Read, and write a 1-page reaction on a single topic 400 WORD or more WITH YOUR o

Question

Read, and write a 1-page reaction on a single topic 400 WORD or more

WITH YOUR opinion about the topic -Which you choose and whether you support or reject the idea

you should use this word : I will discuss the ....... because I believe it is ......... > I also agree or desagree with the book that ........

6. Old, Young, and Global Security
The world today faces aging societies in Europe, Japan, China, and the United States and youthful societies in much of the Mideast, Africa, and parts of Latin America. Too many of these young people cannot find productive employment. In many countries, youth unemployment rates remain uncomfortably high. When the opportunities for a normal life are diminished, young people often choose a path of violence.1 A wealth of historical studies shows that cycles of violence have coincided with periods when young people composed unusually large proportions of the population.2 Demography plays a leading role in global security because young people have never been evenly distributed in the population, whether today or in the past.3 Young people also have been the “protagonists of protest, instability, reform, and revolution.”4 They provided recruits to fascist movements in the 1920s and demonstrations and protests in the 1960s.5 Technology influences the extent to which the transition from generation to generation is peaceful. This chapter describes the challenges posed by demographic transition, starting with aging and concluding with issues of youth. Technologies can be used to ameliorate these quandaries. This chapter features some of them, including innovations to help find a cure for Alzheimer’s and extend life for the elderly and innovations for countering and exposing terrorism to reduce violence and bring about a more peaceful world. The Rise of the Elderly For most of human history, people older than 65 years old comprised no more than 3 to 4 percent of the global population.6 However, in 2015, in developed countries they constituted 15 percent of the population. They are likely to become a quarter of the world’s population by 2050, more than two billion people. With the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, the median age in all countries is increasing. In Germany, Italy, and Spain, the elderly are expected to comprise more than 35 percent of the population, and in Japan, Korea, and Singapore, more than 40 percent. Life expectancy in the world in 1950 was 48 years old. By 2010 it approached 70 years, and by 2050 it is expected to reach 75 years. To the extent population growth occurs in the world, it is likely to happen among people over 65

Declining Fertility Throughout the world, fertility has been declining.7 In 1950, the average woman had 5.0 children. In 2015 she had 2.5, and this number is likely to decline to below 2.0 by 2050. In developed countries, the number was less than 1.5 babies per woman. These subreplacement fertility rates have spread to every corner of the globe. The United Nations assumes that fertility rates will continue to decline and that world fertility rates the world over will converge on 1.85 children per woman by 2050; at this point in time, the world’s population will start to decline Fertility rates have been declining for many reasons, including the rising status of women in society, more education, and increased participation by women in the workforce. Declining fertility is a result of the widespread availability of birth control and the weakening of traditional religious and cultural values. Another reason is economic—the money needed to raise a child has skyrocketed. In the United States, if a college education is included, estimates of the average cost of raising a single, middle-class child may surpass a million dollars.8 In most of southern and central Europe and newly industrialized East Asian countries, fertility rates are below replacement levels in 2015. When fertility rates fall below 2.1 children per woman, the population of a country does not replace itself. It loses population in the next generation. The fertility rate in Singapore of 1.2 children per woman was among the lowest in the world. In Northern and Western Europe, fertility rates are just slightly higher. If an average woman has 1.4 babies, the population of a country declines by 50 percent in a half decade.9 Because of low fertility, Japan’s population is expected to fall by a quarter to 95 million by 2050. Nigeria continues to be one of the only countries in the world where fertility rates are rising. In 2015, it is slated to be the fourth most populous country in the world, but many developing countries in North Africa and the Middle East have declining fertility

Economic Impacts Rapid aging is bringing about changes in the world economy. As people age, their productivity goes down. There also are fewer young people to support each older person. Although the elderly have more accumulated assets than other groups in society, more of society’s income has to be spent to support them. In developed economies like the United States, Japan, and Europe, where the workforce is aging, GDP growth is slowing in contrast to emerging economies, fewer young people are entering the work force, and labor productivity growth rates are lagging behind their growth in emerging nations

