Did you know that you're the fourth most loathsome person in America (for 2005, anyway)?
And my fellow blogger Tom will be happy to see that someone agrees with him about the Mustache of Understanding, who comes in at No. 7:
The worst of all creatures in the political opinion jungle: a cretin who thinks he's a genius. [Tom] Friedman's intolerable knack for converting irreducibly complex geopolitical/socioeconomic situations into simplistic, tin-eared insta-cliche's makes him one of the most dangerous people on the planet, arming people even stupider than him with the illusion of knowledge in the form of a crude vocabulary of badly mixed metaphors and ill-conceived flashcard images, thereby having a negative net effect on the nation's intellect. India and China are "like a bottle of champagne" which someone has been "shaking for 40 years"; the modern economy dictates that "you need to be at a certain level to be able to claim your share of a global pie that is both expanding and becoming more complex"; and the threat of terrorism is a "bubble" that threatens to "undermine" open society. Friedman's disorienting literary ineptitude is nearly enough to distract us from the indisputable fact that he has no fucking idea what he's talking about. For this dolt-friendly parlor trick and a slavish devotion to globalization and technology as abstract, almost mystical tenets, Friedman has achieved iconic status. Exhibits the easy smile and benevolent smugness of an unjustly celebrated man who has never thought very deeply or rigorously about anything at all.
That's some good spleen!
Comments
View as Flat
odograph Posted 7:47 pm
24 Jan 2006
I've got to say the book seemed better than that foreshadowing implied. It got rolling with some good ideas. And then I hit a re-telling of the dot-com thing (in the context of "world is flat"). Having been a software engineer, and very early subscriber to internet services, I could tell that Friedman was telling the history a little bit wrong, ascribing the actions to the wrong players, etc.
On the other hand, I could step back, take of my nerd beanie, and say that he got the broad strokes right.
The way I take him now, FWIW, as a guy who is a little hit-and-miss, but whose hits are pretty good. He's not perfect, but hey, who is?
Broadly, globalization and outsourcing is a big thing, worthy of study ... and so also (IMNSHO) will be Peak Oil.
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 12:17 am
25 Jan 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 12:23 am
25 Jan 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
Permalink
odograph Posted 12:44 am
25 Jan 2006
We were working late and had hit a problem with a major corporate database product. Someone said "we better put in a help call." Someone else said "better wait an hour, then we'll get India."
They explained to me that tech-support guys in the US bailed for "better" jobs and there was constant turnover, but smart guys kept working at tech-support in India. So support for the US product was better coming from India than in the US.
Not to say that it always works that way, just that sometimes it does.
Do you (gentle reader) know that stuff happens? If not, Friedman's book is going to give you a POV you might not have seen. Not that you have to take him as the "Mustache of Understanding" or whatever.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:09 am
25 Jan 2006
When you can't understand their thick accent a little self deprecating humor and a few bush jokes works better than complaining. They seem to be very sensitive on this point of communication problems.
My favorite: "Thanks to our brilliant president destroying our economy, YOU will probably be calling ME on a tech support line next year."
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
odograph Posted 2:50 am
25 Jan 2006
That was not an American, it was from another Russian immigrant using our product at another US company.
One of Friedman's good observations is that if those folks have good opportunities at home, high-tech immigration will slow, and we'll be increasingly left out of the loop. Rather than Indian immigrants talking to Indian immigrants in US buildings (and Russians), they'll be speaking from their own buildings.
... environmental spin? I guess that moving bits is better than moving boxes (or people). It would be nice it local, sustainable, lifestyles could integrate with the global economy in a healthy way.
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 4:43 am
25 Jan 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
Permalink
odograph Posted 8:24 am
25 Jan 2006
I'm not doing those calls anymore, and haven't bumped into that one myself. I gather that it is a recent phenom.
Permalink
birdboy Posted 10:29 am
25 Jan 2006
a liberal in redsville
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 11:49 am
25 Jan 2006
I think the idea that we will end up a tourist destination is correct. Just like the UK.
With motivated competition like this we ought to give up trying to compete economically, preserve our natural beauty, and hunker down to a low consumption lifestyle powered by renewables.
Honda and Toyota will provide the cars and energy devices manufactured in china. American compnies will never fo it. Witness ford, almost dead and still making the gas guzzlers that are killing it.
Why even try to get our boardroom fogey tyrants leading our spoiled youth to compete with people who go so far as to even mimic our dialects to do a lowly job like customer service.
Customer service here staffed by americans is uniformly uninterested, unmotivated, and ignorant.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 11:59 am
25 Jan 2006
42. Nancy Grace
Charges: Revenges herself nightly for the murder of her fiancée on every criminal suspect and defendant; facts be damned. Despite her viscous, Gump-like hyper-drawl, her brain can barely keep pace. Looks like a camel in drag.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
doriannegray Posted 3:06 pm
25 Jan 2006
Permalink
odograph Posted 12:46 am
26 Jan 2006
The idea of a nation on the Yosemite model is an attractive one. This ties back ... didn't Bush's Interior Department (or whoever) just change their accounting to de-value parklands?
Pfft. This administration has a nack for the worst possible timing.
Permalink