Mostly Spiky, a Little Flat – and Completely Terrifying

Both Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat and Robert Florida in The World Is Spiky present compelling arguments about the nature of globalization and the world’s economy during the 21st century. While Friedman’s ideas — that various “flatteners” have led to a level playing field for populations and companies around the globe — make sense in a hypothetical way, it is Florida who captures the reality of our global society. The consolidation of people, talent, and resources into a limited number of metropolises has led to a striking divide of the world’s population into groups of haves and have-nots that only seems to become more stratified with each passing day.

Florida’s concept of “spikyness” is a nod to the use of world maps that depict the densities of various attributes of our world population and economy. The maps that he chooses to include — population; peaks, hills, and valleys; light emissions; patents; and scientific citations — all create clear visualizations of the locations of these resources and the absolute lack of them in most areas. In thinking about our current world, Florida’s spikyness holds up. Elite global cities such as Tokyo, London, Hong Kong, and New York drive much of the world’s economy and innovation, as do relatively smaller cities such as Los Angeles, Seoul, and Berlin. This isn’t to say that the population outside of these places isn’t important or impactful, as many areas produce and consume goods, and contribute greatly to the overall economy. But even in just the United States, this consolidation of wealth, education, and power into specific urban areas is clear, and has far reaching consequences for populations who live outside of those bubbles.

The analysis done by Friedman is misguided because it assumes that a democratization of resources through his flatteners mean that all populations have equal access and ability to utilize them. For example, the internet has clearly allowed for an explosion in the amount of knowledge that is available to the entire population, but what good is this knowledge if you do not have the capital or creative capacity to act upon it? This does mean that each of his ideas is incorrect. His 4th flattener is uploading, which has led to a proliferation of communications that are no longer controlled by just large companies or governments. In this way, the world has become flat, and in some ways has also shrunk as a result of our increased digital connections. Florida also makes a key point about Friedman’s work, that flatness has meant that places outside of the peaks can leverage their power to become more developed societies. Many of these places have filled the needs of human services, manufacturing, and farming. However, this also means that those hills and valleys are somewhat at the mercy of the peaks, as the global cities’ needs and demands will determine what they require from their lessen counterparts.

The TED Talk by Nick Bostrom, What Happens When Our Computers Get Smarter Than We Are?, lays out a chilling vision of our not-too-distant future, in which human’s have invented their last invention — supersmart artificial intelligence — and are no longer the premier beings on the planet. Apocalyptic scenarios aside, he lays out a strong argument for mindfully going about the production of AI by including our human values as part of their programming. To him, it’s the only way that AI would not just simply look for the most efficient ways of doing things — collateral (aka human) damage notwithstanding. To a degree, his concept of the eventual dominance of AI mirrors the relationship that our elite global centers have with the rest of the planet. Just like the AI that would be chiefly concerned with performing efficiently, our peak cities hoard resources, wealth, and political capital at the expense of the other parts of the world. They have increasingly become consolidated machines, with perhaps the only solution being bringing in a sense of flatness through more mindful governing values.