Tuesday, January 6, 2015

We don't know what we want

Please watch the first 35 seconds of this video:
Benjamin Zander: The transformative power of classical music

You should check out the whole talk later, it's simply fantastic.

What Mr. Zander describes is the phenomenon of an untapped market. It means that you have something to sell that people don't have yet - or don't even know of. From a business point of view this is something that makes your heart jump. But I see two difficulties:

1. By introducing western products to countries that have no expertise in manufacturing them themselves, we lead them into dependence. Although I'm not well informed about the history of Africa, I bet that a lot of self-sufficient economies have been destroyed there by our interruption. What I know for sure is how Monsanto works to achieve just that.

2. New products have often led to complications retrospectively, although they seemed to be beneficial at first. The truth lies somewhere in between. Did you know that with the advent of the toilet bowl all kinds of digestive disorders began to arise? How about shoes that negatively effect the foot's natural functionality in the example from the TED talk.

I'm not pleading against progress, but in today's time we need to closely observe where we're going. Just because people want to buy something, it doesn't mean it's good for them - not to speak of the environment.

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