The ninth and final threshold is that of The Future. Compared to the other thresholds, we know almost nothing about what the new complexity we create will be, or what exactly the ingredients and goldilocks conditions are. For this blogpost, we chose a problem that plagues the world we live in now, and addressed the implications this issue presents.
- Define and explain the problem, and explain why the problem was chosen.
Loss of cultural diversity is most prevalent today within a number of cultures such as a the Aztecan, Mayan, Ghanian, etc. These cultures have declined due to modernization and globalization because we are so immersed in technology that people do not preserve and pass on their native cultures. Many communities begin to focus on American traditions and values. In America, many people are conforming to generic American values and ideas they are presented with everyday, meanwhile overlooking their own local culture and values. Through social media and technology people are losing their culture due to conforming to society’s ideas, such as the type of music people listen to. If everybody starts to listen to pop music, then people begin to forget their own historic or traditional music and focus on what is popular. By doing so, they are losing their history and values.
2. Explain why it qualifies as a problem that affects the entire world rather than a small part of it.
Loss of culture is a problem as more and more types of people are losing the culture they created as they turn to technology and become adapted to a common society. Certain categories in each culture begin to die off when people assimilate to the “popular” culture today. Languages such as Mayan begin to fade away. Traditions that once flourished may disappear altogether. Another example is a traditional name that changes when people come to the U.S. such as Chinese names given at birth with English translations.
3.Explain how this problem affects the world now, and how you think it will impact the world in 25 years and in 100 years.
The impact of loss of culture in the world will make the world very different 100 even 25 years from now. Many languages, traditions, practices, customs, etc. are beginning to disappear and fade away. In attempt to assimilate into the English culture, many countries are in the process of losing their culture. In 25 years, the loss of culture will impact the world in the sense that native cultures will have already been gone and there will be little to no one left to carry out their culture’s customs. In 100 years, everyone will have already merged into one culture.
The problem with everyone being from only one culture is that we will also lose diversity and uniqueness. Everyone will be listening to the same music, reading the same books, watching the same show and eating the same food. The world would be a more boring day-to-day life.
For example, if the world was to only eat American food knowing America has one of the highest rates of obesity than other countries, a result of that could possibly be that everyone will become obese due to all these unhealthy foods. This would also result in the loss of their own delicious foods. Another example is language. Languages such as Mum (Mexico), Ter Sami (Russia) and Lengilu (Indonesia) are at the verge of dying out due to english being a language that most people speak. This leads to others having to conform to english. some of these languages have changed from from thousands of people understanding and speaking it to only four people who speak it.
This video is an example of someone speaking Mayan, an endangered language.
Big History Project Group 