The EU projects that by 2025 there will be fewer than three employed persons for
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each retired person.10 In 2015 in Spain, about 9 percent of the country’s GDP went toward entitlements for the aged, whereas education spending was less than 5 percent of GDP. Money spent on pensions and healthcare for retirees reduces the amount of money available to educate the young for productive employment. Many countries already have skilled labor shortages because of an aging workforce All nations in the world therefore covet talented immigrants. The demand for workers with skills has grown, and the competition to attract them is intense. However, because of rampant unemployment and the lack of effective integration of immigrant populations, many nations are experiencing civil discord. The long-term implication of these changes is that the balance of economic power among nations is shifting. China, because of the one child per family policy it had, continues to age. By 2050, it is expected that the median age in China will be 49. In contrast, India remains a relatively young society, and by 2050 it almost certainly will have more people than China. Technology to Assist the Elderly Caring for the elderly is a burden on society. The elderly are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular, respiratory, musculoskeletal, neurological, and mental diseases and cancers, which are responsible for approximate a quarter of the world’s healthcare spending.11 Various technologies, however, can ease the burden of age-related disorders like Alzheimer’s, dementia, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and vision impairment. For technology companies, like GE, Philips, and Google, aging presents a business opportunity. Pharmaceutical companies have shifted their research and development (R&D) from diseases that afflict children to those that affect the elderly, too. Technologies that cater to the elderly are in high demand. Sales for home health monitoring devices have more than doubled from their 2010 levels.12 Auto companies are preparing to meet the needs of this market. For an increasingly older population, they are adding such features to their vehicles as infrared night vision, lane departure warnings, blind spot detectors, and automatic parking.
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A Cure for Alzheimer’s Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s has attracted the attention of many companies. Although the cause of this disease remains unknown, the race has been on for the next-generation of drugs to treat it. The market opportunity for a company that makes a technological breakthrough is large, but the risk is, too. Decades of research have not resulted in new treatments. The drugs currently available for treating Alzheimer’s, like Pfizer’s Aricep, Forest Laboratories’ Namenda, and Novartis’ Exelon, were approved decades ago. Their combined sales in 2015 exceeded $6 billion annually, while estimates of the potential market for an effective treatment are in the range of $20 billion per year.13 Finding treatments that work has not been easy. Much research has gone into the buildup of plaque in the brain, while a host of other treatments are still being investigated. Blocking Plaque Blocking the production of plaque in the brain is one approach to Alzheimer’s disease. The problem with this approach is that plaque may, in fact, be a consequence of Alzheimer’s and not its cause. There have been many failures in attempts to find a treatment that relies on this approach. A joint venture that Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Elan inaugurated to test a plaque inhibitor called bapineuzumab, for example, failed in 2013.14 These three companies suffered losses of nearly $1 billion and decided to abandon their further Alzheimer’s research for the time being. Similarly, in 2013, Eli Lilly and Merck were in the late testing stage for an antiplaque inhibitor called solanezumab. In the initial tests for this drug, it reduced cognitive decline by as much as 34 percent in some patients. However, later tests in 2015 had to be stopped because patients began to exhibit liver problems. A small Massachusetts company with a promising drug also closed down its research efforts in 2015 because the drug it was testing to block plaque had safety problems. Biogen reported good early results with the amyloid (plaque) antibody aducanumab in 2015.15 Patients reacted positively to the drug when the company conducted cognitive tests and brain imaging. This news buoyed Biogen stock, even though the company had done nothing more than early testing. The sample sizes in its tests were small, and there was some indication of brain swelling in patients who carried the gene APOE4, which confers Alzheimer’s highest genetic risk. In large, well-controlled tests, aducanumab, like other drugs, could still fail. In 2015, the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference showcased a BACE inhibitor from Merck that blocked amyloid production.16 This drug had been in development for more than 10 years. It reduced amyloid in patients’ spinal fluid by more than 80 percent. However, the drug may only work for people who have not yet shown symptoms of the disease. Plaque buildup in the brain probably starts 15– 20 years before the onset of symptoms. For those already showing signs of the
