After a very interesting presentation by Dr. José Luis Cordeiro of Singularity University, I was left with a few interesting ideas about the coming accelerating technological and social progress.

• Genetic testing is becoming faster and cheaper.  In 3 years full sequencing will only cost 100 bucks and take 5 days, with a huge impact in ancestry and medicine (think about genetically-tailored preventive medicine). Imagine 23andme going mass market.
• We will go back to the moon, especially now that it is found that there’s water.
• World relationships are changing. For thousands of years the important body of water was the Mediterranean, and until recently the Atlantic.  We are now entering the age of the Pacific.
• Robot rights are already under discussion in Korea and Europe.
• Economic, telecommunications and energy source evolution is accelerating.
• The death of death: The Methuselah Foundation.
• Nano, bio, info and cognitive sciences are converging. Everything is information.
• Marvin Minsky (MIT): “Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be us!”
• Transhumanism as a possibility, not only a science fiction conjecture.

I read this article and this book and of course they got me thinking.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my biggest problems with the Finnish immigration debate are twofold:

• on one hand there is very little differentiation in what we see, hear and read in the media between people who came here for work, family or asylum and on what their adaptation process to society has been and,
• on the other there seems to be no clear path in which a newcomer can eventually become a Finn, even if he/she (hän) is able to become a citizen at some point,
• which of course means that newcomers are depicted as dangerous or at the very least lazy.

Furthermore, I watched the presidential debate of a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say I’m somewhere in between what current President Halonen and ex-President Ahtisaari mentioned: yes, people should be welcomed to come here and immigrants are a resource, but we shouldn’t make the same mistake Germany and Belgium did with their Gastarbeiter programmes of the 60’s.  Instead, we should be aware that first and foremost an immigrant is a person, and should strive to continue building our society(ies) together (after all, some of them might have invested a lot of themselves into their new place of residence after living there for some time, right?).

Therefore, it was very interesting to read Mr. Legrain’s book (for a good overview of his ideas, you can check out this interview at the Freakonomics blog).  Even though I wouldn’t go so far as propose to open all borders indiscriminately, he does touch into quite a few interesting points regarding why the current system doesn’t work, what the current situation is and what do countries and immigrants need to do to adapt to each other, rightly pointing it’s a two-way street.

Let’s see how the situation develops with the precarious economic situation.

This week I learned that two of my classmates from high school in northern Greater Mexico City are also in a relationship with Finnish girls and both are also living abroad.  That got me thinking about how many of the guys and gals I used to go to school with back then are also overseas, and the sample is quite broad.

I’m not particularly surprised of this development given that we were educated as the so-called NAFTA generation learning English (and sometimes other languages) from childhood, and given a broader view of the world than people before us (I remember attending lessons on economics, global affairs, the stock market and compared history of North America at that time).

What sets us apart from those before us I think, is not that some of us would go abroad, but that we would not concentrate in the United States as before.  In my sister’s high school class (she is only a few years older than me) most of those who are working abroad are doing so in the US (a couple here and there in Europe, but it’s a minority), whereas with us the geographic dispersion is much broader: I have classmates in Mexico, and all over the US, true, but also in Canada, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Australia, France, Brazil, UK and I believe even a couple in China.  Moreover, many of them who are back in Mexico also have international experience, either as students or during their careers.

I’m sure that this is partly due to American immigration regulations after 9/11, but I believe it also has something to do with many of us wanting to see what else was out there.  I wonder if the Institute for Mexicans Abroad will start tapping this kind of talent network too, as many of us are working for institutions like e.g.  Shell, Nokia, Microsoft, ESA or Volvo or studying at recognised institutions all over the place.  Maybe we should learn something from what the Indians and the Chinese are doing by taking advantage of their expatriates, instead of complaining about the brain drain?

Regardless, it’s good to see that most of them in Mexico or wherever they may be are doing well.

