Thursday, May 29, 2003

thomas friedman on globalization

thomas friedman from the new york times was here today to give a talk on globalization.

lots of interesting ideas and opinions, and i want to talk about some of them, but before i start...

i think it's really scary that some people are so charismatic, persuasive, and well-spoken. of course it's to their benefit that they are, but i think there's a real danger that some people will just take everything that they say as fact, without spending a lot of time thinking about it. i think thomas friedman is one of these people; he's obviously very intelligent, very educated, very well-informed, has a lot of interesting opinions and ideas that be believes in very strongly and expresses very persuasively, and i very much enjoyed hearing him speak, but i almost needed to make a concerted effort not to agree with everything he said. other people who came out of the talk actually said that their whole worldview was changed, and that's what started me on this train of thought. what if a person who were less well-intentioned and less well-informed decided to use his speaking skills to convince everyone of some totally crazy idea? i'm sure that's happened before in the course of history. i bet that's why we sometimes look at history books and think, what were these people thinking? the answer is some one man or woman was just very very good at convincing them to do something that seems very wrong, when you think about it clearly enough.

anyway, back to the things he said. the most central point he made was about the US and its power, and why the rest of the world hates us "way more than it should" as he put it. his idea was that the US has become more and more powerful, in terms of cultural, economic, political, and military influence, and during the 1990's this was mostly okay for the rest of the world because although we were a hegemon, we were somewhat benign. we were happy and dumb and making tons of money and our biggest worry was whether our president was sleeping with his interns. after 9/11, we became angry, and as an angry giant the US is much more scary. his theory was that people are angry with the US because we have so much influence over their daily lives, even more than their governments do, and they have had no say giving us that power. so there's kind of a resentment that is created, not necessarily on a conscious level.

i think that's one possible explanation, but maybe it gives the US too much credit. i think to a large extent the US does consciously meddle with other nations, and sometimes we don't really know what we're doing. obvious examples are afghanistan (when we were helping the people who eventually became the taliban) and argentina (when we essentially helped instill a dictator). yes we have cultural and economic influence also, but it also seems like we feel free to use our political and military power more than any other powerful nation.

for example, friedman's argument that we should have gone to war with iraq, not for whatever reason the bush administration was espousing, but because the middle east is a factory for undeterrable threats (terrorists) and we need to put a functioning government somewhere in the middle east so that failing nations will have an example to follow...it's interesting and makes a lot more sense to me than rumsfeld's rambling, but that argument seems to try and draw a line in the middle of a grey area. for example, should we have the right to pressure china into free press, because their efforts to conceal SARS cases have resulted in a worldwide epidemic? it's a similar case; if we have the right to invade iraq because we are being hurt by something that their government has done, do we have the right to invade, or otherwise pressure china?

after hearing talks like this i'm always tempted to run out and go buy some books on world history and politics, but then i remember that i'm not any good at reading non-fiction. i always have to work to finish any book that's not a biography or a novel, and i doubt i get as much out of it as i could (or should).

on a completely separate topic (well, perhaps not completely separate) i've always been very impressed with Rilla of Ingleside (by L.M. Montgomery) and its depiction of the Canadian home front during WWI. recently i've been looking for more fiction set during WWI...after looking around quite a bit, i've been pretty much unsuccessful. i guess i'll keep looking.

Thursday, May 22, 2003

encouraging women scientists (and engineers)

okay this is one of the (many) rants that i store in my brain and spew at unsuspecting victims.

i don't understand the concept of having conferences, or seminars, or lectures, to tell women why they don't like math, science, or computers. in fact, a lot of times these presentations are made to an audience that is full of technical women, or girls who are already interested in math and science, and the presenter ends up "preaching to the choir".

if i were a 15-year old girl, and i was fairly good at math and science but not sure what i wanted to do yet (which i was, once) and then i was bombarded by the message that women aren't generally good at the sciences, and they have a lot of obstacles, and the world is unfair in such a way that diverts women from technical fields, how would i react? i can think of two types of reactions:

- i could think, gee why are all these people trying to keep me from math and science, want to be a "rebel" and "defeat the system" and so forth, and plunge myself into the technical world

- i could think, wow i never thought about all these problems, i just thought i liked physics (or chemistry, or whatever). now that i know there are so many awful obstacles in my way, do i really want to go into this field? or do i want to just choose another, perhaps slightly less interesting field with less resistance?

i'm not sure the first reaction can be sustained over a the course of a career, and of course the second one is completely counter to the intent (i think) of these presentations.

i'm an engineer, i've always enjoyed science, and i never went to these kinds of events. yes, in college, my classes were filled with guys. this wasn't really an issue for me. if someone had pointed it out to me when i was there (wow, look! you're one of seven girls in a 75 person class!) i don't know what i would have done. maybe get uncomfortable with it. maybe decide to switch to a field where i don't have to be singled out as a token female or considered as a role model for young girls, and i don't have to consider the possibility i got hired (or accepted, or chosen) to fulfill some kind of unofficial quota.

i know the intent behind these conferences is to encourage women, and yes, it is a problem that many women don't consider going into engineering or science. i'm not sure what the solution is, maybe do something to raise awareness among all the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who give 5-year old girls Barbie dolls instead of radios, or maybe do something about the teachers who unconsciously call on guys more than girls in math class. but i really don't think the solution is to group together a bunch of women who already have a predisposition towards the technical world, and analyze in detail all the ways that they're different from the men. maybe they'll just resent it, because they don't think they are all that different. i know i don't.

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

first post!

i named this blog after the first computer i ever had all to myself. actually, now that i think about it, maybe that computer was named after me.

in college, when i was still running Windows NT, one of my not-so-subtle friends thought it was funny to change the "My Computer" icon description to say "The Wench" every time he came to visit. i got tired of changing it back to "My Computer" so finally i slipped an "r" between the "w" and the "e" and he didn't notice for a good couple of months. hence, "The Wrench", aka the-wrench for DNS purposes.

that started me on my computer naming trend. since then, i've had power-drill (twice as fast as the-wrench), screwdriver (a laptop) and ice-pick. perhaps next i'll build "hammer" from an athlon.

 

This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not that of my employer.