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Global Interconnectedness
I usually think it's really cool that the world is 'growing smaller', that I can use the Internet to have friends on several continents. But nothing is an unalloyed good, it seems.
Yesterday, on the bus, I was idly and gloomily wondering how many bullets my tax dollars have bought, how many people have died in the current war because of my particular contribution. Then, later, I read this, linked from a friend's journal, and it depressed me further. It's about the interconnected wars in Africa, the price of tantalum, rape as a weapon of war, and how the growth of the Internet, with all its potential for bringing people ideas, information, communication, and freedom, has resulted in the severe oppression of many people.
http://pandagon.net/2007/03/07/fotisii/
I said to the friend who linked to this, "I feel guilty for having a computer." (And how awful of me is it that *that*'s my honest reaction, or at least part of it? I should care a hell of a lot more about women suffering in ways I can barely imagine.) Sometimes, as an American, as a citizen in a developed country, I feel like I necessarily leave a trail of destruction behind me in the world, one I hardly ever even see, just by living in this culture. And I don't want to feel that way, but I also don't know what to do to make it not be true, to be more good for the world than I am bad, especially as I learn about more and more evils that I share culpability in.
I don't know.
Yesterday, on the bus, I was idly and gloomily wondering how many bullets my tax dollars have bought, how many people have died in the current war because of my particular contribution. Then, later, I read this, linked from a friend's journal, and it depressed me further. It's about the interconnected wars in Africa, the price of tantalum, rape as a weapon of war, and how the growth of the Internet, with all its potential for bringing people ideas, information, communication, and freedom, has resulted in the severe oppression of many people.
http://pandagon.net/2007/03/07/fotisii/
I said to the friend who linked to this, "I feel guilty for having a computer." (And how awful of me is it that *that*'s my honest reaction, or at least part of it? I should care a hell of a lot more about women suffering in ways I can barely imagine.) Sometimes, as an American, as a citizen in a developed country, I feel like I necessarily leave a trail of destruction behind me in the world, one I hardly ever even see, just by living in this culture. And I don't want to feel that way, but I also don't know what to do to make it not be true, to be more good for the world than I am bad, especially as I learn about more and more evils that I share culpability in.
I don't know.
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No, wait, scratch that, as much as I think necessary, because I can bet you won't think that you could ever do enough (which is, BTW, not true).
Try and live your own life as best you can.