Peace, War and Computers

Peace, war and Computers written by Chris H. Gray is a soft essay about peace, war and networked society. Even if it is a book but his writing is not too serious. His background is more of a historian but he tracks the change of technology and its impact on society. I read several chapters of his book, but, frankly speaking, not much of the contents was impressive. May be it's too impetuous his works evaluated with only this book. So the author will stay my intellectual watch list.

[comment] a real case of "transcend": A Palestine boy's donation of his organs to "enemy"

A boy playing with a toy gun was shot by Israeli soldier(s) by mistake. The boy's father may not have forgiven them, however, he decided to donate his loved one's organs to Israeli patients. This case shows a real "transcend" which was suggested by Galtung. http://imgnews.naver.com/image/001/2005/11/09/092005110912700_1.jpgI respect his decision with dignity. The boy and his father substantially contributed to let people know what the real peace means. Rest in peace, a Palestine boy!

[comment] Why we need peace in the two Koreas

photo (c) Mirchoyu
Lots of war orphans are left after the end of the Korean War 1950-53. Three thousands of them were sent for education in Romania in the 1950s. The leader of the orphans, a North Korean, fell in love with a Romanian teacher at the school. His surname is Cho, and her name is Mirchoyu. The couple went to North Korea but their only daughter got serious illness, which let the Korean husband and Romanian spouse got to be apart for about 40 years until now.

http://blog.daum.net/altna84/5113024

You can see her picture. Her daughter became an officer of EU branch in Romania. The wedding ring is still kept on Mirchoyu's finger which means eternal love.

This is why the two Koreas should be united again. It's not just a trivial story. It's human story.

[Comment] War culture - a greenhouse for human violence

I recently purchased a book edited by Colleen Roach,PhD. Its title is "Communication and Culture in War and Peace."

The first article authored by the editor stresses the covert effect of War Culture - e.g. video games, war toys, and Rambo movies. I agree with the concern the author has. As Dr. Tawil Souri argued in her presentation at AoIR (title: From Real to Virtual Conflict: Palestinian Kids and On-line Games), online virtual games are utilized for hightening the level of hatred.

It's not surprising because major game companies enhanced the reality of their violent games by recruiting generals and admirals from the military. Palestine's resistance by making another game shows the dilemma mankind confront... Who can blame them? Who cannot blame them?

The delicate hands of children are clicking the surreal combats. They are killing people in the present tense.

[comment] Google as a peacemaker?

One of Korean newspaper (Jonjashinmun) reported that Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google company, asserted in Nikkei Forum 2005 in Japan that IT technology will save human beings: e.g. Google earth's realtime photo service saved around 4 thousand people in the area damaged by hurricane Katrina. If that is true, it shows literally thatl technology saves the world. He added that Google Earth shows just 1 percent of total information over the world, so realization of potential information use would make the global peace possible.

Personally, I have argued that subculture media like Weblog could save the world with the power of its realtime interactivity. That's why Schmidt's remark http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?mode=LSD&office_id=030&article_id=0000121762§ion_id=102&menu_id=102 attracted my interest. What do you think about IT tech and global peace?

[info] A suggestion of "the second Marshall Plan for global peace"

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050616-101028-4888r

Breaking the cycle of violence
By Ed O'Rourke

She/He suggests that true peace is possible not by advanced warfare but by commerce, diplomacy, science, technology, education, international law and human investment.

The most impressive remarks by Ed O'Rourke are:

"An old saying is that you cannot have peace as long as you have injustice."

"World peace can be achieved if there is serious attention to the root cause of conflict and terrorism. A second Marshall Plan for the world's poor will be far more effective than airport security and anti-terrorism measures in reducing the number of desperate people who do desperate things."

What do you think?

[info] Jang Kim's three presentations about conflict.

I presented three papers at AoIR6.0 at Chicago. AoIR is a research community based on multidiscipline approach whose members are devoted to internet studies. My three papers are

1. Blog as an oppositional medium?: A Semantic Network Analysis on the Iraq War Blogs

2. Web as a battlefield: A Semantic Network Analysis through the GoogleTM Search for International Conflicts 1997-2001, coauthored with George A. Barnett & Yon Soo Lim

and

3. The Effect of Cognitive Complexity on Information-Seeking Behavior on the Web, collaborately authored by Jang Kim, Kyoosang Choi, and George A. Barnett.

You might be curious why no.3 belongs to peace research, but its experiment is about searching information about the Iraq War.

If you feel interested in AoIR, go here and consider joining it. Jang.

[comment] International conflict as an economic sacrifice

I'm looking for some information about arms trade and during the process I found one article by chance:

Economic analysis of conflict
Todd Sandler
The Journal of Conflict Resolution; Dec 2000; 44, 6;
pg. 723

Sandler said:
"If people have to spend some of their resources guarding their possessions and the fruits of their labor, there are fewer resources for productive activities. In addition, there is less incentive to produce as the probability increases that this production can be stolen." (p.723)

Media coverage about global conflict usually focuses on its tragedic scene or violence itself, but not on what people are really losing. People tend to be interested in how much budget is spent on the war, not in how many jobs are lost because of it. This article gave me a good insight about conflict.