Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Eric Topol
Format: Video
Length: 16 minutes and 59 seconds
Link: The Wireless Future of Medicine
As many of my friends know, I am a huge fan of the iPhone. From my iPhone I can access my bank account, get directions, send a customized post card (from a photo I took on my phone), read the news, play games.. the list goes on. Hell, my iPhone can also turn into a flute, recognize unknown songs playing on the radio or at a bar, and even repel bugs. Yes, you read that correctly - the phone emits a high frequency noise that keeps bugs away. It is simply unbelievable.
I've always tried to convince people who don't yet "get it" that the iPhone and other smartphones are revolutionary not because they have the internet, or because they have great graphics. They are revolutionary because they represent a very new platform that spans all spheres of life and literally expands the realm of what is possible. I'm not joking when I say that the iPhone has saved me more time than any other single device, person - whatever - in my entire life. By far. And what's exciting to me is that the realization of this potential has barely begun in the two areas in which it may have the most lasting impact on humanity: education and medicine. Indeed, one of the points of this blog is to show how iTunesU - which I access through my phone - provides good, free information to anyone with the internet. But today I will focus on medicine, something my mom and girlfriend know a lot about, but about which I know basically nothing.
Dr. Eric Topol gave a fascinating talk last fall that starts with a bold prediction: the stethoscope, invented in 1816 and still widely used today, will be obsolete by 2016. Why? Because not only will a patient's heartbeat be available to a doctor in real time - anywhere in the world - but so too will all vital signals. Already the technology exists to see a patient's electrocardiogram on an iPhone. In some hospitals, doctors can see from their phones the heart rhythm, blood pressure, oxygen and temperature of their ICU patients - without having to be anywhere near the patients! Here is an example of how this would look on a phone.
Other technologies are equally fascinating - imagine, as an expectant parent, being able to monitor in real-time intrauterine contractions or the fetal heart rate. While we have continuous glucose sensors for diabetes patients, they have to be placed under the skin and then brought to doctors. The technology is almost there to have a non-implantable sensor, link it to a phone, and then send the results electronically to a doctor. Soon every smartphone user will be able to map literally every minute of his or her sleep, with breakdowns by different sleep stages (REM, light sleep, etc). There are already many calorie measurement programs - intake and outtake - on smartphones. Perhaps the most popular exercise-management program is the Apple-Nike partnership where a chip in Nike shoes automatically uploads workout statistics to the iPhone. Over 1.2 million Americans use this technology. The Holter Monitor, according to Dr. Topol, will also soon be obsolete. Now we have peripheral sensors or "smart band-aids" that can be uploaded through a "body area network" to your smartphone. Once it is on your smartphone it can be distributed wherever or however you like - to the hospital, the doctor, etc.
It is important to note that the wireless medical innovations are not limited to just physiologic metrics. They also extend to areas like imaging. For example, GE has introduced a hand-held ultrasound. This device has the capacity to do a Cardiac Echo or fetal monitoring, and is more sensitive than a stethoscope.
While some of this may seem like it is not practically applicable yet, Dr. Topol surprised the audience by revealing he was wearing a wireless device during his talk. He then showed in real time his ECG, heart rate, fluid status, respiration, posture, oxygen level and temperature. All of these are vital for monitoring someone with heart failure, the number one reason for hospital admissions and readmissions. The cost per year is estimated to be $37B, with 80% of costs related to hospitalization. The readmission numbers are staggering: over 50% will be readmitted after six months. This monitoring software is now being used in a trial that will attempt to prevent such high readmission rates among heart failure patients.
The armchair politician in me scratches his head and asks - instead of trying to guess at future health care costs based on models of the number of sick Americans, why not immediately seek bipartisan support for trials like this? In the same way that cheap energy ignited an industrial revolution, shouldn't we be focusing on extremely cheap and scalable preventative monitoring practices? If successful, this would both cut costs and improve the health of Americans in a way that seems to represent the ultimate in consumer-driven health care.
The problem, of course, is huge: 140MM Americans have one or more chronic diseases, and 80% of the $1.5 Trillion in medical expenditures are related to chronic disease. How can wireless medicine help? Dr. Topol outlined the ten targets for wireless medicine, listing the innovations that will improve each:
Alzheimer's (5MM Affected) - Vital signs, location, activity, balance
Asthma (23MM Affected) - Respiratory rate, FEV1, air quality, oximetry, pollen count
Breast Cancer (3MM Affected) - Ultrasound and self-exam
COPD (10MM) - Respiratory rate, REV1, air quality, oximetry
Depression (21MM) - Med compliance, activity, communicatio
Diabetes (24MM) - Glucose, hemoglobin A1C
Heart failure (5MM) - Cardiac pressures, weight, BP, fluid status
Hypertension (74MM) - Continuous BP, med compliance
Obesity (80MM) - Smart scales, glucose, calorie in/out, activity
Sleep disorders (40MM) - Sleep phases, quality, apnea, vital signs
The potential impact of these technologies on Hospital/Clinical Resources are huge, with major implications for hospital beds, outpatient visits, assisted living facilities, sleep labs, Holter Monitoring, mammography, and ultrasound/echocardiography (to name a few). Also fascinating is the potential for overlap in advancements in genetics with wireless advances. We have learned more about the genetics of diseases in the last three years than in human history. Using technology for both monitoring and cross-referencing, we can begin to predict who is likely to get Type 2 Diabetes, who is at risk for breast cancer, who may get atrial fibrillation, sudden cardiac death, etc. To some degree this capability exists, but not on a widespread, scalable, cheap platform like that which smartphones will allow.
In short, the potential changes and implications of wireless medicine span the globe, span age, sex and race, and span the many types of diseases. Put simply: we need to accelerate the era of wireless medicine. An article on this topic said the following: "The personal metrics movement goes way beyond diet and exercise. It's about tracking every facet of life, from sleep to mood to pain, 24/7/365." This may sound very scary, and in some ways it is. But it's not inconsistent with the underlying theme that to some degree has and will continue to define my generation: uber-transparency and significantly less individual privacy. This is yet another piece of the puzzle that is the exponentially increasing volume of information. To me the two key underlying questions are: how do we use this information, and how do we protect both the integrity and security of sensitive information? These questions, while extremely important, are somewhat irrelevant to the bigger picture. The train has left the station: the unbelievable power and scale of these new platforms has been unleashed. Now we must learn to maximize their benefits and minimize their potential costs. Supporting wireless medicine is a good place to start.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Week 8: The Lucifer Effect - How Good People Turn Evil
Distribution Source: MIT World and iTunesU
Content Source: MIT
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour 50 minutes and 58 seconds
Link: The Lucifer Effect
I was worried this afternoon - after watching the first few minutes of the MIT world video (a new source recommended by a commentor - thanks), I knew I wanted to write on this topic, but also wanted to go to the gym. Given that the video was 2 hours long, doing both seemed impossible. So I decided to see if iTunesU carried the video as well. Sure enough, I was able to download the full video to my phone in 5 minutes... not only that, I was also able to plug my phone into the treadmill at the gym and watch the video while running. Pretty cool.
This week's topic focuses on the human capacity for both good and evil, from the perspective of Dr. Phillip Zimbardo. Dr. Zimbardo is most famous for his Stanford Prison Experiment, in which he gathered a bunch of "normal" Stanford students and randomly assigned them to be prisoners or guards. The results are fascinating, and are taught in every Pyschology 101 course in the country. In short, the experiment had to be called off after six days because the prisoner-guard dynamic had become so out of control. For me, this experiment has always reinforced the importance of critical thinking and maintaining individuality in the face of social pressures. If a few dozen smart, regular Stanford kids can abuse each other so quickly, we are all susceptible to situational and systemic pressures pushing us to do something that falls outside of our moral code.
Dr. Z makes an interesting parallel between his Stanford Prison Experiment and the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. I call it a tragedy because it was in my mind extremely unnecessary and was damaging to everyone involved: those who were abused, those who took the pictures and carried out the abuse, and the United States and its perception globally. Following the release of the pictures, Dr. Z highlights how the government - like any institution faced with a scandal - pointed to this as an incident of a few "bad apples." If it weren't so serious this shallow explanation would be laughable.