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disease, there were question about whether the drug would work. It may be effective only if taken very early in the disease’s onset, but it remained unclear how early and for which people it was likely to be most effective. Other Treatments Despite the disappointments, scientists continued to work on the problem. More than 80 other treatments for Alzheimer’s existed. For example, at the 2015 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, the Italian firm Chiesi Pharmaceuticals reported that an anti-inflammatory drug it developed showed promise in clinical trials.17 Researchers had long noticed that the brains of people with Alzheimer’s were inflamed and believed that anti-inflammatory drugs, like Chiesi Pharmaceuticals’, could be an effective treatment. Patients who took the firm’s anti-inflammatory drug for 16 months showed cognitive improvement of onefifth to one-third in comparison to their prior cognitive functioning. Other approaches showed promise and attracted attention but failed to live up to expectations. Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s remains a major challenge. Without a cure, millions of elderly people require expensive care that puts a large strain on society. Reversing Aging If it were possible to reverse aging, the burden of caring for the elderly would decrease. Thus, there has been an intense search for methods that may achieve this goal. Many apparent breakthroughs have been announced, but no definitive cure has emerged. In 2013, for example, Harvard scientists reported that they had found a compound that could make old cells young again. Cells age because they lack enough oxygen. Without enough oxygen, the mitochondria in the cells are not as efficient in converting glucose into energy, and the cells become sluggish and are prone to inflammation and muscle degeneration, eventually ceasing to function. Dr. David Sinclair, the head of the Harvard team, reported in an article in the journal Cell that a compound called NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) found in young cells has the potential to revitalize old ones.18 Just one week after scientists gave this compound to older mice, their cells started to resemble the cells of mice one-third their age. The compound appeared to reverse aging, and the hope was that if the levels of NAD are increased in humans, it would have a similar effect.
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Commercializing NAD The problems with commercializing a drug like NAD, however, are many. The route to making it available to humans is through the FDA, but FDA testing takes years. Moreover, the FDA views aging as too general a condition to allow scientists to specifically target it. A start-up called Elysium Health, founded by MIT biologist Leonard Guarente, has tried to get around this problem. It converts compounds like NAD that lengthen the lives of mice in the laboratory into over-thecounter vitamin pills. Vitamins and supplements can be sold over the counter without FDA approval if their ingredients are known to be safe and their backers do not make explicit health claims. Elysium’s first product, a pill called Basis, does not guarantee it will help people stay young. Rather, the claim that the company makes is a minimal one: the pill may be effective in improving a person’s health and wellness. Scientists have shown in labs that they can reliably extend the life of laboratory mice through caloric restriction, a process that seems to be mediated by molecules called sirtuins, which need NAD to work. NAD levels fall with age, so by taking the pill as a supplement, a person can increase the amount in the body. Whether aging actually will be reversed, however, remains uncertain. Biologist Guarente, Elysium’s founder, previously had been involved with Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company that studied resveratrol, another antiaging compound, which is found in red wine and therefore received vast media coverage. It was said to be responsible for the “French paradox”—that is, the tendency of the French to eat many fatty foods, like foie gras and cheese, without showing signs of heart impairment, apparently because of the large quantities of red wine they drink. The media coverage stimulated high levels of resveratrol sales, and GlaxoSmithKline bought Sirtris, believing that it had acquired a blockbuster drug. However, resveratrol failed the human trials the company carried out under FDA supervision. To avoid the FDA, Elysium, therefore, is trying to market NAD as a dietary supplement. The company has carried out preliminary testing to ensure that the product is safe and to see if it is effective; it aims to do follow-up surveys and