Chapter 4 Chapter 2 10 Powers to Flatten the World (1)

The Bible tells us that God created the world in 6 days and he rested on the 7th day.The process of flattening the world took longer, it was accomplished by the combined forces of 10 major political events, innovation activities and companies, and no one could stop and rest in the process.This chapter focuses on the 10 driving forces that are flattening the world, and the various new ways of cooperation brought about by this process. Momentum No. 1: Nov. 9, 1989, The Age of Innovation: The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Creation of the Windows Operating System The first time I saw the Berlin Wall, it already had a hole in it.It was December 1990, former US Secretary of State James.Baker visited Berlin, and I participated in the report of its formation.Baker saw this Soviet-era monument for the first time when I stood beside him, along with other journalists.Baker wrote in his memoir "Diplomatic Politics": "It was a foggy day. In my raincoat, I felt like a character in a John Le. Carré detective story. But when I looked through the Berlin Wall When Xiaodong saw the monotonous buildings in East Berlin, I realized that the East Germans had firmly grasped everything in their own hands. This was determined by their willpower.” After Baker finished reading and left, the few of us Reporters took turns looking at the hole, and I brought home some wall tiles for my daughter.It seemed odd at the time that a wall like this be built in a modern city just to prevent people who live on one side of the wall from admiring, or even peeking, at the other.

For the older generation, the fall of the Berlin Wall was indeed unsettling.No social system can match communism when it comes to closing the gap between rich and poor.For those GDR people who had become accustomed to a socialist way of life, a past life of hard work and poverty, but with guaranteed jobs, housing, education and pensions, they might have found it difficult to adjust to the fall of the Berlin Wall, but For many others, it was a chance to be free.So the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall was not limited to one place in Berlin, it was an event that flattened the world.

To appreciate the profound significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we had better listen to voices from outside Germany or the Soviet Union. When the Berlin Wall fell, the tower let.Das, the head of the Confederation of Indian Industry, felt the ripple effect on India: "India had a lot of regulations and bureaucracy. After getting rid of the long-term British colonial rule, Nehru came to power, he Has little experience in governing the country. America was busy with Europe, Japan and the Marshall plan. So Nehru sent his economic brain trust to Moscow. These people came back and reported that the achievements of the Soviet Union were astonishing and their plans The committee allocates resources, issues operating permits, and can decide everything.

So we started to follow suit, but we forgot that India has a private sector... and since then, private sector in India is also subject to regulations.By 1991, India still had a private sector, but it was heavily regulated and not trusted by the government.Because they only want to make money! From 1947 to 1991, the infrastructure construction in India was state-owned.The heavy burden posed by the state sector has nearly bankrupted India. We can't pay our debts. Although we have won many wars with Pakistan, this does not give us much confidence as a nation. "In 1991, India's hidden pain may have been basically exhausted. Singh, then India's finance minister, pointed out that India must integrate its economy more into global trade, deregulate its economy, and achieve privatization. Das said:"We' The Berlin Wall' fell, and it was like releasing a tiger from its cage, and trade controls were lifted.In the past, our economic growth rate was only 3%, which was called "the growth rate of Indians" - because Indians have always been known for their gentle temperament, "the growth rate of Indians" also means slow, prudent and conservative. Three years after India implemented economic reforms in 1994, our economic growth rate has reached 70%. In the past, if you wanted to get more income, you could only go to the United States. Now, you can also become the richest man in the world in India People... In the past we had only $1 billion in foreign exchange reserves, now we have $118 billion in foreign exchange reserves.The culture and mindset changed too...in 10 years, we went from subdued confidence to unabashedly ambitious. "

The event also made us see the world differently — as a whole.Because the Berlin Wall not only blocked the road, but also blocked our sight.When the Berlin Wall existed, it was difficult to see the world as a single market, a single ecosystem, and a single society. Before 1989 it was hard to imagine any global policy. Amartya, an Indian Nobel Laureate in Economics who works at Harvard University.Mori likes to quote the Sanskrit word for a frog in a well, saying: "Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, many people saw the world like a frog in a well. The fall of the Berlin Wall created opportunities for people to communicate with each other, as if the frogs in one well could suddenly meet the frogs in other wells... I celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall because I know for sure that we can interact with each other Learned a lot. "Sen mentioned: "Women's freedom can improve their education level, reduce the birth rate and infant mortality rate, increase their employment opportunities, and then affect their political rights, so that women can play a more important role in local self-government. Role".

In the end, the fall of the Berlin Wall would not only give more people access to each other's knowledge webs, but also help them accept common standards—standards for how the economy works, standards for accounting, standards for banking, standards for building computers, standards for writing economic papers .I'll talk more about this later, but what can be said here is that common standards create a more level playing field.In other words, the fall of the Berlin Wall made it easier to spread good practices. When economic or technical standards appear on the world stage, these standards become accepted more quickly.