Few events have received as much scrutiny and military, government and journalistic review as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Across the board, they describe a fundamentally screwed up institution. Similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment, most of the abuses took place on the night shift. For three months, no senior officer so much as visited the prison after hours. The stress level was extremely high - one Army reservist was in charge of over 1,000 prisoners, 60 Iraqi policemen, and 12 Army reserviests. He had received no specific training for the job and as mentioned, had no supervision. The chaotic conditions included constant weapons smuggling by Iraqi policemen, a neverending sewer stench, power blackouts, prisoner escapes, grenade attacks, noise and rationed water. The head Army reservist worked 40 days straight in 12 hour shifts per day. In his off-shift he slept in the prison. In social psychology, this 100% engulfment is called a "total situation."
Because of its proximity to dangerous Iraqi slums, the British told the US not to use the Abu Ghraib prison. Furthermore, for the first time Military Intelligence units were actively encouraging the Military Police (the Army reservists) to help break down prisoners. Of course, this is not the job of the police, whose job it is to keep order in the prison. When viewing this in the context of the administration's policy condoning "soft" torture tactics, it isn't hard to imagine how prisoner abuse resulted.
None of this serves to excuse any of the behavior that took place. Rather, it shows how putting "normal" people into a terrible situation, coupled with a lack of training and supervision, as well as tacit (and in some cases explicit) approval from superiors, results in a total disaster. Dr. Z and others had the opportunity to meet with and review the files of those who took the pictures and committed some of the acts; in his and military psychologists' opinions, these people were very normal. Indeed, Dr. Z points out that the lead officer was someone with the capacity to be a hero in a different situation. Yet instead he was a perpetrator of evil, smearing someone with his own feces and forcing others to similate sex acts while naked.... how is this possible?
Dr. Z's underlying point is that good and evil are hardly black and white. The human brain has an unbelievable capacity to be selfish and caring, heroic or villanous, creative or destructive. In other words, both good and evil are core aspects of human nature, and people can be transformed by powerful situational forces. After describing some other historical examples (the Jim Jones mass suicide, Eichman and the Nazis, etc.), he put together ten simple lessons on how to create evil in good people:
- Create an ideology to justify any means ("national security", etc.)
- Take small steps/minor action first
- Successively increase small actions
- Make sure a seemingly “just authority” is in charge
- Introduce a compassionate leader who changes gradually to become authoritarian monster
- Implement ever-changing/vague rules
- Re-lable situational actors & actions (“Teacher helping” when reality is aggressor hurting)
- Provide social models of compliance
- Allow verbal dissent, but insist on behavioral compliance (verbal dissent is the feel good thing)
- Make exiting difficult (this, he says, is the key to date rape…)
Perhaps some of you have seen a few of these steps in action, either from bosses, religious or government leaders. Dr. Z views corporate or institutional evil as the biggest evil, because it has the capacity to affect many people. In the case of corporations or governments, the rules of action are defined not by ethics, but rather by laws. The question is often not "what is right," but "what can we get away with?" He also described how corporate evil is always about the first little step - perhaps in the name of being a "team player." None of this is meant to be conspiratorial; it should instead reinforce to all of us that doing things because "that's what has always been done" or because someone "says so" is a poor reason that can have serious consequences. It's also clear to me that in a corporate or institutional setting, many of these evils can happen in marginal and indeed insignificant ways... with powerful disincentives to stand up for what is right.
So how do we keep ourselves from being even marginally evil? Dr. Z has also conveniently put together a list of twenty ways of preventing unwanted influences... while I won't list all of them here, you can click on this link to see the full list. Probably the most useful for me will be the following:
In all authority confrontations: be polite, individuate yourself and the other, make it clear it is not “your problem” in the process, or situation; describe the problem objectively, do not get emotional, state clearly the remedy sought, and the positive consequences expected – hold off on the threats and costs to them or their agency as last resort.
See ya'll next week.
Content Source: MIT
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour 50 minutes and 58 seconds
Link: The Lucifer Effect
I was worried this afternoon - after watching the first few minutes of the MIT world video (a new source recommended by a commentor - thanks), I knew I wanted to write on this topic, but also wanted to go to the gym. Given that the video was 2 hours long, doing both seemed impossible. So I decided to see if iTunesU carried the video as well. Sure enough, I was able to download the full video to my phone in 5 minutes... not only that, I was also able to plug my phone into the treadmill at the gym and watch the video while running. Pretty cool.
This week's topic focuses on the human capacity for both good and evil, from the perspective of Dr. Phillip Zimbardo. Dr. Zimbardo is most famous for his Stanford Prison Experiment, in which he gathered a bunch of "normal" Stanford students and randomly assigned them to be prisoners or guards. The results are fascinating, and are taught in every Pyschology 101 course in the country. In short, the experiment had to be called off after six days because the prisoner-guard dynamic had become so out of control. For me, this experiment has always reinforced the importance of critical thinking and maintaining individuality in the face of social pressures. If a few dozen smart, regular Stanford kids can abuse each other so quickly, we are all susceptible to situational and systemic pressures pushing us to do something that falls outside of our moral code.
Dr. Z makes an interesting parallel between his Stanford Prison Experiment and the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. I call it a tragedy because it was in my mind extremely unnecessary and was damaging to everyone involved: those who were abused, those who took the pictures and carried out the abuse, and the United States and its perception globally. Following the release of the pictures, Dr. Z highlights how the government - like any institution faced with a scandal - pointed to this as an incident of a few "bad apples." If it weren't so serious this shallow explanation would be laughable.
Few events have received as much scrutiny and military, government and journalistic review as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Across the board, they describe a fundamentally screwed up institution. Similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment, most of the abuses took place on the night shift. For three months, no senior officer so much as visited the prison after hours. The stress level was extremely high - one Army reservist was in charge of over 1,000 prisoners, 60 Iraqi policemen, and 12 Army reserviests. He had received no specific training for the job and as mentioned, had no supervision. The chaotic conditions included constant weapons smuggling by Iraqi policemen, a neverending sewer stench, power blackouts, prisoner escapes, grenade attacks, noise and rationed water. The head Army reservist worked 40 days straight in 12 hour shifts per day. In his off-shift he slept in the prison. In social psychology, this 100% engulfment is called a "total situation."
Because of its proximity to dangerous Iraqi slums, the British told the US not to use the Abu Ghraib prison. Furthermore, for the first time Military Intelligence units were actively encouraging the Military Police (the Army reservists) to help break down prisoners. Of course, this is not the job of the police, whose job it is to keep order in the prison. When viewing this in the context of the administration's policy condoning "soft" torture tactics, it isn't hard to imagine how prisoner abuse resulted.
None of this serves to excuse any of the behavior that took place. Rather, it shows how putting "normal" people into a terrible situation, coupled with a lack of training and supervision, as well as tacit (and in some cases explicit) approval from superiors, results in a total disaster. Dr. Z and others had the opportunity to meet with and review the files of those who took the pictures and committed some of the acts; in his and military psychologists' opinions, these people were very normal. Indeed, Dr. Z points out that the lead officer was someone with the capacity to be a hero in a different situation. Yet instead he was a perpetrator of evil, smearing someone with his own feces and forcing others to similate sex acts while naked.... how is this possible?
Dr. Z's underlying point is that good and evil are hardly black and white. The human brain has an unbelievable capacity to be selfish and caring, heroic or villanous, creative or destructive. In other words, both good and evil are core aspects of human nature, and people can be transformed by powerful situational forces. After describing some other historical examples (the Jim Jones mass suicide, Eichman and the Nazis, etc.), he put together ten simple lessons on how to create evil in good people:
- Create an ideology to justify any means ("national security", etc.)
- Take small steps/minor action first
- Successively increase small actions
- Make sure a seemingly “just authority” is in charge
- Introduce a compassionate leader who changes gradually to become authoritarian monster
- Implement ever-changing/vague rules
- Re-lable situational actors & actions (“Teacher helping” when reality is aggressor hurting)
- Provide social models of compliance
- Allow verbal dissent, but insist on behavioral compliance (verbal dissent is the feel good thing)
- Make exiting difficult (this, he says, is the key to date rape…)
Perhaps some of you have seen a few of these steps in action, either from bosses, religious or government leaders. Dr. Z views corporate or institutional evil as the biggest evil, because it has the capacity to affect many people. In the case of corporations or governments, the rules of action are defined not by ethics, but rather by laws. The question is often not "what is right," but "what can we get away with?" He also described how corporate evil is always about the first little step - perhaps in the name of being a "team player." None of this is meant to be conspiratorial; it should instead reinforce to all of us that doing things because "that's what has always been done" or because someone "says so" is a poor reason that can have serious consequences. It's also clear to me that in a corporate or institutional setting, many of these evils can happen in marginal and indeed insignificant ways... with powerful disincentives to stand up for what is right.