post-marketing studies. The supplement is only available through the company’s website, costing $60 for a 30-day supply or $50 per month for an ongoing subscription. The potential for this supplement in the $30 billion supplements market is high, with this market growing at more than 7 percent a year. Daniel Fabricant, a former director of the FDA’s division of dietary supplements, sits on Elysium’s board. The company also counts five Nobel Prize winners among its advisers, including neuroscientist Eric Kandel, biologist Thomas Südhof, origin-oflife theorist Jack Szostak, and the 2013 laureate in chemistry Martin Karplus. Elysium plans to gradually add other compounds that show in academic studies to extend the lifespan of animals to its product line. Whether this route will yield an effective anti-aging agent is yet to be determined.
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Rapamycin Another compound with anti-aging properties is rapamycin.19 Derived from a rare bacterium streptomyces hygroscopicus, it has been heralded as a drug with substantial promise. Suren Sehgal first isolated it in 1971 in a soil sample at Ayerst Laboratorie, a pharmaceutical company in Montreal, Canada. He conducted tests and analyzed the drug for many years. Purifying it and naming it rapamycin, he initially thought its main use would be as a cream for athlete’s foot and other fungal conditions. Wyeth bought Ayerst in 1987, and Sehgal continued to analyze the drug. He discovered that it suppressed the immune system and could be used to prevent transplant rejections. After 1999 FDA approval, the drug was commonly used for this purpose. It helped save millions of transplant patients’ lives and earned Wyeth millions of dollars. It is not possible to patent rapamycin because it is a biological agent, but derivatives of the compound can be patented. The derivatives are routinely used as anti-cancer drugs and coatings on cardiac stents. They also show promise in delaying the onset of age-related diseases such as cancer and heart disease and may be helpful in fighting Alzheimer’s. The evidence that they can delay aging’s onset is based on a rigorously designed National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded clinical study in 2009 that showed that rapamycin derivatives enabled male mice to extend their lives by 9 percent and female mice by 14 percent; for humans these results are expected to mean life extension of 30 percent. Therefore, Novartis has taken steps to position rapamycin it as an anti-aging drug. The mechanism by which the drug works is also just starting to be understood. A rapamycin molecule inhibits a key cellular pathway regulating growth and metabolism by tapping into the body’s systems for dealing with reduced nutrition. By these means, it reduces age-related bone loss, reverses cardiac maturity, and reduces chronic inflammation. In mice, rapamycin shows signs of reversing Alzheimer’s. If further studies verify that there are benefits in humans and there are no significant adverse side effects, rapamycin could become the ultimate preventive medicine for chronic diseases that kill people later in life. However, because rapamycin suppresses the immune system, and the immune systems of older patients are already diminished, it may be dangerous. This barrier is the largest hurdle of using it to slow aging. A rapamycin derivative called everolimus has been shown to enhance aspects of the immune response, boosting the efficacy of a flu vaccinations in elderly patients, but only when administered in limited doses. Additional research is needed before the full potential of rapamycin is known.
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Other Anti-Aging Agents Identifying the pathways and proteins associated with aging is yielding other promising anti-aging targets. By tweaking these pathways, researchers may be able to find other treatments for age-related diseases. The odds are that there is no single magic bullet. Another anti-aging drug under investigation is metformin. Millions of diabetics already take it, and it has a long history. In a federally funded clinical trial, it exhibited the ability to extend the lives of mice. A large retrospective analysis found that diabetics who take the drug have a 15 percent lower mortality rate than non-diabetic patients who do not take it. Bimagrumab is another example of a drug under investigation, which has the potential to reverse muscle loss among the elderly. The FDA has called the drug a possible breakthrough. Late clinical trials have started for a rare condition called sporadic inclusion body myositis, but bimagrumab could have wider use in the treatment of muscle wasting and frailty among the elderly. Other than Alzheimer’s, these conditions are the main reasons for depression and incapacitation among the elderly. Also being considered are drugs that could restore cartilage in aging joints and a radical gene therapy that could reverse the loss of cells needed for hearing. As previously mentioned, a problem for all companies doing research in this area is that the FDA