WASHINGTON -- It is said that even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. So what positives could possibly be connected with the sorrowful destruction from Sumatra's tsunami? The catastrophe has shown us several things:
First, we all are vulnerable, be it because of our fixed location or because we go to places. In today's interlinked world, location is no longer an exposure that is the result of our birth; it is also the consequence of choice. This choice, which gives us more freedom of mobility than ever before, however, also exposes us to the consequences of our selections, which place us at the same ground zero as local populations.
Second, we are linked, even across vast distances, to outcomes both good and bad. Would popular thinking have expected natural disaster in Indonesia to also affect more than 10 other countries and visitors from dozens beyond? For many forms of danger, geographic distance is no longer a barrier that insulates us from the consequences of dangerous occurrences.
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