So how do we keep ourselves from being even marginally evil? Dr. Z has also conveniently put together a list of twenty ways of preventing unwanted influences... while I won't list all of them here, you can click on this link to see the full list. Probably the most useful for me will be the following:
In all authority confrontations: be polite, individuate yourself and the other, make it clear it is not “your problem” in the process, or situation; describe the problem objectively, do not get emotional, state clearly the remedy sought, and the positive consequences expected – hold off on the threats and costs to them or their agency as last resort.
See ya'll next week.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
General Petraeus on Strategic Leadership
I had the privilege of hearing General Petraeus speak today at Princeton University (and also was very fortunate to have met him in 2009). This is not this week's official "post", but I did want to at least jot down a few of the notes I took from his speech.
For those of you who don't know who General Petraeus is, he is the four-star general who leads the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and was the force behind the Iraq "surge" that has proven so successful in stabilizing the country following years of misguided US efforts.
He spoke briefly on strategic leadership, and gave these three guidelines:
1) Come up with the "right" big ideas.... as a leader of an organization you are expected to come up with the ideas that shape and determine the future of that organization. If the ideas are built on shaky or even faulty grounds, the organization becomes susceptible to failure. In Petraeus' opinion, the success of the surge in Iraq was more about a surge of ideas than a surge in troops. Specifically, it was about improving local sentiment, it was about living in the field and not in the barracks, it was about not just leaving after a location was cleared, and it was about partnering with insurgent groups that could be turned.
2) Communicate these ideas... he mentioned that the most important communication is communication DOWN the chain of command. In any type of organization those who are executing a strategy will be the ones who are further down the chain of command. Without a proper understanding of the strategy, tactics at the lower level can interfere with strategy at a higher level.
3) Direct and oversee the proper implementation of these ideas... what stuck out to me here was that General Petraeus, a career military man, said that this requires empowerment and not micromanagement. To me this is extremely interesting - I would have guessed that of all bureaucracies, the military would rank near the top in terms of micromanagement. However he said (correctly) that this stifles the ability to implement ideas and adapt ideas to ever-changing conditions on the ground. I couldn't agree more.
Also interesting was his statement that in planning for the Afghanistan troop increase, Petraeus met with President Obama "9 or 10" times, sometimes for more than three hours at a time! To me, this shows that Obama has taken this situation seriously and instead of simply hearing a briefing and making a decision (like so many decision makers have done and do), he decided to spend meaningful chunks of time to discuss and debate strategy. Political affiliation aside, this is encouraging to me. No matter what the ultimate decisions are, I hope we have more politicians and leaders who are willing to use this kind of process to come to decisions on the many major problems we are facing.
For those of you who don't know who General Petraeus is, he is the four-star general who leads the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and was the force behind the Iraq "surge" that has proven so successful in stabilizing the country following years of misguided US efforts.
He spoke briefly on strategic leadership, and gave these three guidelines:
1) Come up with the "right" big ideas.... as a leader of an organization you are expected to come up with the ideas that shape and determine the future of that organization. If the ideas are built on shaky or even faulty grounds, the organization becomes susceptible to failure. In Petraeus' opinion, the success of the surge in Iraq was more about a surge of ideas than a surge in troops. Specifically, it was about improving local sentiment, it was about living in the field and not in the barracks, it was about not just leaving after a location was cleared, and it was about partnering with insurgent groups that could be turned.
2) Communicate these ideas... he mentioned that the most important communication is communication DOWN the chain of command. In any type of organization those who are executing a strategy will be the ones who are further down the chain of command. Without a proper understanding of the strategy, tactics at the lower level can interfere with strategy at a higher level.
3) Direct and oversee the proper implementation of these ideas... what stuck out to me here was that General Petraeus, a career military man, said that this requires empowerment and not micromanagement. To me this is extremely interesting - I would have guessed that of all bureaucracies, the military would rank near the top in terms of micromanagement. However he said (correctly) that this stifles the ability to implement ideas and adapt ideas to ever-changing conditions on the ground. I couldn't agree more.
Also interesting was his statement that in planning for the Afghanistan troop increase, Petraeus met with President Obama "9 or 10" times, sometimes for more than three hours at a time! To me, this shows that Obama has taken this situation seriously and instead of simply hearing a briefing and making a decision (like so many decision makers have done and do), he decided to spend meaningful chunks of time to discuss and debate strategy. Political affiliation aside, this is encouraging to me. No matter what the ultimate decisions are, I hope we have more politicians and leaders who are willing to use this kind of process to come to decisions on the many major problems we are facing.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Week 7: McMafia
Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Misha Glenny
Format: Video
Length: 19 minutes, 30 seconds
Link: Misha Glenny investigates global crime networks
After a fun but exhausting weekend in Las Vegas, I will be writing a shorter post this week... following Sin City I decided to watch a talk by BBC journalist Misha Glenny on organized crime. Misha chronicles the globalization of organized crime in "McMafia," a book he wrote after spending years traveling the world meeting with both perpetrators and victims, from the drug trade to human trafficking to cyber crime.
While I think Misha was a little too ambitious in his attempt to somehow link all types of organized crime across multiple regions of the world, his basic point - that globalized crime has thrived and evolved in the last two decades, and that "we" are ill-equipped to fight it - makes sense. Organized crime is estimated by Misha to account for 15% of global GDP. If true, this is a staggering number; 2009 global GDP is roughly $57 Trillion, which would put organized crime GDP at over $7.5 Trillion. Were it a country (isn't that a lovely thought), this would make the organized crime industry the third largest economy in the world, after the US ($14.5 Trillion) and China ($8.8 Trillion). In short, we are no longer facing your old-school Italian mob family.
Today's organized crime is not only bigger than before, but significantly more connected. Misha talks about how, when faced with a problem of declining membership, Japan's Yakuza mob simply outsourced their killings to the Chinese mob. He views the various organized crime players as savvy, well-resourced businesses supported by a significant demand base for illicit products and services and greatly assisted by access to off-shore banking services.
He divides the global organized crime business into zones of production (e.g., Afghanistan & Colombia), zones of distribution (e.g., Balkans & Mexico), and zones of consumption (e.g., the EU, US and Japan). The zones of production and distribution tend to take place in the developing world, and are often accompanied with extreme violence. Last year some 6,000 people have been killed as a direct consequence of cocaine trade through Mexico. And this pales in comparison to the Democratic Republic of Congo where, since 1998, 5 million people have died in the fight to control the illegal mineral trade. To give some perspective, in terms of deaths, this represents the largest conflict on the planet since WWII. Mafias around the world cooperate with local Congolese paramilitary officers to coordinate supply of minerals. The trade is simple: Congolese warlords send minerals to mobs in exchange for guns, and the various mobs sell the minerals to western markets.
With this production, distribution and consumption model in place, organized crime has become an increasingly efficient business, and one area in particular, the Balkans, has emerged as a hotbed, for two primary reasons. The first is geography; the Balkans are in many ways a gateway to Europe and are surrounded by the Black, the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Seas. All kinds of illicit goods come to Europe through the Balkans: heroin from Central Asia through Iran & Turkey, cocaine from Columbia through Western Africa, women from Russia through the Ukraine & Romania and of course minerals from Africa. In addition to geography, like many Soviet satellites, the Balkans experienced a major institutional collapse following the fall of communism. Governments fell, of course, but so too did the underlying institutions, from the legal systems to the security forces. Across Eastern Europe and the Balkans, tens of thousands of police and intelligence officers, trained in surveillance, fighting and killing, were left jobless. With such a massive structural void, and a supply of unpaid, disgruntled thugs-in-training, it is easy to see how organized crime could thrive. After all, even legitimate business owners would in this environment be forced to buy protection for their assets. And while important political progress has been made in the Balkans since the fall of the Berlin Wall (most obviously the splitting up of Yugoslavia), it is unfortunate that a political void allowed these players to gain power and legitimacy, further entrenching them and their businesses.