does not approve drugs for aging because it views aging as a condition and not a disease. Another problem is the exceptionally high safety standards the FDA has set for preventive drugs taken by healthy persons. According to FDA guidelines, the side effects of such drugs have to be near zero. Nonetheless, many companies persist in studying aging and are trying to arrive at a cure for this generic condition. Calico, for example, a research venture founded by Google, has a $750 million partnership with AbbVie to do work in this area.20 With the right technologies in place, the experience of aging could be very different, not to mention that a healthier and more vigorous elderly population would be a great benefit to the generations coming after it. Among the Young: Hope and Disillusion The U.S. National Intelligence Council Among identified two different orientations among young people (ages of approximately 16–32) in the period immediately following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.21 It characterized one group of young people as being optimistic and entrepreneurial. It believes in freedom of choice and competition, and its proclivities are materialistic, although members of this group may be aware of materialism’s costs, such as increased pollution. More so than their parents, this group of youth is willing to live for the moment and to take on added debt. It is affected by advertising, the media, and popular entertainment and culture. This group seeks affluence, although it may be concerned that this affluence will not be widely shared. It favors the opening up of societies and the introduction of cosmopolitan ideas.
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According to the U.S. National Intelligence Council post=9/11 assessment, another group of young people, also educated and relatively advantaged and well off, is equally serious, intent, and motivated, but it is also resentful and disillusioned. This group suffers from a feeling of hopelessness. Its members tend to believe that they have no future and that there is little hope that things can get better. Their strong collective identity finds focus in religious ties and ethnicity. The first group of young people typically can be found in the rising sectors of such Asian countries as India and China and Latin American countries like Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, but they are located throughout the world wherever there is hope that self-improvement is possible and that societies can advance based on individual initiative. Like the first group, many in the second group live in countries once occupied by colonial powers. However, their disappointment at having lost national or religious power and glory remains strong. They revisit collective memories of injustice, and to regain lost glory and dignity, many reach the conclusion that there is no other way to redress wrongs that have been inflicted upon the groups to which they belong other than violence. According to the U.S. National Intelligence Council post-9/11 assessment, the rise of the former group has manifested itself in the rapid increase in the economic growth rates of China and India, and they’re catching up to the wealth and lifestyles in the United States and Europe. By the year 2050, people in these countries are likely to be living at levels much closer to those in the United States. India has many advantages over its neighbor. It is a democracy, is less heavily dependent on manufacturing, and is developing a large base of sophisticated knowledge workers. China is aging because of its one-child-per-family policy. Because of its dependence on heavy manufacturing, it faces natural resource and environmental constraints to its growth. There are no guarantees that the catch-up of China and India with the United States will be smooth. The growth rates of both countries may be slower than anticipated, and U.S. growth rates may be faster. The future of GDP growth rates in these nations and elsewhere in the world is hard to predict. Young people outside the entrepreneurial and optimistic group are more often found in the Middle East and in Africa. However, they are located throughout the world, including nations in Asia like Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Indonesia and in Latin American in nations like Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela. They are also found in the developed economies of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, to which some have migrated and where some were born. Often, they have contempt for western values and are disgusted by its individualism, materialism, loose morals, free speech and freethinking, and self-indulgence. Many in this group are Muslim, but certainly not all. Nearly every religion has bred people with this worldview. The high birth rates of people who adhere to traditional religions tend to increase the number of young people who belong to this group. The lack of employment opportunities is another factor. Many people who have adopted this point of view