Just taking Europe as an example, the fall of the Berlin Wall contributed to the formation of the European Union and the increase in the number of member states.These factors combined with the emergence of the euro to create a single economic zone in a region once divided by the Iron Curtain. While the positive effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall were immediately apparent, the reasons for its fall were less clear. There was more than one factor that contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall.This is not only a product of internal contradictions and inefficiencies in the former Soviet system, but also because the former Soviet Union was eventually dragged down in order to engage in an arms race with the Reagan administration. Gorbachev's failure to reform the systems that could not be reformed also played a catalytic role.But if I were to point to the most important factor, it would be the information revolution that started in the early 1980s.Totalitarian rule relies on the monopoly of information and power, but the widespread use of fax machines, telephones and other modern communication tools has allowed too much information to be transmitted to the other side of the Iron Curtain.

1977 Steve.Steve Jobs and Steve.Steve Wozniak Invented the famous Apple II home computer. In 1981 the first IBM personal computer was put on the market. In 1985 the first version of the Windows operating system came out.The improved Windows 3.0 system that revolutionized IBM computers was put on the market on May 22, 1990, only half a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.The fall of the Berlin Wall removed geopolitical barriers, allowing us to exchange information, use the same standards, and see the world globally. The Windows system and the IBM personal computer removed another important barrier, allowing everyone to process, write, hold, and disseminate far more information than ever before.

Microsoft chief engineer Craig.Craig J. Mundie said: "Computers loaded with the Windows operating system have enabled millions of people to digitize their opinions and disseminate them widely." Gradually, everything can be digitized.Mundy also said: "It has become easier and cheaper for people to process information. They can operate computers on their desks, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the basement, instead of having to use large computers that only big companies have, and they don't need You have to be a programmer to use a computer." The implications of this change for flattening the world are profound.Personal computers loaded with the Windows operating system and the fall of the Berlin Wall started the process of flattening the world.Of course, people have always been able to express their opinions, from ancient times when they painted on cave walls, to the advent of Gutenberg's printing press and the typewriter.But personal computers with Windows operating systems have made it possible for people to put their ideas into digital format right at their desks.Digital format is very important.

Because once people can digitize their content in bits or bytes, they can process information more efficiently.With the development of remote communication technology, people can transmit their views to more and more people through various new ways.Imagine the man who can only write with pen and paper, imagine the man who can only write with a typewriter, and look at an author with a personal computer! bill.Gates once said in the early days of founding Microsoft that his company's mission is to give everyone "information at your fingertips" (IAYF).In the era of Globalization 3.0, people globalize themselves, mainly through the Windows operating system, Apple and IBM personal computers.

