If you want to drive yourself crazy, read the live twitter comments of an audience after you give a talk, even if it's just to ten people.
You didn't say what they said you said.
You didn't mean what they said you meant.
Or read the comments on just about any blog post or video online. People who saw what you just saw or read what you just read completely misunderstood it. (Or else you did.)
We think direct written and verbal communication is clear and accurate and efficient. It is none of those. If the data rate of an HDMI cable is 340MHz, I'm guessing that the data rate of a speech is far, far lower. Yes, there's a huge amount of information communicated via your affect, your style and your confidence, but no, I don't think humans are so good at getting all the details.
Plan on being misunderstood. Repeat yourself. When in doubt, repeat yourself.
Phi Beta Iota: Add to that cross-cultural, cross-language, and cross-faith blinders, and you end up with face to face that is at best 20% of what you intended to communicate, and out of context to boot. This would be an excellent change in focus for both the US Foreign Service Academy and all the schools pupporting to teach international relations.
Venezuela-Iran: Die Welt is the original source for the following item, which is too important to overlook.
“Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on unidentified western sources, according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, on 25 November. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on 19 October 2010.
A root cause of the crisis is the application of the factory model of management to education, where everything is arranged for the scalability and efficiency of “the system”, to which the students, the teachers and the parents have to adjust. “The system” grinds forward, at ever increasing cost and declining efficiency, dispiriting students, teachers and parents alike.
The root cause of the problems: factory model of management
I am sick to my stomach with “progressive” and “liberal” leaders hurling the insult of “hypocrites!” at the rich.
“Hypocrite” is a word used by men in suits and ties. “Hypocrite” is even used by people who think this Obama deal on the extension of unemployment benefits is one dandy mitigating factor, in the injustice of it all.
What about our Christian (etc.) Brothers and Sisters—the “99ers”–the American human beings who have reached the 99-week limit, and are now ruthlessly spit into poverty. Millions of them, thousands every day.
“Hypocrites” is a word that is used by rich people and Progressives who think that poor people are statistics. Too bad, we can’t take care of these devastated American souls… “After all,” many of employed think secretly or not, “They should go get a job.”
Do you understand this simple fucking fact—there used to be three men on a garbage truck. Two threw in the garbage and one drove. Now there’s a driver with an expensive, giant, robotic, steel, throwing arm. Those other two guys are out of work, and, now, out of luck. Tough nuggies.
What happened to the garbage men has happened to millions of people. It is called structural unemployment. Industry got more and more efficient with better machines and cheaper labor (from wherever). The structure of how we make things has changed. We use fewer citizens and more machines. We need educated people, not public high school drop-outs. Fuck ‘em.
China does not want to “replace” the United States from its dominant role in the world, and the world should not fear China's rise, the country's top diplomat wrote in an essay.
State Councillor Dai Bingguo said that China would not engage in an arms race, as the country's resources were better spent on development and ensuring its people had enough to eat.
“The notion that China wants to replace the United States and dominate the world is a myth,” Dai wrote in the essay carried on the Foreign Ministry's website (www.mfa.gov.cn) late on Monday.
“Politically, we … respect the social systems and development path of the different peoples of the world,” he added.
NIGHTWATCH Comments: Dai's essay has a defensive tone that suggests the international community expects too much of China. If that is the case, the Chinese nurtured those expectations by their world-wide economic offensive, infrastructure projects in central, south and southeast Asia, port developments in the Indian Ocean and aggressive actions to assert Chinese territorial sea claims in East and Southeast Asia. In promising to be a “responsible participant” in the international system Dai is trying to lower expectations. He is disavowing any pretense to leadership with respect to North Korea and Iran, both of whom are Chinese clients and beneficiaries. Chinese actions, arms sales and investments contradict the self-effacing theme. Nonetheless, the modern successor to the Central Kingdom appears to be trying to tutor the rest of the world on how to look on and behave towards China.
Phi Beta Iota: Colin Gray, in Modern Strategy, reminds us that time is the one strategic variable that can not be replaced nor purchased. China understands this, the USA does not. China has made some very serious mistakes, notably with respect to water and energy, but on balance, on a per capita basis, it has been much more intelligent than the USA, and absent a radical change in how the USA is governed, we expect that to continue. Similarly, Brazil, India and Indonesia, the demographic powers of the future, appear to be less corrupt in their strategic leadership, more thoughtful in their operational campaigns, and less likely to self-destruct as the USA is doing.
Phi Beta Iota: The most important decision Barack Obama faces is the fundamental one of whether he wants to lead a government that works for all, or continue to be a meaningless placeholder in the theater of the absurd. Electoral Reform is the only thing that matters at this point. Absent Electoral Reform, his mid-term Cabinet appointments will be meaningless–business as usual. Colin Powell is as good as it gets if he can reframe his sense of loyalty back to the Constitutional Oath and actually down-size the Pentagon program by a third or more, while shifting $200 billion a year to State, where Senator Chuck Hagel would be well qualified to get the place back to evidence-based policies and coherent strategic planning. Commerce is a big one–Clyde Prestowitz would be our recommendation, along with Joseph Stiglitz to Office of Management and Budget–see our Virtual Cabinet at Huffington Post. However stellar the appointments, nothing they do will matter absent fundamental Electoral Reform and a restoration of the integrity not only of the US executive policy process, but of the legislative deliberation process as well. Only Electoral Reform can create an honest representative Congress. There are many other critical changes to be made at the highest levels, but ONLY in the context of a restoration of the government being Of, By, and For We the People. Obama is one single piece of paper away from greatness. We observe with interest.
