Book Review: The Age of Turbulence

It took me a while to get through Alan Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence , but it was well worth it.

The book can be thought of as a combination of three things, in overlapping parts. First, Greenspan's autobiography, focusing on the parts of his upbringing and career that led to his chairing the federal reserve. Secondly, a modern history of economics, US economic policy and of the past seven presidential administrations with which he worked, and of his assessment of the state of international economics and its major players. Third, it serves as his assessment of where things are heading, reviewing the major drivers that in his view affect his forecast of the next twenty five years (through 2030 - the book was published in 2007)

One of the two things I liked most about the book as the behind-the-scenes look at his relationship with all the Presidents he got the chance to work with (Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II). He cites Clinton as the smartest, followed by Nixon (though he found him paranoid and with a worrisome mean streak), and he had some fairly scathing words for G.W. Bush and his policies erasing the budget surpluses that Clinton had helped grow.

The other thing I liked most was that I found the book to be a good crash course in world economics, given from the perspective of someone who developed relationships with many of the world's leaders and/or their chief economists. His view of the future may or may not be correct (see criticisms below) but his view of the factors shaping the future comes from a perspective few others can offer and seems to stand up to scrutiny.

The major criticisms of the book that most seem to raise come from two perspectives. First, he's an unabashed believer in free-market capitalism, and many think his ideology clouds his judgement. This may be the case, but regardless I think he's able to see things with some degree of objectivity. He is above all data-driven, which in most cases keeps his ideology in check.

That said, the second major criticism of the book, related to the above, is that his belief in minimally-regulated free markets, was a major contributor to the housing crisis of recent years, and that even at the time of writing as it seemed the economy was on the edge of a cliff, he didn't see it. This may be true, but I saw a silver lining in this aspect. It's in this aspect of the book that you can see confirmation bias at work, and I found it a sobering reminder than even those with deep expertise are susceptible - perhaps even more so - to such failings.

It's a pretty hefty book to get through but I thought it worth doing so.

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

Book Review: The Republican Noise Machine

A well researched, though left-biased, detailed history of the right's efforts to subvert the media industry/engine. I found it depressing to read, in that I came away not feeling like there was a solution, other than perhaps to take an extremist left-leaning set of tactics that are equally dishonest. It feels like either way, the inevitable victim here is nuanced, intellectually-honest debate.

Though depressing, it's an interesting read and a good look at how the media can be used as a tool by a well organized force. This of course is nothing new:

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” - Joseph Goebbels

The Republican Noise Machine : Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy

Book Review: The Next Decade

The Next Decade: Where We've Been . . . and Where We're Going is George Friedman's follow up to his well received "The next 100 years", and attempts to make some more precise predictions about the way the next decade will play out on the world stage.

Overall I liked it, but not because I agreed with everything Friedman has to say. I agreed with perhaps half, with the remainder falling between disagreeing and not knowing enough to say either way.

The bulk of the book centers around Friedman's assertion that America is an "accidental empire", making comparisons to the Roman and British empires, but asserting that while those were created through might, America's was a mix of that, economic might, culture, and a melange of historical accidents. There's some validity to his claims about America's place on the world stage (e.g. 5% of the world's population counting for 25% of the world's GDP), but the analogy is strained at best.

In addition to this analogy being strained, a couple other things I disliked:

• The author assumes (at least by the weight given in the book) that 99% of what shapes the world stage is politics. Perhaps I'm naive but I believe that the old institutions don't carry the weight they used to and will carry less going forward.
• Technology in particular, is given only passing mention. When looking at the growth of high tech in places like India and China; or at the recent twitter-fueled uprising in the middle east, it seems there should be more consideration given on this front.

On the other hand, some things I did like:

• I learned much about the political dynamics in some parts of the world about which I had little history.
• He asserts that leaders, and the US President in particular, need to lie. That they need to do things that won't be popular and that sometimes this means saying one thing and doing another. I believe this is true, and to believe otherwise is naive.