From Misha's brief video, it's clear that the illicit goods and services trade represents a complex problem for which there doesn't seem to be a globally coordinated, comprehensive counterbalance. While he does not make any policy recommendations, the lecture takeaway is that organized crime is a massive economic force that has to be taken seriously. I won't pretend to have any answers, but what is clear to me is the impossibility (and futility) of using top-down "bans" on drugs or prostitution in hopes of ultimately eliminating them. It simply doesn't work. So if the zone of consumption cannot be eliminated by force, either another method must be attempted, or we must instead focus on incentives to disrupt zones of production and distribution.
Content Source: Misha Glenny
Format: Video
Length: 19 minutes, 30 seconds
Link: Misha Glenny investigates global crime networks
After a fun but exhausting weekend in Las Vegas, I will be writing a shorter post this week... following Sin City I decided to watch a talk by BBC journalist Misha Glenny on organized crime. Misha chronicles the globalization of organized crime in "McMafia," a book he wrote after spending years traveling the world meeting with both perpetrators and victims, from the drug trade to human trafficking to cyber crime.
While I think Misha was a little too ambitious in his attempt to somehow link all types of organized crime across multiple regions of the world, his basic point - that globalized crime has thrived and evolved in the last two decades, and that "we" are ill-equipped to fight it - makes sense. Organized crime is estimated by Misha to account for 15% of global GDP. If true, this is a staggering number; 2009 global GDP is roughly $57 Trillion, which would put organized crime GDP at over $7.5 Trillion. Were it a country (isn't that a lovely thought), this would make the organized crime industry the third largest economy in the world, after the US ($14.5 Trillion) and China ($8.8 Trillion). In short, we are no longer facing your old-school Italian mob family.
Today's organized crime is not only bigger than before, but significantly more connected. Misha talks about how, when faced with a problem of declining membership, Japan's Yakuza mob simply outsourced their killings to the Chinese mob. He views the various organized crime players as savvy, well-resourced businesses supported by a significant demand base for illicit products and services and greatly assisted by access to off-shore banking services.
He divides the global organized crime business into zones of production (e.g., Afghanistan & Colombia), zones of distribution (e.g., Balkans & Mexico), and zones of consumption (e.g., the EU, US and Japan). The zones of production and distribution tend to take place in the developing world, and are often accompanied with extreme violence. Last year some 6,000 people have been killed as a direct consequence of cocaine trade through Mexico. And this pales in comparison to the Democratic Republic of Congo where, since 1998, 5 million people have died in the fight to control the illegal mineral trade. To give some perspective, in terms of deaths, this represents the largest conflict on the planet since WWII. Mafias around the world cooperate with local Congolese paramilitary officers to coordinate supply of minerals. The trade is simple: Congolese warlords send minerals to mobs in exchange for guns, and the various mobs sell the minerals to western markets.
With this production, distribution and consumption model in place, organized crime has become an increasingly efficient business, and one area in particular, the Balkans, has emerged as a hotbed, for two primary reasons. The first is geography; the Balkans are in many ways a gateway to Europe and are surrounded by the Black, the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Seas. All kinds of illicit goods come to Europe through the Balkans: heroin from Central Asia through Iran & Turkey, cocaine from Columbia through Western Africa, women from Russia through the Ukraine & Romania and of course minerals from Africa. In addition to geography, like many Soviet satellites, the Balkans experienced a major institutional collapse following the fall of communism. Governments fell, of course, but so too did the underlying institutions, from the legal systems to the security forces. Across Eastern Europe and the Balkans, tens of thousands of police and intelligence officers, trained in surveillance, fighting and killing, were left jobless. With such a massive structural void, and a supply of unpaid, disgruntled thugs-in-training, it is easy to see how organized crime could thrive. After all, even legitimate business owners would in this environment be forced to buy protection for their assets. And while important political progress has been made in the Balkans since the fall of the Berlin Wall (most obviously the splitting up of Yugoslavia), it is unfortunate that a political void allowed these players to gain power and legitimacy, further entrenching them and their businesses.
From Misha's brief video, it's clear that the illicit goods and services trade represents a complex problem for which there doesn't seem to be a globally coordinated, comprehensive counterbalance. While he does not make any policy recommendations, the lecture takeaway is that organized crime is a massive economic force that has to be taken seriously. I won't pretend to have any answers, but what is clear to me is the impossibility (and futility) of using top-down "bans" on drugs or prostitution in hopes of ultimately eliminating them. It simply doesn't work. So if the zone of consumption cannot be eliminated by force, either another method must be attempted, or we must instead focus on incentives to disrupt zones of production and distribution.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Week 6: The Way of the Samurai
Distribution Source: Hulu
Content Source: PBS
Format: Video
Length (Combined): 55 minutes
Link: The Way of the Samurai
"For existence is impermanent as the dew of evening, and the hoarfrost of morning, and particularly uncertain is the life of the warrior…" - Code of the Samurai
I have never been to Japan, and have had only limited exposure to the country and people. Outside of Quentin Tarantino movies I've had no exposure to the samurai culture. But what little I've seen has made me fascinated with samurai warriors. Their intense training from a young age and unyielding devotion to the warrior lifestyle in conjunction with a deep sense of honor, code of ethics and philosophy seems historically unique. Their status as powerful warriors is unquestioned... earlier today I was trying to figure out who would emerge if you locked a spartan, a Navy SEAL and a samurai in a room for a fight to the death (leave a comment if you have any strong views on this).
The video I watched focused on what was in years a relatively brief period (roughly 100 years), but which represented an immensely important part of Japanese history. It chronicled the ascent to power of one of the most famous and powerful samurai, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu would ultimately pull Japan out of its feudal civil wars, implement a peace that lasted for almost three centuries, and build the city of Edo (modern-day Tokyo) from a fishing town into one of the world's largest cities.
Ieyasu was born in 1543, the year of the water and the hare, and also the year that the Portuguese "discovered" Japan. After observing the Japanese culture and its complex political system, the Portuguese for the first time viewed an Asian people as equals, not as an inferior group to be conquered. Interestingly, the Japanese were not so kind in their assessment of the Europeans - they regarded as defects their large noses, messy beards, and rudimentary eating style and utensils. The Japanese bathed daily while the Portuguese went months without bathing. It is perhaps unsurprising that the Japanese called the Portuguese "Southern Barbarians."
At this time, Japan was divided into many fiefdoms, with powerful daimyo lords - and their armies of samurai warriors - battling for territory. Ieyasu was born into the samurai class, an honor bestowed on only 10% of the Japanese population. In other words, one could not simply decide to become a samurai. But with the honor of being born into the samurai class came a deep, lifelong obligation. Many Samurai boys, Ieyasu included, were given up as part of the intricate game of feudal politics. There was deep distrust between various political factions; giving a child was a way to guarantee or solidify one's intentions. Ieyasu's father gave him as a "hostage" to a powerful daimyo, and the two would never again meet. But even as a hostage, samurai boys were privileged - they traveled in style and were educated.
This education included training in the art of kendo - the way of the sword - which among other things exposed Ieyasu to the rigors of unending training and taught him to remain clearminded in the face of danger and to accept death stoically. Ieyasu was also trained in the Chinese and Japanese classics, martial arts, and military strategy. This education taught him above all the philosophy of the samurai lifestyle. At the age of 15, Ieyasu became a man and was given the right to carry the two samurai swords - the larger katana sword and a smaller sword, called the wakizashi. Once samurai became men, their swords would never leave their sides, and would even be kept by their pillows at night.
True glory for a samurai came on the battlefield, defending his lord. The samurai had to be ready to be killed and die for honor at anytime. There is a Japanese analogy that suggests samurai are like cherry blossoms - very presentable, but it only takes one storm for them to blow away.
Knowing when - and how - to die was crucially important for a samurai. On the battlefield, during the last moment of life one must show his control and die with honor. Outside of dying in battle, the most common death for a samurai was through a highly scripted suicide routine called harikari (also called Seppuku). A samurai would carry out harikari for many reasons, ranging from a loss in battle to angering his lord. The samurai would write his death poem and, without expression, stab himself in the abdomen with his sword. Any indication of pain or suffering would undermine the honor of the death... one samurai wrote:
For the samurai to learn
There's only one thing,
One last thing -
To face death unflinchingly.
