Friedman debreif
This is literally right after arriving home. The amount of cogitating I've done around the talk I just heard has amounted to about 15 minutes of walking around campus and about 10 minutes in the car getting home, so I expect this will be rough.
First, he's a good speaker. He knows his stuff, he's comfortable on stage, he wears a wireless microphone and walks around while talking. Not a stiff, chained to the podium sort of speaker, which was good, otherwise 1.5 hours would have been unbearable.
Next, he was speaking largely about his new book, just released earlier this month I believe, titled "Hot, Flat and Crowded". My overall reaction to his theories and observations, I agree. Just like with "The World is Flat", I'm largely behind his assertions and observations.
Now on to my issues with the talk, which were probably amplified because of my skepticism going into the event. From stage he stated one of the things that drives me most crazy about his 'research' and it is his belief that all the world's knowledge is available from a computer through this neat page called Google!!! I had a tough time sitting still while he was actually saying just that from stage. Ugh. If you've ever read any of his books, it's clear he believes everything is on the web and it is the only research library he needs, since it is the only source of any citations (such as they are) in his materials. Nothing has a full blown citation such as those of us in academia would expect to see.
Granted, he's a journalist. He writes and speaks like a journalist. It's a different style of writing and has a very different purpose than academic research, and much of his experience and content develops out of personal relationships and interactions with individuals in various parts of the world. Doesn't change the fact that his analogies and observations seem to carry so much weight in academia without any documented supporting research. This bothers me. It seems to speak to people being uncritical consumers of information.
During my little bit of pondering on the way home I figured out how to better express my other issue with this man and the way he presents history and facts as he sees them. It's not so much the amount of weight he gives to particular events, as I suggested in my last post. It's his observation of apparent correlations, either positive or negative, and assuming correlation, and so using one observation to explain another series of events. A great example is the chapter on oil and it's dominance in our worldwide way of life (I can't remember the term he uses to describe it, but I believe it's a combination of petroleum and dictatorship). Anyway he shows a curve of oil prices per barrel from 1975-2005. It's a V shape, with the low in 1995 at around $16 a barrel. Over that is an inverted V curve that is the level of freedom in states/countries which have petroleum based economies, like Iran. The conclusion drawn is when oil prices go down, freedom goes up in these countries. QED. ARGGGHHHH! TOO SIMPLE!!!
I'm not saying there may not be a causal relationship there, but he certainly doesn't do the work to show any causality, and it's amazing to watch people just eat this stuff up.
The over-riding premise of the book is that we need a green revolution. What we have now is a green party, not a revolution. No one has gotten hurt, no companies have failed due to lack of change around green policy. And that whoever in the world can innovate the source of clean, cheap, renewable and freely available electrons will drive the next worldwide economy.
First, he's a good speaker. He knows his stuff, he's comfortable on stage, he wears a wireless microphone and walks around while talking. Not a stiff, chained to the podium sort of speaker, which was good, otherwise 1.5 hours would have been unbearable.
Next, he was speaking largely about his new book, just released earlier this month I believe, titled "Hot, Flat and Crowded". My overall reaction to his theories and observations, I agree. Just like with "The World is Flat", I'm largely behind his assertions and observations.
Now on to my issues with the talk, which were probably amplified because of my skepticism going into the event. From stage he stated one of the things that drives me most crazy about his 'research' and it is his belief that all the world's knowledge is available from a computer through this neat page called Google!!! I had a tough time sitting still while he was actually saying just that from stage. Ugh. If you've ever read any of his books, it's clear he believes everything is on the web and it is the only research library he needs, since it is the only source of any citations (such as they are) in his materials. Nothing has a full blown citation such as those of us in academia would expect to see.
Granted, he's a journalist. He writes and speaks like a journalist. It's a different style of writing and has a very different purpose than academic research, and much of his experience and content develops out of personal relationships and interactions with individuals in various parts of the world. Doesn't change the fact that his analogies and observations seem to carry so much weight in academia without any documented supporting research. This bothers me. It seems to speak to people being uncritical consumers of information.
During my little bit of pondering on the way home I figured out how to better express my other issue with this man and the way he presents history and facts as he sees them. It's not so much the amount of weight he gives to particular events, as I suggested in my last post. It's his observation of apparent correlations, either positive or negative, and assuming correlation, and so using one observation to explain another series of events. A great example is the chapter on oil and it's dominance in our worldwide way of life (I can't remember the term he uses to describe it, but I believe it's a combination of petroleum and dictatorship). Anyway he shows a curve of oil prices per barrel from 1975-2005. It's a V shape, with the low in 1995 at around $16 a barrel. Over that is an inverted V curve that is the level of freedom in states/countries which have petroleum based economies, like Iran. The conclusion drawn is when oil prices go down, freedom goes up in these countries. QED. ARGGGHHHH! TOO SIMPLE!!!
I'm not saying there may not be a causal relationship there, but he certainly doesn't do the work to show any causality, and it's amazing to watch people just eat this stuff up.
The over-riding premise of the book is that we need a green revolution. What we have now is a green party, not a revolution. No one has gotten hurt, no companies have failed due to lack of change around green policy. And that whoever in the world can innovate the source of clean, cheap, renewable and freely available electrons will drive the next worldwide economy.