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are concentrated in areas of the world already subject to high levels of violence, where the prospect of more violence is great. Meaningful Work As indicated, a key element in the disaffection of the second group of youth, the disillusioned one, is the lack of meaningful work. Technology has been a major factor in influencing whether productive jobs can be found. Many experts imagine a future in which robots and digital agents displace workers, causing further breakdown in the social order.22 Technology in the Internet era increases demand for educated and talented people and allows them to advance quickly, but it leaves many other young people, especially those who lack access to the newest tools and skills, far behind. Can technology create ample jobs to support an influx of enough young people into the labor force? Technology raises productivity and makes societies wealthier, but it also reduces the need for many types of work. The prospects for many types of jobs are bleak as automation progresses from manufacturing to clerical and retail jobs. Robots and advanced automation are commonplace in manufacturing. Far fewer people work in this area of the economy than previously. Industrial robots, for example, are able to weld and paint auto body parts without significant human intervention and have transformed automotive assembly. The Kiva robot similarly is transforming logistics. Created by Kiva Systems, a start-up founded in 2002 and acquired by Amazon in 2012, Kiva robots move across large warehouses, grabbing hold of ordered goods and quickly packaging them for delivery. They move ceaselessly and respond instantaneously to electronic orders. Warehouses are able to process up to four times as many orders as similar warehouses that are run by humans. The net impact is hard to pinpoint because greater productivity is not solely about doing the same work with fewer people. It is also about growing businesses for new markets. The outcome of Kiva’s automation may not only be putting people out of work, but as it lowers shipping costs, it could also facilitate the growth of e-commerce start-ups. Blue-collar and service jobs are not the only ones that have been altered. Professional jobs in law, education, financial services, and medicine also have been changed. Countless routine white-collar tasks have been automated to some degree, and artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and digital processes have made important inroads. Tasks previously done by humans are being assigned algorithms. IBM, for example, is trying to move what it calls super-smart computing into the work life of high-status professionals. For instance, it has developed medical applications in which technology assists in diagnosing, evaluating, and prescribing treatments for cancer patients. The applications rely on advanced natural-language processing and analytic capabilities to move through massive amounts of data and guide an individual’s diagnosis and treatment. IBM
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claims that although the technology lacks intuition and judgment and is not entirely as good as humans in dealing with uncertainty, it is more reliable. For the average person, and for the system as a whole, reliability trumps the creativity that an experienced professional can bring to a problem. Applying this type of technology to other services is less controversial than applying it to medicine. The next frontier is the military. Not only are machines defusing bombs and pilots being replaced by drones, but robots are also being prepared for deployment alongside regular combat soldiers. And often, technologies developed for the military are then given civilian use, such as the iRobot vacuum cleaner and Facebook’s face recognition software. For many young people, the result of these trends is unemployment as well as underemployment; they are likely to always hold part-time jobs yet never find jobs that fully reflect their education. Already many college-educated young men and women are not able to obtain full-time jobs in the fields of their choosing. They have to rely, instead, on temporary or entry-level jobs in other areas. This phenomenon exists in the United States, in Western Europe, and in many developing countries where it is combined with state failure and the breakdown of law and order. Violent societies tend to be those with the highest numbers of young people who are idle and have little chance of productive employment. Iraq and Afghanistan are good examples of this phenomenon. In comparison to the United States, they have huge youth bulges (see Exhibit 6.5) and significant unemployment. In Iraq, the unemployment rate has been more than 30 percent since 2010, and in Afghanistan it has been about 20 percent in this time period. These countries also ranked first and second in number of terrorist incidents in 2014.23 In that year, 6,362 people were killed and 14,947 injured in 2,492 terrorist attacks in Iraq, and 3,111 were killed and 3,721 people injured in 1,148 terrorist attacks in Afghanistan.

