Spread of Ideas

Monday, October 6, 2008

It’s kind of amazing to me how ideas and customs used to get spread across the earth during the early years of human history; the years way before the World Wide Web. Most people know how the artist Soulja Boy became so big. He hooked up a myspace page, put his music on it, a lot of people liked his style. Those people e-mailed their friends about Soulja Boy. Thus, more people knew about Soulja Boy. Then those people e-mailed their friends that didn’t know about Soulja Boy, and even more people knew about Soulja Boy, and so on, and so on. He eventually caught the radar of some record labels, and now he is a big star. The same can go with Lil Wayne and his numerous mixtapes, which can be easily downloaded off the internet. The World Wide Web has made information, ideas and customs so quick to spread across the globe that we (humans) are able to be at our best. It was thousands of years ago that the people we call the Chinese were so mathematically advanced, that they could build navigation ships way better than any other society, and this led to Chinese economic prosperity. Other civilizations with less advanced ships could not learn from the Chinese because of the barriers in communication at the time. Some people didn’t even know about the Chinese civilization. Today, if China comes up with an innovative idea it can spread like wildfire through the web. Thanks to technological advance humans have touched every corner of the globe and are able to spread much information that have made others better off than they would have been. People are able to learn from America how to build an airplane, or can learn from Japan how to build a quality vehicle.

Ideas, information, customs, and habits that have been a part of a particular society for thousands of years have been brought to light for other societies by advances in communication. The gambling game of craps is one thing that comes to mind. No one necessarily knows where the game came from, but one story says that it is of Arab origin. The game was said to be played by the Arab crusaders during the Holy War, which was then passed on to the Europeans. The Arabic words 'al zar' or 'azzah' simply means “the dice.” The English were said to have played the game and called it “hazard”, which sounds like what the Arabs called it. It is said to have become very popular in Western Europe. The game would spread to the Americas and other places during the times of colonialism, where there were many advances in technology that led people to traveling to farther places, and spreading ideas. It would especially become big around the Mississippi delta in America, where the French ruled. The French gave the game a different name, which was Crabs. The English would change the name again to Craps. No one really knows how long the game was played in Arab Societies, but it is atleast known to have been around in the 1000s, which was a thousand years ago. Today, Craps is one of the most popular Casino games due to advances in communication and exploration.