Twitter as the New Nuke and the Convergence with Technology

BONUS LINK:  My entire (so far) grad school notes collection can be found here. 

Twitter as the New Nuke and the Convergence with Technology

         Constructivists eschew the realist notion of the absolute importance of security and material power.  Instead they argue that it is ideas and beliefs that drive the forces within the world.  To better understand the value of constructivist theory it is useful to examine the relationship between these ideas and different technological breakthroughs.

           Two divergent technological advances to investigate are the employment of nuclear weapons and mobile smart phones.  Tannewald cogently reasons that a “nuclear taboo” developed due to the wellspring of ideas within the general public that influenced both institutions and states in such a way that effectively prevented their use after WWII.  The power of these ideas served as a necessary check valve against realist and liberal tendencies toward use/non-use of nuclear weapons.    In a parallel way, the Arab spring was realized not because of mobile smart phone technology itself, but because the technology serves as a nearly infinite amplifier of the wellspring of ideas.  Furthermore, this technology breaks down traditional identity barriers of state, socioeconomic class and ethnicity.  It is the dissolution of these impediments that allows a global transparency that has never been possible.  This transparency itself becomes an idea—realized communicatively through the idea of social justice. 

Questions for discussion:

1.  Is Twitter the new nuke, inverted?  Instead of an all-destructive nuclear weapon that no one will ever use, Twitter (and I’m using Twitter as a symbol for all social media conducted through mobile phones) is a non-violent weapon that everyone uses.  How powerful is a weapon that will never be used in comparison?   

2.  As new emerging powers develop nuclear weapons, will the current global “nuclear taboo” actually be proved to be global?  In other words, would a nation whose public has never had to grapple with the idea of the employment of nuclear weapons develop the same taboo? 

3.  What do liberals, realists and constructivists have to say about political/scientific assassination (aka the Israeli method)?  I know this one has nothing to do with what I wrote; I just wanted to have it here to examine at a later date.  

Thoughts on a US Response to an Alien Signal

BONUS LINK:  My entire (so far) grad school notes collection can be found here. 

You Are on the NSS and You Receive an Alien Signal from Planet Gliese

(Full article is below) 
 
            While the considerations are extensive, the paramount question is a simple one:
to answer the door or not. That this knock took twenty years to reach the United States
from the previously unknown Planet Gliese-581-g (referred to as Gliese hereafter), with
any response carrying the same delay, hearkens back to an age-old era of diplomacy
that existed before World War I and the advent of the telegram and other technological
advances.  Therefore, it is crucial that the President take time in responding, fully
evaluating all possible courses of action, outcomes, and their effects on international
relationships.  Callières warned against neophytes that sought to play the role of
diplomat when they did not know the “interests, the laws, the customs, the language…the
geographical situation” of the countries with which they interacted. In this case, the
U.S. government knows very little about Gliese outside of its ostensible technological
capacity. If the Washington decides to respond, they must send an immediate message
stating that the U.S. is working towards a solution, and also request complete background
data (population and natural resources), and information (history, system of government)
for the Planet Gliese to assist in helping them. After all, if Gliese does not have uranium
or a similar element, telling them how to develop nuclear energy likely will be a fruitless
exercise.

Conclusion:

 If the U.S. decides to respond, though, then the benefit of a multilateral response
depends on if Gliese was truthful and if nuclear energy does indeed save their planet. If
both of these are true, then only the U.S responding would provide the maximum benefit
of the prestige of saving a civilization and the gaining of a strong (at least
technologically) ally. If the response backfires in anyway though, then the U.S. would
benefit from a multilateral response. There is precedent over the last century to hedge
the U.S. response in this manner, as this is the manner in which the United States, and its
partners, have conducted humanitarian intervention over the last 50 years.