By his twenties, Ieyasu had become battle-hardened and had been exposed to death. When his lord died, Ieyasu made the decision to return to his homeland and reclaim his title as a daimyo (an independent lord). At the time the most powerful daimyo was Nobunaga, who had gained control of about half of Japan. Ieyasu and his eventual rival, Hideyoshi, were both loyal to Nobunaga until his death. Hideyoshi became the most powerful, and instead of fighthing, Ieyasu made a series of savvy moves, including offering his second son to Hideyoshi to show his allegiance.
Perhaps the biggest risk Ieyasu took was accepting a deal from Hideyoshi that gave Ieyasu a few provinces (including Edo) in exchange for his submission. This would serve the dual purpose of both keeping Ieyasu as an ally and keeping him far from the political center of Osaka. However Ieyasu used the distance to his advantage, as it gave him more autonomy from Hideyoshi.
Hideyoshi did not have a male heir until the age of 60, and when he died his son was only 5. Before his death, Hideyoshi made a deal with Ieyasu and four other leaders to oversee the country until his son was old enough to take power. Ieyasu swore allegiance to Hideyoshi's son. Soon after Hideyoshi's death, however, Ieyasu began a campaign to rule all of Japan, culminating in arguably the most historic battle in Japanese history: the Battle of Sekigahara. Severely outnumbered, Ieyasu sent his troops into battle with this rallying cry: "there are two ways to come out of battle: with the head of the enemy or without your own." Ieyasu's army won, and the era of warring states had finally ended. Three years later the emperor bestowed the title of shogun to Ieyasu, making him the undisputed ruler of Japan.
Ieyasu quickly eliminated foreigners from Japan and outlawed Christianity (many of the Europeans were there in an effort to convert the Japanese). His only remaining problem was the son of Hideyoshi, Hideyori, who was growing older and to whom Ieyasu had pledged his life and subservience. The young Hideyori began to assemble forces in Osaka, and Ieyasu decided he would have to go back on his word. In 1614 he accused Hideyori of subversion and decided to attack. Hideyori had tens of thousands of loyal warriors, and the castle of Osaka was thought to be impregnable. After a stalemate, Ieyasu decided to try a different tactic - he sent a woman samuri to negotiate a truce with Hideyori's mother. He offered a safehaven for all troops if Hideyori agreed not to fight, and signed this pledge with his own blood. Hideyori's mother convinced him to accept the deal. As soon as the fighting stopped, Ieyasu filled the moats with dirt and stormed the castle, slaughtering everyone inside.
The samurai battle ritual calls for the decapitation of all enemy warriors, which are then cleaned and placed together as a sign of respect. It is estimated that 100,000 heads were assembled following the victory at Sekigahara. Hideyori refused to surrender, and committed Seppuku.
The choice to go back on his word was problematic for Ieyasu. It is believed that he deeply regretted having to eliminate Hideyori, and was said to have done penance by writing the name of Buddha 10,000 times on scrolls of parchment. However, it is clear that Ieyasu thought the dynasty and lasting peace was worth the dishonor of eliminating Hideyori. Indeed, the peace that followed lasted through the industrialization of Japan in the 19th century.
Together the three famous samurai leaders, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu are known as "The Three Unifiers." There is a Japanese parable that summarizes Ieyasu's strategy of outlasting the other powerful samurai leaders:
The three samurai are watching a cuckoo bird, waiting for it to sing. Nobunaga says to the bird: "If you don't sing, I will kill you." Hideyoshi says: "If you don't sing, I will make you." Ieyasu, however, says: "If you don't sing, I will wait for you to sing."
I think my biggest lesson from this post involves the extreme patience of Ieyasu. As part of a borderline narcissistic generation that has come to expect real time gratification, it is enlightening to see how decades of patience and work resulted in Ieyasu's ultimate victory. It is clear to me that his strategy and tactics, as well as the self-discipline prescribed by the samurai code, are useful guides and deserve further study.
Content Source: PBS
Format: Video
Length (Combined): 55 minutes
Link: The Way of the Samurai
"For existence is impermanent as the dew of evening, and the hoarfrost of morning, and particularly uncertain is the life of the warrior…" - Code of the Samurai
I have never been to Japan, and have had only limited exposure to the country and people. Outside of Quentin Tarantino movies I've had no exposure to the samurai culture. But what little I've seen has made me fascinated with samurai warriors. Their intense training from a young age and unyielding devotion to the warrior lifestyle in conjunction with a deep sense of honor, code of ethics and philosophy seems historically unique. Their status as powerful warriors is unquestioned... earlier today I was trying to figure out who would emerge if you locked a spartan, a Navy SEAL and a samurai in a room for a fight to the death (leave a comment if you have any strong views on this).
The video I watched focused on what was in years a relatively brief period (roughly 100 years), but which represented an immensely important part of Japanese history. It chronicled the ascent to power of one of the most famous and powerful samurai, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu would ultimately pull Japan out of its feudal civil wars, implement a peace that lasted for almost three centuries, and build the city of Edo (modern-day Tokyo) from a fishing town into one of the world's largest cities.
Ieyasu was born in 1543, the year of the water and the hare, and also the year that the Portuguese "discovered" Japan. After observing the Japanese culture and its complex political system, the Portuguese for the first time viewed an Asian people as equals, not as an inferior group to be conquered. Interestingly, the Japanese were not so kind in their assessment of the Europeans - they regarded as defects their large noses, messy beards, and rudimentary eating style and utensils. The Japanese bathed daily while the Portuguese went months without bathing. It is perhaps unsurprising that the Japanese called the Portuguese "Southern Barbarians."
At this time, Japan was divided into many fiefdoms, with powerful daimyo lords - and their armies of samurai warriors - battling for territory. Ieyasu was born into the samurai class, an honor bestowed on only 10% of the Japanese population. In other words, one could not simply decide to become a samurai. But with the honor of being born into the samurai class came a deep, lifelong obligation. Many Samurai boys, Ieyasu included, were given up as part of the intricate game of feudal politics. There was deep distrust between various political factions; giving a child was a way to guarantee or solidify one's intentions. Ieyasu's father gave him as a "hostage" to a powerful daimyo, and the two would never again meet. But even as a hostage, samurai boys were privileged - they traveled in style and were educated.
This education included training in the art of kendo - the way of the sword - which among other things exposed Ieyasu to the rigors of unending training and taught him to remain clearminded in the face of danger and to accept death stoically. Ieyasu was also trained in the Chinese and Japanese classics, martial arts, and military strategy. This education taught him above all the philosophy of the samurai lifestyle. At the age of 15, Ieyasu became a man and was given the right to carry the two samurai swords - the larger katana sword and a smaller sword, called the wakizashi. Once samurai became men, their swords would never leave their sides, and would even be kept by their pillows at night.
True glory for a samurai came on the battlefield, defending his lord. The samurai had to be ready to be killed and die for honor at anytime. There is a Japanese analogy that suggests samurai are like cherry blossoms - very presentable, but it only takes one storm for them to blow away.
Knowing when - and how - to die was crucially important for a samurai. On the battlefield, during the last moment of life one must show his control and die with honor. Outside of dying in battle, the most common death for a samurai was through a highly scripted suicide routine called harikari (also called Seppuku). A samurai would carry out harikari for many reasons, ranging from a loss in battle to angering his lord. The samurai would write his death poem and, without expression, stab himself in the abdomen with his sword. Any indication of pain or suffering would undermine the honor of the death... one samurai wrote:
For the samurai to learn
There's only one thing,
One last thing -
To face death unflinchingly.
By his twenties, Ieyasu had become battle-hardened and had been exposed to death. When his lord died, Ieyasu made the decision to return to his homeland and reclaim his title as a daimyo (an independent lord). At the time the most powerful daimyo was Nobunaga, who had gained control of about half of Japan. Ieyasu and his eventual rival, Hideyoshi, were both loyal to Nobunaga until his death. Hideyoshi became the most powerful, and instead of fighthing, Ieyasu made a series of savvy moves, including offering his second son to Hideyoshi to show his allegiance.
Perhaps the biggest risk Ieyasu took was accepting a deal from Hideyoshi that gave Ieyasu a few provinces (including Edo) in exchange for his submission. This would serve the dual purpose of both keeping Ieyasu as an ally and keeping him far from the political center of Osaka. However Ieyasu used the distance to his advantage, as it gave him more autonomy from Hideyoshi.