In short, I recommend it, but to be taken with a considerably sized grain of salt.

The Next Decade: Where We've Been . . . and Where We're Going

Book Review: Outrageous Fortunes

Did this one as an audio book. It's not bad, but has some flaws.

Outrageous Fortunes is a look at "Twelve Trends That Will Shape the Global Economy". They are mostly macro-economic and political trends that the author claims will shape the world in ways that most pundits aren't predicting.

Ideas covered range from predicting a stemming of China's growth curve, to theorizing about the potential collapse of the World Trade Organization and what might follow in its wake.

I'm not sure I believe all the theories presented in the book. I'm not versed enough in most of the subject matter to call the author out on any of them, but it does seem like he's as single-minded in some of his predictions as the pundits he's claiming are getting it wrong.

Regardless, I do like the contrarian thinking, and the gaming out he does in approaching some of these ideas. At the very least, it'll get you thinking about implications of some of these things.

Outrageous Fortunes: The Twelve Surprising Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy

Book Review: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

I picked up the audio book to Al Franken's 2004 satirical political commentary while browsing at the library. I figured he's a funny and intelligent guy, so the book should be entertaining and might have a couple interesting points to make along the way.

On the plus side, it is entertaining, and somewhat educational. However, he undermines his own position by taking such a one-sided view, it's hard to trust completely. (I have no doubt that the well researched lies he exposes are accurate, but are we to believe there are none from the left? Doubtful.)

On the down side, the book is dated now (though the meta-level discussion still applies) and his style of humor wears thin after a while.

Ultimately though, his satirical indictment of the right fails for the same reason that Al Gore's The Assault On Reason may have. If you have to explain: You are losing. In today's attention-driven, sound byte culture, the average American can't be bothered to make time to look at all the facts and weigh arguments.

Book Review: The Assault on Reason

We started the audiobook version of the 2008 Al Gore book, The Assault on Reason, on the way back from our recent ski trip. I finished it up on the work commute.

At a high level, the book is about the threat to democracy that comes from an ill-informed citizenry, making the point that we are currently under such a threat. The book covers a number of topics at length, including the growing influence of television vs print over the past few decades, misinformation about global warming, and the implications of the fight over net neutrality.

The bulk of the text is spent on a lengthy and detailed skewering of the Bush-Cheney administration and their many transgressions. These Gore goes into at lengthy and with many detailed fact-based accusations.

Though they are no longer in office, many of their policies are still in place and thus the book is still applicable. As well, the book goes into much detail about the delicate balance between our three branches of government. For me as a non-native, this was educational.

While a little dated, the ideas in the book are still very relevant and applicable.

The Assault on Reason

Book Review: The Audacity of Hope

OK, maybe I'm the late to the party, but we had a long car trip and brought it along as an audio book.

Obama reads it himself, which is nice. he's such a great speaker. I agree with most of his ideas and would have voted for him if I could have (still don't have citizenship).

One thing that did strike me though was how... formulaic, his prose is.

"When it comes to issue A, some people feel adjective A, adjective B, or even adjective C. Then again others feel adjective D, or E, or F." - Rinse, lather repeat.

I still think he's great, but he's more of a politician than most would have us beleive

Book Review: The Post-American World

I listened through The Post-American World in audio form during a drive up to Seattle and back, and then finished it off during this week's commute.

The author talks about the rise of, well, everyone, but in particular China and India, and how this results not in America's downfall, but in the inevitable erosion of America's leadership as everyone else catches up. He compares and contrasts this with the fall of the British empire and other periods of history. Plenty of interesting history here, and also large numbers of impressive statistics and anecdotes to drive home the scale of Chinese and Indian growth (in case you don't already get it).

There's a prescriptive close to the book that is a little dated (I think it was written 'pre-Obama', but published post-Obama) but mostly still holds. It should be mandatory reading for everyone in government!

Rhetoric

I turned on the republican convention coverage for a bit this evening but really couldn't stomach it after a while. I get that McCain's military service arguably speaks to his character, but jeez. We're electing a president. Listening to the speeches, you'd think we were electing Rambo!

