Response to Niall Ferguson's TED talk: the 6 Killer Apps

Watch the video above and compose a response to it. 

      First off, might I express my views on the Mr. Ferguson in question? Though I will lose no sleep over such a matter, I observed that this man was very...very full of himself. He seemed to believe that he was much funnier than he was in reality...he reminded me of Harry Potter's Gilderoy Lockhart, to be honest.
     Anyways, the actual content of my post.
     Based upon his attitude, I felt as though I was going to disagree with everything Ferg-ferg said; however I found myself agreeing with his points. I feel that his chosen six "killer apps" were definitely on spot. Competition? Of course that is a factor. A little healthy competition goes a long way...sure, much of the globe's competition wasn't/isn't always healthy, but hey, it definitely promotes reformation and various changes to sprout up within society. We're humans...let's get real. We all just want to out-do each other. Property rights? Okay, I see where he's going. To allow property rights is to allow the individual to bulk up in their own stock and property...which obviously prompts the circulation of ca-ching, which drives the economy. A healthy economy makes for strides in progress. The scientific revolution is what I believe to be one of the top killer apps, personally. With the scientific revolution came a whole new revival of thinking and learning...humans started pulling their heads out of their behinds and hatching a thought about the world around them. These thoughts led to innovation and various improvements to life in general - obviously putting the West ahead of the game, as other societies were actually rejecting such innovation for religious purposes, as Fergie Ferg said. Modern medicine? Dear lord, do not get me started. I gotta agree with Niall on this one, medicine is HUGE. Of course this put the West ahead! People were sticking around longer! Spending money for a longer period of time, thinking and contributing to societal improvements for a longer period of time, reproducing and adding to the population for a longer period of time. Obviously this would put the West ahead. The consumer society and work ethic, ok. Consumer society? Definitely makes sense. The West was making more goods, selling more goods, generating more revenue. Let's face it - money makes the world go around. Sure, a lot of tree huggers would like to reject that idea and say "No! It's love and happiness and butterflies that make the world go round!". Sorry guys, time to face it. You need money. Clearly the West had more. And work ethic? Alright, I guess so. But I tend to think that that translates more to the individual, rather than the society on the whole. But hey, that's just me.
     I found the idea of the "great reconvergence" quite fabulous actually. What I don't find fabulous, however, is the fact that I just used "fabulous" not two, but three times over the course of the last two sentences. Now that I think of it, the idea of the great reconvergence makes a whole lot of sense, and explains a lot. Perhaps what China is going through now in terms of innovation is a near equivalent to what the West experienced a while ago, when it left the East in the dust...China had abandoned innovation, but started to re-ignite it recently. Interesting.
     Finally, I want to look at how Fergie Ferg claimed that some great civilizations operate on the edge of chaos...it makes sense. Again, something that I had never thought about before. In my opinion, our country really is always on the edge of chaos. We're just lucky that it's working (I guess) at the moment. At any time, it could fall apart. It's probably best to keep as many people happy possible I suppose.