These developments gave individuals the ability to write, organize, and disseminate information anytime, anywhere. Mundy, a chief engineer at Microsoft, said that the more Windows is consolidated as the main operating system, the more applications will be developed on the program software and the faster the productivity level will be improved.With the efforts of tens of thousands of software, Windows finally has 38 languages, which greatly facilitates computer users in various countries. During the same period, more and more people discovered that, as long as they bought a personal computer and a modem, they could use their phone to surf the Internet and send mail through Internet service providers such as Compu Serve and America Online."The widespread adoption of personal computers, fax machines, the Windows operating system, and modems all in the late 1980s and early 1990s were the fundamental platforms that started the global information revolution," Mundy said. all integrated into a single interoperable operating system.Mundy points out that once we have a standardized computing platform (IBM PC), a standardized graphical user interface for processing Word and spreadsheets (Windows), and a standardized tool for communication (modems and the global telephone network), That said, once you have this basic interoperable platform, these applications will spread quickly. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, we saw more and more people connecting their personal computers to global communication platforms, and there was nothing stopping people from transmitting any information in a digital format.Political constraints on the individual have begun to unravel after the fall of the Berlin Wall, although there are still many forces of repression.Restrictions on personal information were also removed with the advent of the personal computer, the Windows operating system, and the modem.These two simultaneous changes allowed individuals to communicate as deeply and as widely as possible on the flat world.They can communicate in many different ways, and they can communicate their views to a large number of people. Compared with the past history, these changes are exciting.However, compared with the lagging development, these changes are still crude and elementary.“The original platform was very limited because of the lack of infrastructure,” says Mundy. The Internet we see today—the magical data-exchange program that connects everyone and everything—did not exist then.The network at that time only had very basic programs for exchanging files and e-mails. Only users with the same operating system and applications could exchange files by e-mail or file transfer, and even these simple operations were only available on those computers. Only masters can complete it.You can't send e-mail as easily as you do now, especially when you're not in your own company and using your own Internet server.Back then, if you were using America Online, it was difficult to communicate with Compu Serve users, it was neither easy nor reliable."The situation at the time was that despite all the data and innovations on all the computers, there was no easy and interoperable way for people to share that data," Mundy said. "While some applications allowed individual systems to work together, but generally this is limited to the planned exchange of data between networks within a single company." While the network was still very limited, the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the mid-1990s was a period of rapid personal growth.That period was the era of "me and the machine can talk better and faster, so I can do more things", and it was also the era of "me and the machine can talk better and faster with other people in the company, so we can create more things." era of high productivity". Although unspectacular, there are certainly dissonant notes to this exciting new era.It wasn't just Americans and Europeans who celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also Ben, who raised a cup of Turkish coffee in celebration.Osama bin Laden. He believes that the main credit for the collapse of the former USSR should be attributed to (with the help of the US and Pakistani military) The Islamic Jihad group that forced the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan on February 15, 1989.The Berlin Wall collapsed nine months after the former Soviet Union withdrew its troops. After losing this powerful enemy, Bin Laden began to look for a new opponent. He found that the United States still had a large number of troops stationed in his hometown, Saudi Arabia, which he did not want to see. of.So, just as we rejoiced at the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of Windows, and believed that there was no ideological threat in the free market environment, bin Laden turned his guns on the United States.Although bin Laden, like Reagan, regarded the socialist former Soviet Union as a "devil empire," gradually he also regarded the United States as an object of hatred. He believed that Islamism was superior to free market capitalism.The demise of the former Soviet Union not only did not bring him a sense of frustration, but instead doubled his courage.He was disgusted by the expansion of competing platforms.Some people think that Reagan dragged down the former Soviet Union through the arms race, and some people believe in IBM and Steve.Jobs (Founder of Apple) and Bill. Gates brought down the Berlin Wall through the Internet, but in the Islamic world, many people believe that bin Laden collapsed the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall with religious fanaticism. In short, just as we celebrate "11.9", another memorable day "9.11" is foreshadowing.I'll touch on this in the second half of the book, but let's move on to the factors that flatten the world. The second major driving force: August 9, 1995, the advent of the Internet era: the emergence of the Web and the listing of Netscape By the mid-1990s, the development of the personal computer, Windows, and LAN mentioned above had reached its limit.It's great that people can process information in digital formats, but in order to achieve greater breakthroughs, the world must be connected.Only when we can disseminate our information at a very low cost can other people share and use our information.In the 1990s, a major breakthrough occurred in just a few years: the Internet appeared, which provided tools for global communication at extremely low cost; the World Wide Web created a magical virtual world where everyone All of them are able to transmit their digital information to the Internet, and other people can easily access the information; various search engines have appeared, and people can easily find various web pages on the website. This kind of search engine is so simple, Everyone is going online.The revolution in connected technology is driving the process of flattening the world. British physicist Tim.Berners.Lee (Tim Berners-Lee) proposed the concept of the World Wide Web, which is to establish a system to create, organize and link files for easy browsing. In 1991, while consulting for the European Union's Nuclear Energy Research Agency (CERN) in Switzerland, he created the World Wide Web and built the first website. The attempt was made to make it easier for scientists to share research results.Telephones and modems connect computers all over the world.But phone lines and modems only connect your computer to the Internet.If you don't know how to find information, even if you are on the Internet, you will still be at a loss.Despite the advent of e-mail, sharing information online is still difficult.Without websites, webpages, and browsers, people don't know how to search for information. Berners.Berners-Lee's World Wide Web became the first big breakthrough, enlivening the Internet as a tool for people to connect and write—not just computer-savvy "geeks," but anyone can use this tool.Although people often use "World Wide Web" interchangeably The terms "Internet" and "Internet" have different meanings.Just like Berners.As Lee explained on his own webpage: "The Internet is a network that connects various networks, mainly composed of many computers and cables. Vint Cerf (Vint Cerf) and Bob Kahn ( Bob Kahn) (they are the inventors of the Internet) the work done is to solve how to use the Internet to send small 'packets'. .This is exactly what the Internet is about.People send packets of information over the Internet -- to anywhere in the world -- usually within a second.Lots and lots of activities use the Internet: e-mail, for example, was everywhere long before I created a global hypertext system—what I call the World Wide Web. " What exactly is the World Wide Web?What is the nature of this amazing cyberspace that has become a parallel world?Berners.Li explained: "The World Wide Web is an abstract (imagined) information space.On the Internet, you find many computers connected to the network, and on the World Wide Web, you find all kinds of files, sounds, videos... such information.On the Internet, interconnections are made by cables between computers, while on the World Wide Web, interconnections are made by hypertext links.The World Wide Web exists because of the need for communication between computers on the Internet.Without the Internet, the World Wide Web would not exist.And the World Wide Web made the Internet more useful, because people were really interested in information (not to mention knowledge and wisdom), not really in understanding the computers and cables connected to the Internet. " Berners.The first web address Lee built (and the first web address ever) was: First seen on June 6th.It explains how the World Wide Web works, how an individual can own a browser, and how to set up a web server. The June 14, 1999 issue of Time magazine, in its mission brief, credits Berners.Lee was one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, and Time magazine summed up his creation of the World Wide Web this way: "Thomas Addison won credit for inventing the light bulb, but he had many people working on it in his lab ...William Shockley may be called the father of the transistor, but it was actually the creation of two scientists on his research team. If ever there was one thing in history that was created by a committee, it was It's the Internet -- especially protocol and packet switching. But the World Wide Web is Berners.Lee's unique creation.He designed the World Wide Web...and, he...