The World is Flat: Live Blogging Tom Friedman
The air is electric at Yale Law School this morning as New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is about to start delivering a talk based on his best-selling new book, The World is Flat. As a service to readers of The Reaction, my friends and I have developed a special "flatometer" that will document every time the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner uses the word "flat" or one of its derivatives. Stay tuned folks, as it promises to be a mind-flattening morning.
10:29 – Tom Friedman enters the room. The multitudes rejoice.
10:31 – The Dean of Yale Law School has just finished introducing the professor who will be introducing Tom Friedman. The audience chuckles mildly at tales from Tom's youth.
10:32 – The flatometer records its first observation. The professor introducing Friedman just mentioned the title of the new book.
10:34 – Oh no! It's revealed that Tom's remarks will last just 10 minutes before we move into a Q&A session! Opportunities for the flatometer have just flat-lined!
10:35 – "Most of you have read The World is Flat."
10:36 – "I just finished a 2.0 version of the book."
10:36 – "I wrote The World is Flat in just 9 months."
10:37 – "It's a reflection of how flat the world is."
10:38 – "This era of globalization is fattening the global economic playing field at the same time."
10:40 – "There are ten forces and dates that are flattening the world."
10:41 – "I call this first flattener when the walls came down and the Windows came up."
10:41 – "That was a huge flattener [i.e., the collapse of the Berlin Wall] for a couple of reasons. It allowed us to look at the world as a single flat plane for the first time."
10:42 – The rise of Windows was a huge flattener because the PC allowed individuals, for the first time, to become authors of their own content in individual form."
10:43 – "The second flattener is also built around a date. 8/9/95. Because on that date a small start-up company in Mountain View, CA went public. Netscape."
10:43 – "Netscape was a huge flattener for a couple of reasons."
10:44 – "Netscape's going public was a huge flattener for another reason – because it triggered the dot-com boom."
10:47 – "The third flattener doesn't really have a date because it was a quiet revolution over software that occurred in the late 1990s."
10:49 – "That friends was a huge flattener. Because when my software can connect with your software,... suddenly I could collaborate with anyone, anywhere, on anything."
10:50 – "The accidental convergence of these three things was the genesis moment of the flat world."
10:51 – "When they did, the world started to get flat."
10:51 – "We now open the world to your questions on anything about the flat world."
10:51 – Friedman's talk ends. Now for the Q&A session.
10:52 – "I was working on the 2.0 version of 'The World is Flat' when it suddenly occurred to me that we just got rid of the walls that determines who collaborates with who."
10:52 – "You download when the world is round. When the world is flat, individuals can upload their own content."
10:54 – "We haven't just got rid of the walls. We haven't just got rid of the ceilings. We've also got rid of the floors."
10:56 – He must have just said "flat" or "flattening" five times in two sentences. I can't keep up with this.
10:58 – My brain activity is flattening. Enough of this already…
11:01 – A brilliant question from an audience member. Amy Chua, the professor who introduced Tom Friedman, recently penned a best-seller herself called How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. The questioner asked whether the flat world is on fire!
11:05 – "In most of the world, you can't get from Saddam to Jefferson without going through Khomeini."
11:05 – Oops! I stopped listening for a few minutes there. Surely he must have said 'flat' at least 5 or 6 times…
11:28 – Tom Friedman thinks the opposition to the Dubai Ports World takeover smacks of xenophobic racism. He thinks it's a terrible message to the world that Americans should be able to buy foreign assets, but not vice-versa.
10:29 – Tom Friedman enters the room. The multitudes rejoice.
10:31 – The Dean of Yale Law School has just finished introducing the professor who will be introducing Tom Friedman. The audience chuckles mildly at tales from Tom's youth.
10:32 – The flatometer records its first observation. The professor introducing Friedman just mentioned the title of the new book.
10:34 – Oh no! It's revealed that Tom's remarks will last just 10 minutes before we move into a Q&A session! Opportunities for the flatometer have just flat-lined!
10:35 – "Most of you have read The World is Flat."
10:36 – "I just finished a 2.0 version of the book."
10:36 – "I wrote The World is Flat in just 9 months."
10:37 – "It's a reflection of how flat the world is."
10:38 – "This era of globalization is fattening the global economic playing field at the same time."
10:40 – "There are ten forces and dates that are flattening the world."
10:41 – "I call this first flattener when the walls came down and the Windows came up."
10:41 – "That was a huge flattener [i.e., the collapse of the Berlin Wall] for a couple of reasons. It allowed us to look at the world as a single flat plane for the first time."
10:42 – The rise of Windows was a huge flattener because the PC allowed individuals, for the first time, to become authors of their own content in individual form."
10:43 – "The second flattener is also built around a date. 8/9/95. Because on that date a small start-up company in Mountain View, CA went public. Netscape."
10:43 – "Netscape was a huge flattener for a couple of reasons."
10:44 – "Netscape's going public was a huge flattener for another reason – because it triggered the dot-com boom."
10:47 – "The third flattener doesn't really have a date because it was a quiet revolution over software that occurred in the late 1990s."
10:49 – "That friends was a huge flattener. Because when my software can connect with your software,... suddenly I could collaborate with anyone, anywhere, on anything."
10:50 – "The accidental convergence of these three things was the genesis moment of the flat world."
10:51 – "When they did, the world started to get flat."
10:51 – "We now open the world to your questions on anything about the flat world."
10:51 – Friedman's talk ends. Now for the Q&A session.
10:52 – "I was working on the 2.0 version of 'The World is Flat' when it suddenly occurred to me that we just got rid of the walls that determines who collaborates with who."
10:52 – "You download when the world is round. When the world is flat, individuals can upload their own content."
10:54 – "We haven't just got rid of the walls. We haven't just got rid of the ceilings. We've also got rid of the floors."
10:56 – He must have just said "flat" or "flattening" five times in two sentences. I can't keep up with this.
10:58 – My brain activity is flattening. Enough of this already…
11:01 – A brilliant question from an audience member. Amy Chua, the professor who introduced Tom Friedman, recently penned a best-seller herself called How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. The questioner asked whether the flat world is on fire!
11:05 – "In most of the world, you can't get from Saddam to Jefferson without going through Khomeini."
11:05 – Oops! I stopped listening for a few minutes there. Surely he must have said 'flat' at least 5 or 6 times…
11:28 – Tom Friedman thinks the opposition to the Dubai Ports World takeover smacks of xenophobic racism. He thinks it's a terrible message to the world that Americans should be able to buy foreign assets, but not vice-versa.
posted by Vivek Krishnamurthy at
10:23 AM
4 Comments:
A shot glass of beer? Surely I was drinking something stronger! :)
By
Vivek Krishnamurthy, at 1:38 PM
Man, I want to kill myself just reading the snippets.
By
Anonymous, at 2:50 PM
The World is flatter than a pancake!
By
Coeruleus, at 5:38 PM
Chua introduced Friedman? There's an introducing contrast in beliefs...
I like Friedman though. I don't agree with everything he says, but I think he gets a bit too much fire from elites who see his writing style as an easy target. But when you're just starting to get interested in these issues, Friedman makes a good balance between "globalization for dummies" and "random IR prof from Nowhere U who writes so densely it will make your eyes bleed."
Moral of the story: be nice to Tom.
By
David Schraub, at 4:50 PM
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