*I take  a little liberty with the use of "We" here. I'm not a citizen yet, so *I* won't be electing anybody!

Bartle's Indie MMO Conference Keynote

Here's an Indie MMO conference going on in Minnesota (?) and it looks like Richard Bartle's keynote was really good.

Gamasutra has a good synopsis, and Bartle has posted slides.

His keynote looks back 20 years, from the year 2028, and paints three alternate portraits of the future: One in which game designers and other creatives thrive (the good), one in which lawyers and accountants stifle development (the bad), and one in which business and academia drive VW's to practical usage - and thus make them mundane in the process (the ugly).

On the front of the second of those possible futures, Congress recently held hearings on Virtual Worlds.

On Pakistan and Gaming

The current hullaballoo in Pakistan reminded me of one of my favorite Churchill quotes:

"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers that they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry."

And while I think of it, there are plenty of companies in the game industry that would do well to take that quote to heart as well. I leave it to the reader to apply that to whomever they please.

Winds of change

Is it just me, or is this whole "when will games get credit for being an artform?" thing starting to get some traction as of late:

• An article on the subject here includes tidbits like the fact that South Korea drops mandatory military service for those that work in the games industry (because they are contributing to one of Korea's key cultural exports (IGDA site via Raph)
• CNN's got 'Presidential Pong' right there on the homepage. The games equivalent of the editorial cartoon.
• NYT beat them to the same thing a week or two earlier with Food Import Folly, a game about the pressure the FDA is under to try and protect the food supply with an ever growing percentage of imported food and no growth in the manpower to keep it safe.

Strangely, Jack Thompson is silent on the whole thing. And I think that's an accomplishment on it's own! :-)

Its a small world after all...

Adam, a former coworker at Intel, has a great post up about some of his recent work related travels.

We all hear plenty about the shrinking planet, how we're all more interconnected than ever, etc. This drove it home in a really palpable way. A snippet (as background, it's worth pointing out that Adam spent some time in the past working at Los Alamos):

"I had lunch with the local manager. i was thinking about it last night, the fact that in the past 2 years i have spend a significant amount of time in countries previously considered hostile (read: communist). both the last two places my parents would think their kids would never spend time. think about this for a minute: as soon as 1998, we were afraid of having bombs dropped on us from these people. now, i am having lunch in a country peopel used used to get shot at if they left, and now i am having lunch in a building in that country. i spent time building technology to help defend my country from these people.

It comes out during the discussion that the man across the table from me used to work at sarov. sarov is the los alamos of russia. so here we were, literally trying to kill each other 10 years ago (or protect our country from the killing machines of the other place), talking as if it never happened. i think about this again when discussing the mathematics of snowflake generation and modelling the collection on tree leaves when it reaches a critical threshold and falls off, startled when i hear the engineer say 'this is quite beautiful'."

Go read the rest.

Better pray, better not be gay

This says SO much about what is wrong with this country.

The moment I get citizenship, I'm voting for the first gay black atheist woman who enters the race, regardless of party affiliation or platform!

(via Freakonomics blog)

Technology is to politics as chocolate is to peanut butter

And if you don't think so, I think you'd change your mind after attending this conference:

Personal Democracy Forum – Technology Is Changing Politics.

Check out a partial speaker list:

Tom Friedman, Arianna Huffington, Jay Rosen, Kim Malone, Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, Cheryl Contee, Eli Pariser, Sara Horowitz, Josh Marshall, Ruby Sinreich, Craig Newmark, Joe Trippi, Becki Donatelli, Andrew Keen, Ellen Miller, Chris Rabb, David All, Todd Ziegler, Allison Fine, Clay Shirky, Liza Sabater, Brian Dear, Ben Rattray, Seth Godin, Steve Urquhart, Mindy Finn, Mike Turk, Zack Exley, Walter Fields and Robert Greenwald.

Thanks to Seth for the link.