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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (44882)	10/27/2003 3:41:47 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

Pacifica Americana G'day good readers! I had a very excitable weekend and thankfully took lots of picture, which I'll hope to publish on the website soon enough. Actually a friend's friend (or if you want to be exact a cousin of a friend's friend) was down for a visit to London from San Francisco. Intriguingly enough she was a geneticist and a grad from Stanford University. Ever since my foray into investment banking I've had a regrettable lack of exposure towards the more cerebral sciences. Anyway I learnt over the weekend from an insider in the gen-tech industry and I'm amazed over some of the developments that are going to come out over the next few years. For instance rates of prostrate cancer could decline dramatically because of a vaccine in the works and the severe form of the Adrenoleukodystrophy disorder could be significantly ameliorated by the synthetic gene. In fact it is a disease that affects one in a hundred births (affects boys of European descent mainly) and, in the classic child variant discussed, everyone who has it dies by the age of 11. In fact the synthetic gene is being delivered via the HIV virus (by the way the cure for AIDS is off for at least twenty years). Of course the virus is modified to the degree that it becomes a harmless carrier but then again it is the genius of humanity that such a lethal carrier is being transformed to sustain and renew life. 1 in a 100. I could hardly believe the statistic when I heard it and I was shocked beyond by my senses at such an extraordinarily high rate. A percent of the children population affected by ALD and one can only imagine the effects of an effective cure. It would bring extraordinary solace to their families and immeasurably contribute to the happiness of society. It would return to society a lost percent of the population and render them as integral and productive members rather than incapacitated invalids dependent on others and the medical sector. There may be those who decry the low birth rate of the West (being swamped as it were by the more dynamically Afro-Asian nations such as the Gypsies) nevertheless we fail to realise that those being born will be leading extraordinarily healthy and productive. Conceivably those born could be more talented and productive over their lifetimes than the sum of their ancestor's efforts because of America's pioneering advance. Furthermore we can rest assure that America will go from strength to strength. The American economy has grown to such a leviathan that it is draining the best and the brightest from around the world. In fact at the company the geneticist works for, she is among 32 foreigners (Franco-Lebanese by origins) in a cadre of 35 scientists. America doesn't need to graduate students since everyone around the world will flock to it. America's mass market, developed intellectual network & patent protection and huge capital market (budgets for a half a mill dollars are not uncommon) imply that there will be no alternative for aspiring scientists. In Paris the lab hands were sequencing by hand whereas in the States it's wholly automated and done overnight. We'll see the perpetuity of California as the scientific, technical and entertainment hub of the world anchored the financial prowess of New York (and London) whilst protected by the unimaginable political leverage of Washington. This trinity is what will sustain America and allow her to continually zoom past rivals like the Indo-Chinese or Europeans. Let unfettered immigration flow to the States and one will see an assimilated coloured generation because the convenience of the American lifestyle is such that it makes it hard to abandon it. The quality of life in America is so high, though it is sacrificed by a distinct loneliness and lack of communal solidarity, that even London seems wanting. As I found out yesterday the convenience of a car, proximity of a beach and a pleasant natural environment in Cal highlights the inadequacies of London's public transport, miserable weather and distinct artificiality. How can these immigrants return to their home countries if, after a while, London seems retro. I spent a summer in California at UC Berkeley and I've got to say that I'm particularly fond of the state. Though as far from Europe as possible, it's regional ethos is particularly saturated in the European ideal. For instance San Francisco, to an extent, imbibes the Scandinavian ideal of a liberal small town. I may be influenced by the right but I particularly enjoyed and fascinated by Berkeley's post-modern hippi'ism. I enjoy America's tremendous continental diversity and that it is weaved by the threads of a hundreds of distinct sub-cultures from Southern gentility to Northern puritanism. America is distinctly defined by a lack of homogeneity yet rooted by civic ideals and a consumerist way of life. In a world rapidly defined by globalisation we fail to realise that it is only America who can remain ahead of the game. This is because of the very nature of the nation in that it's continual advancement undermines any lingering historic traditions (the Grape of Wraths depicts and sentimentalises the uprooted Okie culture). Whilst this may be relatively unimportant in a land, which traces its genesis to 1492, for the rest of the world the trade-off could be too high. Human beings are anchored by family, culture and religion, which somewhat mediate our lightning speed advances. It could be very difficult for millennia-old nations like China, England and Egypt to give up history and the past completely for the future. To preserve who we are and maintain a conscious continuity inevitably means a policy of preservation and moderated development. Bali could become an industrial hub but at the same time that will destroy an intricate Hindu culture, that is agrarian in form and thought. Is that a sacrifice we must make around the world to attain a monochromatic prosperous world (marginal happiness per dollar has been attained once past the 10000$ GDP per capita mark) at the expense of a coloured history? The world needs to develop and the global citenzry has to be established but at the same time there must be a framework and a plan to modernise and make relevant that which has been meaningful to our ancestors. That means the driver has to be the New World, whereby the talent and pioneers can cluster in hubs like California to stretch the frontiers. A land uninhibited by tradition or the burden of history, it can perpetuate as the driver of global tech, economic growth and novel social conventions. Just as within nations there are regional disparities, and it is often foolish & ineffective to correct them, so will there national inequalities exist as part of the natural human condition. Finally in a discussion last week over careers I was told by a friend that she agonised over Marx's words for the greater part of her youth. Marx touched upon how a farmer can revel over his produce since there is a tangible fruit to his efforts whereby the modern prole, rather specialised labourer, has a distinct disconnection from his end product. Moreso in the service industry whereby services are traded and money is transferred without any true accomplishments to show for it except for the green paper. Ultimately this causes a greater deal of dissatisfaction in these pursuits than in the primary professions, where there exists an intimate connection between work, effort and produce. The service industry exists because the agricultural, commodity and manufacturing sectors have been capitalised to the hilt to generate liquidity. Wealth is usually transferred and sometimes created for oneself (if you can arbitrage the market and come up with something better) but there remains an under whelmed sense of contributing to the whole. Having studied economics I'm aware of the centrality of his arguments and the inescapable argument that the fundamental economy is basically the sum product of the fruits of the land and that which valued added by the manufacturing sector. However Marx is wrong in that the scientific and academic fields therein lies a distinct appreciation for individual effort and a very visible understanding of the outcome (if my friend is able to synthesise a gene to break the lipids and ameliorate ALD then she'll be responsible for the redemption of the live of 1 in a 100 boys from the cruel tentacles of faith). Job satisfaction is not merely limited to the rustic pursuits however in this cerebral age wealth, knowledge and tech go a long way to provide a meaning to our careers. Zachary Latif 07:01 No Comment. latif.blogspot.com