• The Chinese economy is still expected to grow 7-8% this year
• Islamic banking was relatively untouched by the global turmoil as it’s very risk averse
• The Japanese economy has contracted fiercely as its exports have fallen to historic lows
• U.S. skilled immigrants are going back to China & India
• Many Eastern European economies are in trouble and with them their Western European (mostly Austrian & Swedish) investors
• Latin America will mostly just suffer a slowdown, the Mexican economy is expected to contract this year due to its high exposure to U.S. economic cycles
• Some emerging economies are more vulnerable than others

What does this mean? What we are seeing is the shift of economic power from the United States & Europe to markets elsewhere, and especially China, India and parts of the Middle East are in good shape to reap the rewards.  However, since the system is built around the countries of the G7 with the US as the main motor of worldwide consumption, co-operation between all countries is needed, or else the rise of protectionism will amplify the current situation.

I wouldn’t be surprised if in case the crisis lasts long (hopefully not) China ends up bailing the US so that its own economy can keep on growing…

Where will it stop?

A few friends of mine in Facebook added an app called "Cities I've visited", and after filling it myself I found out and confirmed a couple of interesting things.

Even though I've been pretty much to all the countries in what is traditionally considered Western Europe, I'm still missing Switzerland, Greece and Ireland.  Furthermore, even though I've been a few times to France, quite big parts of the country are still virgin territory to me.  I already knew that I'm missing southern Spain & southern Italy, as well as huge swathes of Eastern Europe, and funnily enough after all these years I haven't been to Norway or Denmark yet (many times through Copenhagen airport, but not to the city itself).

I have been to the big 3 countries in Latin America, but the rest are still virgin territory.  Same with most of Asia, and all of Africa and Australasia.  Definitely still a lot to be discovered

That is somethingI have come accross with a couple of times during my time here, the definition of what comprises the Western world varies widely depending on who you ask: some people will say that it’s only Anglo-Saxon North America and Western Europe, some people will include Eastern Europe, some will include Australasia, some Latin America and some all of the above.

Once, when having this discussion about East and West I asked a colleague at work regarding my belonging to said construct, and this person answered “Maybe you are, but I wouldn’t say that everyone in your country is”. Further expanding that thought, I started wondering what it is. If a country that follows Christendom to the extent of being the second largest Catholic country in the world, is also a heir to the Roman legal tradition and has the second largest amount of speakers of a Latin-based language in the world is not Western given that it also has a strong Native Amarican component, then I don’t know what the West it is.

Frankly, I think there is a confusion between the concepts of western, northern and developed countries, but that’s just me.

Como un ejemplo sobre el relativo peso e interés de las economías China y Latinoamericana en donde me encuentro, puedo compartir la observación que mientras en mi clase sobre Negocios en Latinoamérica solamente hay 5 estudiantes (3 de ellos latinoamericanos) en la clase sobre Negocios en China hay unos 20.

I like video games, especially those related to strategy. I’ve played games in the series of Age of Empires, Total War, Command and Conquer and Civilization, among others. However, a new kind of socially-responsible video games have caught my attention.

PeaceMaker is also a strategy game, but in this case you take control of one of the sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the goal is to achieve peace and the Nobel Prize. Their usage of real news footage in the game seems particularly interesting.

FoodForce is a game developed for the UN World Food Programme targeted at pre-teens, where they are given the task to co-ordinate the food assistance operations of the UN in a fictional country. It has now been downloaded millions of times.

I don’t know about you, but I feel these kind of gaming is worth trying. We can teach people that doing the right thing can also be fun.

• USA 2-0 Mexico (Again… the team needs more than a winning mentality to win)
• Scotland 2-2 Finland (Interesting usage of new players by both teams)
• Belgium 0-2 Czech Republic (Belgium still seems to have forgotten how to play)
• UK 0-1 Spain (Horrible game, great goal by Iniesta)
• France 0-1 Argentina (Most entertaining match overall last night)