cold unless we work together.
You also have this issue that we're seeing even right now during the global pandemic, where the so-called advanced states really have monopolized a lot of life-saving industries. You can just look at the pharmaceutical companies and see that most of those companies are situated and headquartered in Western, so-called advanced states. And so when you have something like a global pandemic, for example, you have some states like the U.S. and Europe that are able to get vaccines way more quickly, whereas you have other developing nations that are sitting around basically just waiting, and they are really dependent on the, you know, generosity or whatever of these multinational corporations to step in and also help them out.
Here's the big takeaway: is that solutions are going to require international cooperation on a scale that we've just literally never seen before in world history. And so this is doable because we have those international institutions. In the post-World War II world, right, we created the United Nations specifically to solve a lot of problems like this. We've also created global organizations like the World Fair Trade Organization, or the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank. We have these global institutions that we have created that exist. We just have to make sure they are actually working to improve and, like, get rid of some of these problems that we're facing.
Obviously, you also have the rise and the importance of what are called NGOs, or non-governmental organizations. These are like global non-profits. So whereas in the last video we talked about MNCs, multinational corporations, who have a lot of power and influence, kind of harkening back to the days of, like, the British East India Company, right? You also have the rising power of NGOs, or these global charitable organizations, who are trying to hold companies and states accountable. Um, a huge one would be Greenpeace, which is focused on the environment. You would also see, like, the International Red Cross, um, other organizations that are trying to step in and fill this role that is difficult to fill when it crosses borders. It's hard for a state government to step in and really do a lot about, for example, the global environmental problem, but a charity that's operating in dozens of different countries can maybe do a little bit more.
You also, by the way, have protests and resistance to rising globalization. So keep in mind that you have groups that are wanting to kind of roll back the effects of globalization. You had protests in Seattle in the late '90s against the World Trade Organization because it was seen as promoting, kind of, free trade liberalization that was benefiting the more advanced Western companies at the expense of the developing nations. And so you have resistance to this too, right? We're not all on the same page about what we need to do to solve the problem.
The point, though, is that we are going to need to get on the same page, or at least get in a similar book, right, to where we can use these international organizations that we've created or create new ones to look at these problems.
All right, we did it. That's it. We covered all of world history. We made it during Unit 9. And so really, my big takeaway for this series of Unit 9 videos is that especially if you're watching this and you're a young person, and you're watching this because you're cramming for the AP exam, hi, I see you. And also, Unit 9 is, in some ways, the easiest unit because you're living it still right now. But it also can be the hardest unit because there are a lot of things that you're experiencing that seem very obvious to you, like the iPhone or global warming, that you don't think of as history, but it is, right? And so if you get, like, a short answer question, for example, on the AP exam, and it's asking about technology that increased communication, like, you can talk about the iPhone, right? Just talk about it in an academic way because it is going to be in the history books. Or if you're thinking about, like, a global marketplace, that's what Amazon is, right? And so the trick is just going to be stopping and looking at the world around you that you're living in right now as history that's going to be studied later on. Um, and that's what makes Unit 9 really cool and also, like, kind of trippy because you're like, whoa, we're living it right now.
So thank you for, like, following along on this journey with me. I'll be posting way more videos that are going to be deep dives or talking about how to write essays, that sort of thing. But we did it. This is the content. And again, if you like this, if this was helpful to you, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel. Make sure you follow me on TikTok and Instagram. And again, you can show thanks by joining my Patreon. Let me know that you appreciate the content that I've made.
All right, onto Unit 10, whenever that happens. Bye.