Hideyoshi did not have a male heir until the age of 60, and when he died his son was only 5. Before his death, Hideyoshi made a deal with Ieyasu and four other leaders to oversee the country until his son was old enough to take power. Ieyasu swore allegiance to Hideyoshi's son. Soon after Hideyoshi's death, however, Ieyasu began a campaign to rule all of Japan, culminating in arguably the most historic battle in Japanese history: the Battle of Sekigahara. Severely outnumbered, Ieyasu sent his troops into battle with this rallying cry: "there are two ways to come out of battle: with the head of the enemy or without your own." Ieyasu's army won, and the era of warring states had finally ended. Three years later the emperor bestowed the title of shogun to Ieyasu, making him the undisputed ruler of Japan.
Ieyasu quickly eliminated foreigners from Japan and outlawed Christianity (many of the Europeans were there in an effort to convert the Japanese). His only remaining problem was the son of Hideyoshi, Hideyori, who was growing older and to whom Ieyasu had pledged his life and subservience. The young Hideyori began to assemble forces in Osaka, and Ieyasu decided he would have to go back on his word. In 1614 he accused Hideyori of subversion and decided to attack. Hideyori had tens of thousands of loyal warriors, and the castle of Osaka was thought to be impregnable. After a stalemate, Ieyasu decided to try a different tactic - he sent a woman samuri to negotiate a truce with Hideyori's mother. He offered a safehaven for all troops if Hideyori agreed not to fight, and signed this pledge with his own blood. Hideyori's mother convinced him to accept the deal. As soon as the fighting stopped, Ieyasu filled the moats with dirt and stormed the castle, slaughtering everyone inside.
The samurai battle ritual calls for the decapitation of all enemy warriors, which are then cleaned and placed together as a sign of respect. It is estimated that 100,000 heads were assembled following the victory at Sekigahara. Hideyori refused to surrender, and committed Seppuku.
The choice to go back on his word was problematic for Ieyasu. It is believed that he deeply regretted having to eliminate Hideyori, and was said to have done penance by writing the name of Buddha 10,000 times on scrolls of parchment. However, it is clear that Ieyasu thought the dynasty and lasting peace was worth the dishonor of eliminating Hideyori. Indeed, the peace that followed lasted through the industrialization of Japan in the 19th century.
Together the three famous samurai leaders, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu are known as "The Three Unifiers." There is a Japanese parable that summarizes Ieyasu's strategy of outlasting the other powerful samurai leaders:
The three samurai are watching a cuckoo bird, waiting for it to sing. Nobunaga says to the bird: "If you don't sing, I will kill you." Hideyoshi says: "If you don't sing, I will make you." Ieyasu, however, says: "If you don't sing, I will wait for you to sing."
I think my biggest lesson from this post involves the extreme patience of Ieyasu. As part of a borderline narcissistic generation that has come to expect real time gratification, it is enlightening to see how decades of patience and work resulted in Ieyasu's ultimate victory. It is clear to me that his strategy and tactics, as well as the self-discipline prescribed by the samurai code, are useful guides and deserve further study.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Week 5: Haiti.
Distribution Source: Google Video, YouTube, CBS, Al Jazeera, FOX, ABC
Content Source: Eunide Alexandre Television, CBS, Al Jazeera, FOX, ABC, Noam Chomksy
Format: Video
Length (Combined): 57 minutes
Links:
Voice of Haiti: History
Haiti's History of Struggle
Haiti's History of Hardship
Haiti's Troubled History
Noam Chomsky on Haiti
Haiti's Political History
History of US Aid to Haiti
This week's topic came from my girlfriend, who told me I should write about Haiti - not about the crisis, but how it became one of the poorest countries in the world. I thought this was a great idea, and am extremely glad I listened to her. This week, I will try to give you the succinct story of Haiti (or as much of it as I could understand from only an hour of videos).
To summarize everything that is to follow: over the past few hundred years, the Haitians have gotten a terrible deal. It's also clear that Haiti is inextricably linked - culturally, politically, and economically - to the US and to Western Europe.
The known history of Haiti, dating back to 1492 (the year Columbus "discovered" America and Hispaniola), consists of multiple world powers occupying and exploiting the country. The native TaÃnos ruled the island prior to the Spaniards claiming the island of Hispaniola. The story that follows mirrors other Conquistador victories - the TaÃnos were subjugated and forced to mine gold (of which Haiti and the Dominican Republic had a lot) or be killed. Disease also killed much of the TaÃno population. In spite of the decimation of the TaÃno population, due to mining and agriculture, Hispaniola was the most valuable land on the earth for almost a century.
Over time, the Spaniards realized that larger and more reliable mines could be found on the mainland, and largely withdrew from Hispaniola. Soon after, the French settled on the island. In 1697, the French and Spanish agreed to split up the land, with the Spanish keeping the eastern two-thirds of the island(now the Dominican Republic), while the French controlled the western third (modern-day Haiti). The addition of the French created an even more complicated racial and ethnic mix in Haiti, which already consisted of African slaves, TaÃno natives, and Spaniards. The Haitian Creole language and culture followed. Religiously, Haiti was also unconventional, the result of an eclectic blend of TaÃno spirituality, African voo-doo, and Roman Catholicism.
In the late 18th century, something amazing (and ironic) happened. Inspired by the egalitarian slogan of the French Revolution, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," the Haitians revolted against their French rulers. Napoleon sent tens of thousands of his battle-hardened troops to crush the Haitians and their leader, Toussaint l'Ouverture. Incredibly, the French could not defeat the Haitians. In 1804, Haiti declared its freedom, thereby becoming the first independent nation in Latin America and the first black-led republic in history (I recognize the western-centric use/notion of "republic" here). In 1809, there was a large creole exodus to New Orleans, doubling the population of the city.
Unfortunately for Haiti, while it had triumphed in a military sense against the French, it was unable to do so economically - France forced massive indemnification payments on the country, for "profits lost from the slave trade." A French abolitionist later pointed out how ridiculous these payments were: "Imposing an indemnity on the victorious slaves was equivalent to making them pay with money that which they had already paid with their blood." These debt payments took Haiti over 120 years to pay back and started a cycle of debt, dependence, and instability.
The newly independent country suffered from multiple coups (in its 200 years, Haiti has had 32 coups), and generally did not have the resources to build strong institutions that would allow an economy to grow. In 1915, US Marines occupied Haiti, citing the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which allowed the US to intervene in Caribbean economies if they were unable to pay their international debts (in Haiti's case, to France). It was also a direct effort to eliminate German economic interests in Haiti, making Haiti a derivative battle of World War I. In other words, Haiti's morally illegitimate international debts to France served as the precept for the US to occupy the nation and use it as a pawn in a global war. The US kept a military presence in Haiti until 1933; there were meaningful infrastructure projects undertaken, but throughout the entire period (and almost the entire 20th century) Haiti was ruled by dictators who routinely murdered and stole from the populace.
It wasn't until the 1980s that Haiti had any kind of representative government; the first truly democratic elections were in 1990, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected President. Within nine months he was overthrown in a coup and replaced by a thug. President Clinton successfully negotiated his reinstatement in 1994, but did so on the condition that Aristide implement his opponent's free trade policies. Haiti dropped its internal agricultural subsidies, and was flooded with cheaper international food. As a result, farmers migrated into Port Au Prince, which had became a city of a million people that by most estimates should hold only 40,000. More recently, Aristide was thrown out in 2004 in yet another coup; during this year Haiti was also ravaged by massive floods. In 2008, food riots plagued the country after four major hurricanes hit the island, inflicting over $1B in damage.
By now it should be clear that there is a major, complex problem facing Haiti's development. I am extremely disheartened by the failures of what we assume to be the best natural solution: foreign aid. Foreign aid figures to Haiti have been well-documented in recent history: $3B of US taxpayer funds have gone into the country since 1992, and $600MM per year in international donations have gone to the country. For a country with an annual GDP of $6B, this is significant. Most staggering to me, though, is sheer the number of international aid organizations operating in Haiti. For a country with 10 million people, I would have guessed between 100-1,000 organizations were operable. I was SHOCKED to learn that 10,000 aid organizations have on-the-ground operations in Haiti... in other words, one aid organization for every 1,000 people. How is this what's best for Haiti? Think of the overhead costs associated with installing so many different groups on the ground. Wouldn't it be better for these funds to go through fewer, more efficient groups? Alternatively, could this be a reflection of a failed NGO model? I'm reminded of the African official who, when asked what the UN could do for Africa made a heartfelt plea to please "leave us alone and do nothing."
