Interplanetary Twitter

This is pretty neat- the Phoenix Mars Lander is now on Twitter and Facebook. You can follow it on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MarsPhoenix or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pasadena-CA/Jet-Propulsion-Laboratory-JPL/8261258923

First Cross-Atlantic Union Formed

This has been all over the news this morning- the American United Steelworkers union is merging with Britain's UNITE (aka Amicus). There are many potential long-term ramifications to transnational and transcontinental trade unions, one of which is the potential change of prices.

Corporations move manufacturing to poor countries in order to take advantage of lower wages, and those lower costs are reflected in the prices we pay today for our favorite gadgets, gizmos and widgets. But what the prices may not reflect is the human and social cost to the workers in these factories, which are often cited as arguments against globalization.

I would argue that these are simply natural occurrences before the process of globalization is complete. The next step is for trade unions to globalize, a process which United Steelworkers and UNITE have started. In fact, they have been quoted as saying that they plan to eventually get Asian unions to merge with them as well. While this is unlikely to occur any time soon (jobs still keep rolling in to Southeast Asia), I have no doubt that it will happen eventually.

What would that world look like? With huge international corporations and labor unions, would nations become obsolete? Would the responsibility of regulating these global entities fall on the UN, or some not-as-yet founded world government?

Foundations I: Non-Interference

The purpose of this post and those that fall under the "foundations" tag is to lay the groundwork for future discussions, for both you the reader and for me the writer. As my thoughts and ideas change and evolve, I may return to some of these topics for further analysis and discussion.

I have had a very long and loyal relationship with Star Trek. Not only has it inspired me to become interested in technology and space travel, but in political thought and the human condition as well. For anyone who's watched more than a few episodes will know, the latter two topics are the real focuses of the franchise.

One of the grandest themes is that of non-interference. There are two different parts to this theme:

• To refrain oneself from using one's own set of laws and moral values to judge or otherwise criticize another
• To refrain oneself from actively changing another's habits or customs

Non-interference is interesting because it can be applied on any level of social interaction. On a personal level, you might practice non-interference by not scorning a smoker in front of a restaurant or sitting on a bench on campus. On a national level, a religious nation would not condemn a secular one because of their godlessness.

I see non-interference as different than neutrality (feel free to challenge me on that point), in much the same way that tolerance is different from acceptance. Non-interference is not a gag intended to silence opinion on controversial topics, or to keep a country hogtied as it is being threatened by another.

Where I see non-interference as impractical or maybe even dangerous is in its application between social strata. For instance, should a family practice non-interference and let a father slip into alcoholism? Should a government be disallowed from discouraging its citizens to smoke? Or drink and drive? Or murder? The answer, obviously, is no. The people and organizations that make up larger social constructs are rightly governed by them. As far as I can see, non-interference applied in such a way is absolute anarchy (much like absolute zero; theoretically possible but not practically achievable).

Finally, since I think conclusions can sometimes be unnecessary and redundant, this is the last sentence of my post.

A Brave New World

I figure that I should introduce myself in my first post. My name is Alexander Muir. I'm Canadian, though I live and go to school in the United States. My major is called "Society, Technology, and Policy", which is a small major at a small school, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I'm interested in just about everything (except country music, though bluegrass is OK), but I'll try to keep my posts here somewhere within the realm of my aforementioned major. I will be updating as much as I can. Thanks for reading!