It is dangerously destabilizing to have half the world on the cutting edge of technology while the other half struggles on the bare edge of survival.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the risks of technological disparity between different parts of the world.
William J. Clinton's quote emphasizes the dangers associated with a world where technological advancements exist for some while others are left to struggle for basic necessities. This gap can lead to instability and conflict, as the disparity between the technologically advanced and those barely surviving can foster resentment and hinder global progress.
In practice
In a keynote speech addressing global inequality, this quote could underscore the importance of technology access.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
Any competent programmer has an API to cash, payments, escrow, wills, notaries, lotteries, dividends, micropayments, subscriptions, crowdfunding, and more.
Disclosure and transparency are the currency of the Internet, and they are at odds with authoritarianism.
Timeβ has ceased, 'space' has vanished. We now live in a global village... a simultaneous happening
Digital presentation is just television in public; we're all just getting together and watching TV without pointing the remote control at the screen.
Few industries have the ability to transform society like tech, yet too few companies are asking the questions or working on the problems that would create meaningful social change.
Now it's easy for someone to set up a storefront and reach the entire world in very modest ways. So these technologies that we thought would dis-intermediate traditional sellers gave more people the tools to be sellers. It also changed the balance of power between sellers and buyers.
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