In some ways, this is a moot point, because everything about Haitian aid and development has and will continue to change following the devastating earthquake. My hope is that going forward, the solutions implemented are those that empower individual Haitians to improve their own situation, as l'Ouverture and his army did against Napoleon. Otherwise Haitians will just be getting another raw deal.
Content Source: Eunide Alexandre Television, CBS, Al Jazeera, FOX, ABC, Noam Chomksy
Format: Video
Length (Combined): 57 minutes
Links:
Voice of Haiti: History
Haiti's History of Struggle
Haiti's History of Hardship
Haiti's Troubled History
Noam Chomsky on Haiti
Haiti's Political History
History of US Aid to Haiti
This week's topic came from my girlfriend, who told me I should write about Haiti - not about the crisis, but how it became one of the poorest countries in the world. I thought this was a great idea, and am extremely glad I listened to her. This week, I will try to give you the succinct story of Haiti (or as much of it as I could understand from only an hour of videos).
To summarize everything that is to follow: over the past few hundred years, the Haitians have gotten a terrible deal. It's also clear that Haiti is inextricably linked - culturally, politically, and economically - to the US and to Western Europe.
The known history of Haiti, dating back to 1492 (the year Columbus "discovered" America and Hispaniola), consists of multiple world powers occupying and exploiting the country. The native TaÃnos ruled the island prior to the Spaniards claiming the island of Hispaniola. The story that follows mirrors other Conquistador victories - the TaÃnos were subjugated and forced to mine gold (of which Haiti and the Dominican Republic had a lot) or be killed. Disease also killed much of the TaÃno population. In spite of the decimation of the TaÃno population, due to mining and agriculture, Hispaniola was the most valuable land on the earth for almost a century.
Over time, the Spaniards realized that larger and more reliable mines could be found on the mainland, and largely withdrew from Hispaniola. Soon after, the French settled on the island. In 1697, the French and Spanish agreed to split up the land, with the Spanish keeping the eastern two-thirds of the island(now the Dominican Republic), while the French controlled the western third (modern-day Haiti). The addition of the French created an even more complicated racial and ethnic mix in Haiti, which already consisted of African slaves, TaÃno natives, and Spaniards. The Haitian Creole language and culture followed. Religiously, Haiti was also unconventional, the result of an eclectic blend of TaÃno spirituality, African voo-doo, and Roman Catholicism.
In the late 18th century, something amazing (and ironic) happened. Inspired by the egalitarian slogan of the French Revolution, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," the Haitians revolted against their French rulers. Napoleon sent tens of thousands of his battle-hardened troops to crush the Haitians and their leader, Toussaint l'Ouverture. Incredibly, the French could not defeat the Haitians. In 1804, Haiti declared its freedom, thereby becoming the first independent nation in Latin America and the first black-led republic in history (I recognize the western-centric use/notion of "republic" here). In 1809, there was a large creole exodus to New Orleans, doubling the population of the city.
Unfortunately for Haiti, while it had triumphed in a military sense against the French, it was unable to do so economically - France forced massive indemnification payments on the country, for "profits lost from the slave trade." A French abolitionist later pointed out how ridiculous these payments were: "Imposing an indemnity on the victorious slaves was equivalent to making them pay with money that which they had already paid with their blood." These debt payments took Haiti over 120 years to pay back and started a cycle of debt, dependence, and instability.
The newly independent country suffered from multiple coups (in its 200 years, Haiti has had 32 coups), and generally did not have the resources to build strong institutions that would allow an economy to grow. In 1915, US Marines occupied Haiti, citing the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which allowed the US to intervene in Caribbean economies if they were unable to pay their international debts (in Haiti's case, to France). It was also a direct effort to eliminate German economic interests in Haiti, making Haiti a derivative battle of World War I. In other words, Haiti's morally illegitimate international debts to France served as the precept for the US to occupy the nation and use it as a pawn in a global war. The US kept a military presence in Haiti until 1933; there were meaningful infrastructure projects undertaken, but throughout the entire period (and almost the entire 20th century) Haiti was ruled by dictators who routinely murdered and stole from the populace.
It wasn't until the 1980s that Haiti had any kind of representative government; the first truly democratic elections were in 1990, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected President. Within nine months he was overthrown in a coup and replaced by a thug. President Clinton successfully negotiated his reinstatement in 1994, but did so on the condition that Aristide implement his opponent's free trade policies. Haiti dropped its internal agricultural subsidies, and was flooded with cheaper international food. As a result, farmers migrated into Port Au Prince, which had became a city of a million people that by most estimates should hold only 40,000. More recently, Aristide was thrown out in 2004 in yet another coup; during this year Haiti was also ravaged by massive floods. In 2008, food riots plagued the country after four major hurricanes hit the island, inflicting over $1B in damage.
By now it should be clear that there is a major, complex problem facing Haiti's development. I am extremely disheartened by the failures of what we assume to be the best natural solution: foreign aid. Foreign aid figures to Haiti have been well-documented in recent history: $3B of US taxpayer funds have gone into the country since 1992, and $600MM per year in international donations have gone to the country. For a country with an annual GDP of $6B, this is significant. Most staggering to me, though, is sheer the number of international aid organizations operating in Haiti. For a country with 10 million people, I would have guessed between 100-1,000 organizations were operable. I was SHOCKED to learn that 10,000 aid organizations have on-the-ground operations in Haiti... in other words, one aid organization for every 1,000 people. How is this what's best for Haiti? Think of the overhead costs associated with installing so many different groups on the ground. Wouldn't it be better for these funds to go through fewer, more efficient groups? Alternatively, could this be a reflection of a failed NGO model? I'm reminded of the African official who, when asked what the UN could do for Africa made a heartfelt plea to please "leave us alone and do nothing."
In some ways, this is a moot point, because everything about Haitian aid and development has and will continue to change following the devastating earthquake. My hope is that going forward, the solutions implemented are those that empower individual Haitians to improve their own situation, as l'Ouverture and his army did against Napoleon. Otherwise Haitians will just be getting another raw deal.
Inventory of Free, Educational Video Sites
While searching for this week's topic, I came across this link:
About.com's inventory of free, web-based video sources
About.com's inventory of free, web-based video sources
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Week 4: The Climategate Controversy
Distribution Source: iTunesU
Content Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT World: Distributed Intelligence)
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour, 58 minutes, 31 seconds
This week's topic is the Climategate Controversy. "Climategate" refers to the November 2009 hacking of a University of East Anglia server and subsequent release of over 1,000 emails between climate scientists. Many of these emails appear to reveal scientists from the Climate Research Unit (University of East Anglia) and Penn State University behaving unethically - from suggesting data be altered to strategizing over how to keep the work of scientists who are skeptical of anthropogenic (i.e., man-made) global warming out of certain peer reviewed journals.
But if this were just an issue of two or three scientists behaving immorally for their own selfish purposes, it would not be worthy of the international attention it has received. Rather, this represents an important inflection between science and politics, on a global scale. It also represents an issue - global warming (or, the more politically correct name: climate change) - in which many different, often combative sides have entrenched interests (think developing vs. developed world, Democrats vs. Republicans, industrialists vs. environmentalists, just to name a few...).
This post is not about the science behind global warming - I'd embarrass myself even attempting to frame the debate properly. What I do know is that I've tried many times in good faith to understand the issue, and what the science says about the issue. In most cases, with nothing more than an internet connection, some critical thinking and a free afternoon, this is not exceedingly difficult. But with global warming, I've found the task tedious, in large part due the blatant propaganda from all sides. This fact alone is instructive as to the political backdrop of the issue. As I've researched this week's topic, it has become clear to me that science has to some degree taken a back seat to strong efforts on both sides to manipulate the climate change issue for political gain. Indeed, the fact that we discuss this in terms of "sides" shows how polarizing this has become (what with believers, nonbelievers, and the future of the earth in play), and how far we've gotten from rational, intelligent debate on what I think is the important, underlying question: is the world screwed and if so what can we do about it?
In the United States, it seems that the climate change debate has roughly fallen along partisan lines, with each side giving its followers an easy story. Democrats play the oh-so-certain side, safely dismissing any doubter of the veracity of anthropogenic climate change as an idiot (at the dinner party: "oh yes, dear, the poor thing, he doesn't even believe in global warming"). Meanwhile Republicans have embraced the "skeptic" terminology to represent their supposed healthy scientific questioning of the issue (on a freezing cold day: "it's -25 degrees today, yep, must be global warming!"). In other words, just like the health care debate quickly fell to an argument over death panels, the climate change debate has also regressed to lowest common denominator, politically expedient discourse.
