#8 - Oscar: Emerging information technologies will soon make

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption-CE. The correct answer choice is (D)

Oscar suggests that a country’s economic well-being will no longer be a function of its geographical position, but rather a function of its relative success in incorporating the emerging information technologies. Sylvia argues that the emerging information technologies will widen the existing economic gap between north and south since the poor countries of the south lack the economic resources to acquire the technologies.

Answer choice (A): Sylvia does not assume that the north’s prosperity depends on the natural resources of the south. She merely states that the information technologies will widen the economic gap since the south lacks the economic resources to acquire them.

Answer choice (B): Sylvia’s argument does not depend on whether or not the emergence of new information technologies will result in a significant net increase in global wealth. The new technologies could result in a significant net increase in global wealth, but that still does not affect Sylvia’s argument that they will also widen the existing economic gap.

Answer choice (C): Sylvia’s argument does not depend on the existence of other technologies which could help narrow the economic gap. She merely argues that the emerging information technologies, at least, will widen this gap.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Using the assumption negation technique, suppose none of the rich countries of the north will be effective in incorporating the new information technologies, then there is no reason why these new technologies will widen the existing gap, even if the south cannot afford these technologies. The existing gap could remain, but it will not widen if the north cannot make use of them.

Answer choice (E): Sylvia’s reasoning does not assume that the speed at which information processing takes place will increase indefinitely. Even if information processing begins taking place at a decreasing speed, information technologies will still widen the economic gap between the north and south if these technologies are useful to the north and unaffordable to the south.

[Vasuarya30]

Hello, I was just wondering for B why it wouldn't be correct? if it's true would the negation technique not basically state that the global wealth will increase. And if global wealth increases then the poor countries could afford the economic resources needed for the new tech, eventually closing the gap?

[Amber Thomas]

Hi Vasuarya!

Let's break down our stimulus first:

Oscar:
Premise 1: Emerging technology will make the speed of information processing the single most important factor in the creation of wealth.
Premise 2: Therefore, the north/south wealth division of the world will soon become obsolete.
Premise 3: Countries' economic well being will be a function of incorporating technologies and their consequent information processing speeds.

Sylvia:
Premise 1: Poor countries in the south lack the economic resources to acquire these new technologies, therefore, they will remain poor.
Premise 2: These technologies will only widen existing economic gaps.

Our question asks us to find the assumption upon which Sylvia's reasoning depends.

Answer Choice B states: "The emergence of new information technologies will not result in a significant net increase in the total amount of global wealth."

This answer choice doesn't function because a total increase in global wealth would not allow poorer/southern countries to become proportionally more wealthy, and thus capable of catching up to richer/northern countries. Only if poorer/southern countries benefitted from a disproportionate amount of this new global wealth would they be able to catch up.

Think about it like this: Country A has a net worth of 10 billion. Country B has a net worth of 5 billion. The total amount of global wealth increases by 50%. Let's say that this increase is proportional across all countries. So, now Country A has a net worth of 15 billion, and Country B has a net worth of 7.5 billion. Country B still has only half of the wealth that Country A has, and thus their relative buying power remains the same. Therefore, Country A will still be ahead of Country B in terms of their capacity to purchase these new technologies, and therefore, the wealth gap would still widen.

I hope this helps!