What Next Based on the distinction between young people who are optimistic and entrepreneurial and young people who are resentful and disillusioned, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) after 9/11 created four scenarios about how the world might evolve: a romance (called Davos), a romantic comedy (Pax Americana), a tragic comedy (the New Caliphate), and a tragedy (Cycle of Fear).24 With respect to the global economy, the key element that appears in these scenarios (see Exhibit 6.6) is the degree to which there is free flow of capital, goods, people, technology, ideas, and money in the world. With the freer movement of these, there is more potential for peace and prosperity.
Pax Americana rests on different assumptions than Davos. In the Pax Americana
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scenario, the United States plays the role of the world’s policeman, keeping global order to preserve prosperity. Military spending grows, and regard for the United States in the rest of the world diminishes. The New Caliphate is what takes place if the United States is not a successful global peacekeeper. The Middle East and other areas of global instability collapse. As they fall apart, the most advanced and ambitious elements in their population leave, creating a void, which makes it hard for these societies to rebuild. A Cycle of Fear can unfold if epidemics and weapons of mass destruction are added to the mix. With regard to these scenarios, there are many wildcards, and their management is critical to the outcomes Diminishing Youth Bulges Another wildcard is what happens when youth bulges start to diminish. Youth bulges are currently slowing down, and in some cases they are shrinking. Fertility rates in the Middle East have dropped more than 48 percent overall (see Exhibit 6.8). In countries like Iran and Lebanon, which have seen a decline in their birth rates, an abundant cohort of 15-to-24-year-olds has been followed by a sparse cohort of 0-to-14-year-olds (see Exhibit 6.9). However, not all Middle East nations’ fertility rates have fallen, notably in Syria and the Palestinian territory of the West Bank (see Exhibit 6.10). Nevertheless, as the youth bulges in these societies tend to recede, it leads to the possibility that the anger, hostility, and willingness to act out among the 15-to-24-year-olds who exhibit the most strife will subside.
When youth surges quiet and are followed by population busts, will there be less violence? The empirical evidence suggests that this positive result is likely to take a long time to unfold.25 A series of factors will continue to provide the motivation, rationalization, and opportunity for violence. The motivation comes from rising expectations. The rationalization comes from festering grievances, whether of a religious or an ethnic nature, and the opportunity to act out comes from state failure
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and a breakdown of states and the rule of law. Technology to Combat Terror Can technology come to the rescue? Can it help contain this trend, even if it is unable to reverse it? Some businesses have created technologies that help accomplish these purposes. One example is Palantir Technologies, which is discussed next. Other businesses may have opportunities in this domain. The chapter concludes with additional examples of counter-terror technologies that need to be developed. Palantir Technologies Palantir Technologies is not a publicly traded company.26 It is one of Silicon Valley’s most valuable private tech companies despite the fact that it is not involved in the new trends of social media and obtains none of its revenue from advertising. Its digital technology work is secretive. Its advisers include James Carville, the Democratic strategist, Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, and George J. Tenet, the former CIA director. Created in 2004 after getting $2 million from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the U.S. CIA, Palantir’s software has exposed terror networks. It also has helped to calculate safe driving routes through the discordant passageways of Baghdad. Palantir has more than $1 billion in revenue, mostly from organizations interested in adaptations of its intelligence software. Since 2009, its contracts from the CIA have totaled more than $215 million. The company has moved from secretive datamining for the CIA, NSA, FBI, Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and other government intelligence agencies to doing contract work for corporations in the banking, insurance, retail, healthcare, oil, and gas industries. Palantir sells software that mines large amounts of data. Its software lets clients quickly see links in relationships and understand patterns in phone numbers, bank records, friend lists, photos, and license plates. It has been alleged that its software was central to the work that went into finding Osama bin Laden’s hideout. The company converts messy information into visual maps, histograms, and charts that can help solve global issues like fraud and human trafficking as well as terrorism. The software finds connections between fingerprints on artillery shell fragments, location data, anonymous tips, and social media. It is used to help Marines in Afghanistan predict insurgent attacks and detect roadside bombs and by the Mexican government to catch drug cartel members. Yet this same software is employed by banks to uncover cyber fraud, money laundering, and employee theft and to sort out distressed mortgages. Pharmaceutical firms have used the software to analyze new drugs. However, the software has come under scrutiny from privacy advocates. As of 2015, Palantir still was not yet profitable, although investors had provided it
