Class 20 - Revision

Composition

Belief in “the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes
before us,” as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby, is a
characteristic American trait. But hope in a better future is not uniquely
American, even if it has long been a more potent secular faith in the United
States than elsewhere. The belief has older roots. It was the product of a
shift in the temporal location of the golden age from a long-lost past to an
ever-brighter future.

That shift was conceived and realized with the Enlightenment and then the
Industrial Revolution. As human beings gained ever-greater control of the
forces of nature and their economies became ever more productive, they
started to hope for lives more like those of the gods their ancestors had
imagined.

People might never be immortal, but their lives would be healthy and long.
People might never move instantaneously, but they could transport
themselves and their possessions swiftly and cheaply across great
distances. People might never live on Mount Olympus, but they could enjoy
a temperate climate, 24-hour lighting, and abundant food. People might
never speak mind to mind, but they could communicate with as many
others as they desired, anywhere on the planet. People might never enjoy
infinite wisdom, but they could gain immediate access to the knowledge
accumulated over millennia.

All of this has already happened in the world’s richest countries. It is what
the people of the rest of the world hope still to enjoy.

Is a yet more orgiastic future beckoning? Today’s Gatsbys have no doubt

that the answer is yes: humanity stands on the verge of breakthroughs in
information technology, robotics, and artificial intelligence that will dwarf
what has been achieved in the past two centuries. Human beings will be
able to live still more like gods because they are about to create machines
like gods: not just strong and swift but also supremely intelligent and even
self-creating.
Yet this is the optimistic version. Since Mary Shelley created the cautionary
tale of Frankenstein, the idea of intelligent machines has also frightened us.
Many duly point to great dangers, including those of soaring
unemployment and inequality.
The tecno-optimists are wrong – Martin Wolf – Foreign Affairs Magazine

Taking due consideration of the above text, write a 400-450 words

composition on the impact of technology on 21st century international
relations.
1 – Increased productivity and economic efficiency – greater standards of
living, global supply chains, UE, US and China,
2 – In terms of international security – greater destructive power, atomic
bombs, missiles X MAD
3 – Globalization – improved connection between cultures VS. backlash
againt foreigners – rise of populism, far right parties, etc etc Social media

At the dawn of the 20th century, the international community’s main

preoccupations included hunger and tuberculosis. Today, technology has
rendered those worries obsolete, and the challenge becomes how to make
use of these resources in order to benefit all peoples. Thus, issues such as
climate change and structural unemployment become central. In this sense,
technology affects 21st century international relations mainly in three
realms: the increased productivity that results from technological advances,
the impacts on international security and globalization itself.
]Translate the following into English
Divino emplasto, tu me darias o primeiro lugar entre os homens, acima da
ciência e da riqueza, porque eras a genuína e direta inspiração do céu. O
acaso determinou o contrário; e aí vos ficais eternamente hipocondríacos.
Este último capítulo é todo de negativas. Não alcancei a celebridade do
emplasto, não fui ministro, não fui califa, não conheci o casamento.
Verdade é que, ao lado dessas faltas, coube-me a boa fortuna de não
comprar o pão com o suor do meu rosto. Mais; não padeci a morte de Dona
Plácida, nem a semidemência do Quincas Borba. Somadas umas coisas e
outras, qualquer pessoa imaginará que não houve míngua nem sobra, e,
conseguintemente que saí quite com a vida. E imaginará mal; porque ao
chegar a este outro lado do mistério, achei-me com um pequeno saldo, que
é a derradeira negativa deste capítulo de negativas: — Não tive filhos, não
transmiti a nenhuma criatura o legado da nossa miséria.
Divine poultice, you would have ranked me first place among men, above
science and wealth, because you were the genuine and direct inspiration
from heaven. Fate determined the opposite, and so you remain eternally
hypochondriac.
This last chapter is entirely about negatives. I did not reach the
celebrity/fame/prestige of the poultice, I was not a minister, I was not
caliph, I did not know marriage. Truth is, next to these gaps/absences, I had
the good fortune of not having to buy bread with the sweat of my face. And
more, I did not suffer from Dona Placida’s death nor from Quincas Borba’s
semi-dementia. All things considered, any person will guess that there was
neither scarcity nor abundance and that, consequently, I left life even. And
they will guess wrong, because, when I arrived at this other side of the
mystery, I found myself with a small credit, which is the ultimate negative
of this chapter of negatives: I had no children, I did not pass on the legacy
of our misery to any creature.
Machado de Assis – Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, Capítulo 160, “Das negativas”
(adapted)