Impact of the World on Technology

At a training course, the facilitator asked the audience to consider the impact of technology on the world, how technology shrinks and disrupts the world.  

I thought about the opposite: the impact of the world on technology. With increasing easy access to technology, all the different cultures, all the different ways of thinking, all the different experiences provide solutions to needs that are relatively unimportant to much of the West.

Think about rat-proof telecom cables from Huawei that Western telecom companies did not come up with for whatever reason. Think about ultra compact white appliances from Haier that Chinese students needed because they live in tiny accommodations. Think abour the mobile payment system from M-Pesa and increasing thousands of other examples.

The way these applications of technology from other parts of the world have an impact on the technology the West is developing.

Two Corinthians and Trump

Some online commentators are sniggering at Trump for reading “2 Corinthians 3:17” as “Two Corinthians three seventeen”, instead of the more formal and conventional way of saying it as “Second Corinthians three seventeen”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EIgHsGZAmk

Krauthammer says of Trump: “ …thereby betraying a risible lack of familiarity with biblical language and usage.”

Except that “2 Corinthians”, whether you read it as “Two” or “Second” is not biblical language. Not one person in the Bible refers to this book by the name it’s now known. The title “2 Corinthians” was given outside of the Bible; we probably don’t even know who first coined it and when. 

It’s genuinely easy for people to refer to it as “Two Corinthians” because it is written as “2 Corinthians” rather than “2nd Corinthians”  But it’s such a minor gaffe, I don’t even think it merits criticism. Certainly it’s not ‘wrong’. (Although it’s very clear from the video Trump was not at all, or no longer is, familiar with reading scripture)

I bet many people refer to those books that have numbers in front of their names as “Two Chronicles”, or “Two Kings”, especially in informal settings.  I know I do, even though I am familiar enough and interested enough to have learned to read Koine Greek at some point.