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with almost $900 million. Its implied valuation was between $9 billion and $15 billion, making it the world’s third most-valuable venture capitalist-backed company, behind Uber and Xiaomi. Its aim, according to Alex Karp, the company’s cofounder and chief executive, who founded the company with law school classmates Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, Nathan Gettings, and Peter Thiel, is to use the software it developed to improve the world. Thiel, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and PayPal founder, conceived of the company in 2003 after eBay acquired PayPal. After 9/11, Thiel was interested in finding a way to make the United States safer without sacrificing people’s freedoms. Also, PayPal had lost large amounts of money in stolen credit card numbers but had figured out how to spot fraudulent activity so it could be investigated. Thiel believed that this approach could be applied to national security and to solving other problems. Other Counterterrorism Technologies A host of counterterrorism technologies might be developed.27 They include the following: Network-centric operations—By means of network-centric operations, it should be possible to improve the operational effectiveness of law enforcement officials and emergency responders. Through sensors, the law enforcement and emergency responders can have improved shared awareness. They can engage in quicker self-synchronized operations carried out more efficiently and with greater security and safety. The technologies for better integration are available but need to be tailored and applied to this task. These include the passing of high volumes of secure digital data through integrated and diverse databases that link cable, fiber-optic, wireless, and satellite communication systems, among others. Biometrics—Biometrics measure the unique physical or behavioral characteristic of individuals. They include iris recognition, hand geometry, fingerprint recognition, face recognition, and voice recognition. They are more reliable and harder to forget, lose, have stolen, or falsified than ID cards, personal identification numbers, and passwords. Nonlethal weapons—Nonlethal weapons can be used to minimize collateral damage to civilians. They provide military and law enforcement with options to aggressively fight terror without endangering innocent bystanders. They include methods to control crowds and prevent vehicles, vessels, or aircraft from entering an area and disabling and neutralizing this type of transportation when necessary. Nonlethal weapons include acoustics systems, chemicals, electromagnetic and electrical systems, entanglement and mechanical systems, optical devices, and nonpenetrating projectiles. They involve malodorants, high-powered microwaves, and lasers. Explosives-detection technology—Explosives-detection technology can be
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used at security checkpoints and baggage and cargo screening areas to better detect the trace amounts of explosives on and inside bags as well as casts, prosthetics, wheelchairs and other places where explosives can be hidden. Some devices are large and work like MRI machines at hospitals, but other screening systems are tiny and can detect potential liquid or gel threats in a passenger’s property. Aircraft protection—There is a need to provide further protection to aircraft. A number of additional countermeasures can be employed by military and the civilian aviation authorities to provide further layers of protection. An especially important area of need is for this protection to be extended for large, slow-moving aircraft that can be hit by shoulder-fired missiles. Attacks on helicopters by rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and small arms fire can be stopped by improving threat detection devices and by using coatings. Conclusion This chapter has examined the major division in global society between old and young and emphasized the role that technologies can play in extending and improving the quality of life for the elderly and protecting the world from terror, which is often the result of youth disillusionment and unemployment. The next chapter examines another major division—between rich and poor—and the role that technology plays there, too.

Explanation / Answer

I will discuss the topic technology & unemployment or underemployment(111) because I think their is a great depth behind this topic and the actual reality is completely different.

Today as we know that we have moved in the world of Artificial intelligence and this is also widely accepted that the advancement of technology has affected the employability of the youth but we also need to look at the opportunities that this technology has created for us.

Technological advancement has not closed the doors for young people but it has created new types of jobs and new ways of doing jobs.

For Example: Writing blogs,online teaching platforms etc. are the various forms of new jobs that have been evolved through internet.

Although this point can be accepted that employability of the youth leads to violent socities but I disagree with the book in the way they have blamed the technology for the reason of unemployment or under employment because the technology creates more jobs in the long run.

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