But let's bring it back to Climategate. Why should we care? Some scientists wrote some nasty things about each other, maybe tried to change a temperature database, and discussed keeping contradictory work from being published. My first question was: what were the actual effects of this scandal? I particularly liked the approach of Ron Prinn (Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT) - he posed six questions to himself about Climategate:
1) Are some of these emails unprofessional? His answer: Yes.
2) Were the scientists involved successful in preventing journal publications? His answer: No. Not successful.
3) Was the research done by scientists in question critical for the case for anthropogenic climate changes? (my note: the way I understand it, the integrity of one of the major client science databases is now tainted, and the question becomes: is the scientific consensus in tact ex-this database and its associated work) His answer: There are many different data sets and analyses; in short, these scientists aren't the only group doing this. The body of evidence supporting that climate change is anthropogenic is robust, and the risk is, in his mind, high (there is no other planet to retreat to).
4) Has the integrity of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change been compromised? His answer: No. Yes, these scientists were involved with the IPCC, and the IPCC is the most important single input to international climate policy. However, in his experience publishing through the IPCC, it was a thorough, honest process, and he thinks hijacking the IPCC by a small group is simply not possible.
5) Is public perception of climate science affected? His answer: Yes. Media's ability to analyze hard science is diminishing, particularly as news sources continue cutting science writers. Moreover, the emails contained juicy soundbites for story writers and therefore gained a larger audience.
6) Can we do better as client scientists? His answer: We need to step back and move away from a knee-jerk tendency for polarization. The almost religious "Believers vs. Nonbelievers" framework needs to be moved away from. We need mutual respect and communication tools, not just on our conclusions but on our process as well.
Through this lense, it seems to me that the actual results of the Climategate scandal - from a climate science perspective - are not nearly as damaging as they have been made out to be. This is not to say they haven't had a meaningful impact on public discourse - the headlines surely provided fodder for those on one side of the political war. And let's be clear, this is a political war; the event was no accident - someone with a vested interest in the outcome hacked into a server, stole information, and released it to coincide with the largest international climate summit (December 2009, Copenhagen) since Kyoto.
But in my view, one major positive of Climategate is the opportunity it has provided us laypeople to think about how science and politics are married on this important issue. On the video panel, Judy Layzer, a Professor of Political Sciences at MIT and Government at Harvard, walked us through this intersection of the vastly different worlds of science and politics. Most people have a rational view of policy making - that is, the more we know about a problem the more we should be able to solve it. But that is simply not how it works.
Science is about assessing theories and advancing our understanding of the world in which we live, a process that is never complete, never certain, and always skeptical. She contrasts this with science-based policy decisions, in which people have to act in the very near-term on imperfect information. She points out that what we are asking of scientists in this situation isn't science at all. It is regulatory science, and regulatory science is inherently uncertain. And so scientists are asked to make assumptions, and assumptions are based on their values. Once we have assumptions based on values, we have moved from pure science into some other realm.
And from the purely political side of the equation, she says policy making is not at all linear - in other words we are never choosing the "best" from an array of options. Rather, there are many advocates - each with its own ideology, interests, and funding source - competing for the right to define a problem and therefore be able to give the solution. She goes on to say that, unfortunately, in many cases the underlying science has no impact on policy - it has to be woven into a political story to make a difference.
In climate change, environmental skeptics have learned the political game and know that discrediting the science is very important. Spinning the issues is not at all difficult - whether creating and using words like "Climategate" that conjure up previous scandals or simply discrediting scientists' models. Professor Layzer notes that a major problem is that scientists are not equipped to deal with such political attacks. Scientists are traditionally reserved in their language and the way in which they present arguments and conclusions. But when faced with a politicized opposition, they want to react. Imagine being a climatologist who has studied meticulously the issue of global warming and come to the independent conclusion that it is a major problem for the planet, your children, and the human race. Now imagine your valid work being discredited by some partisan hack as nothing more than the ramblings of an idealogue - wouldn't you be more willing than usual to use stronger language to persuade the public of your case? It's hard to imagine scientists not having more of these types of problems following the Climategate emails, which show impropriety on the part of only a very few scientists. While unfortunate, it represents the arena in which climate scientists, willingly or not, have been thrust.
To summarize, politicians are being politicians, some interested party hacked into computers and stole information for its gain, and a few scientists succumbed to human temptations thereby discrediting their work... What is the takeaway? First, it's clear to me that with the stakes so high all around, we will only continue to see a politicized and contentious debate on the issue of global warming. Climategate has reminded me that powerful misinformation campaigns exist, and they exist at very high levels. The incentives for scientists on both sides to be discredited are high, and my sense is that sides will only become more entrenched as we move closer to global climate regulation. This week's research has reiterated the need to have a healthy skepticism for everything that we read or are told. But also, I think we should be looking for and advocating forums, publications, and platforms that are focused on giving people access to the best possible information.
Content Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT World: Distributed Intelligence)
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour, 58 minutes, 31 seconds
This week's topic is the Climategate Controversy. "Climategate" refers to the November 2009 hacking of a University of East Anglia server and subsequent release of over 1,000 emails between climate scientists. Many of these emails appear to reveal scientists from the Climate Research Unit (University of East Anglia) and Penn State University behaving unethically - from suggesting data be altered to strategizing over how to keep the work of scientists who are skeptical of anthropogenic (i.e., man-made) global warming out of certain peer reviewed journals.
But if this were just an issue of two or three scientists behaving immorally for their own selfish purposes, it would not be worthy of the international attention it has received. Rather, this represents an important inflection between science and politics, on a global scale. It also represents an issue - global warming (or, the more politically correct name: climate change) - in which many different, often combative sides have entrenched interests (think developing vs. developed world, Democrats vs. Republicans, industrialists vs. environmentalists, just to name a few...).
This post is not about the science behind global warming - I'd embarrass myself even attempting to frame the debate properly. What I do know is that I've tried many times in good faith to understand the issue, and what the science says about the issue. In most cases, with nothing more than an internet connection, some critical thinking and a free afternoon, this is not exceedingly difficult. But with global warming, I've found the task tedious, in large part due the blatant propaganda from all sides. This fact alone is instructive as to the political backdrop of the issue. As I've researched this week's topic, it has become clear to me that science has to some degree taken a back seat to strong efforts on both sides to manipulate the climate change issue for political gain. Indeed, the fact that we discuss this in terms of "sides" shows how polarizing this has become (what with believers, nonbelievers, and the future of the earth in play), and how far we've gotten from rational, intelligent debate on what I think is the important, underlying question: is the world screwed and if so what can we do about it?
In the United States, it seems that the climate change debate has roughly fallen along partisan lines, with each side giving its followers an easy story. Democrats play the oh-so-certain side, safely dismissing any doubter of the veracity of anthropogenic climate change as an idiot (at the dinner party: "oh yes, dear, the poor thing, he doesn't even believe in global warming"). Meanwhile Republicans have embraced the "skeptic" terminology to represent their supposed healthy scientific questioning of the issue (on a freezing cold day: "it's -25 degrees today, yep, must be global warming!"). In other words, just like the health care debate quickly fell to an argument over death panels, the climate change debate has also regressed to lowest common denominator, politically expedient discourse.
But let's bring it back to Climategate. Why should we care? Some scientists wrote some nasty things about each other, maybe tried to change a temperature database, and discussed keeping contradictory work from being published. My first question was: what were the actual effects of this scandal? I particularly liked the approach of Ron Prinn (Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT) - he posed six questions to himself about Climategate:
1) Are some of these emails unprofessional? His answer: Yes.
2) Were the scientists involved successful in preventing journal publications? His answer: No. Not successful.
3) Was the research done by scientists in question critical for the case for anthropogenic climate changes? (my note: the way I understand it, the integrity of one of the major client science databases is now tainted, and the question becomes: is the scientific consensus in tact ex-this database and its associated work) His answer: There are many different data sets and analyses; in short, these scientists aren't the only group doing this. The body of evidence supporting that climate change is anthropogenic is robust, and the risk is, in his mind, high (there is no other planet to retreat to).
4) Has the integrity of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change been compromised? His answer: No. Yes, these scientists were involved with the IPCC, and the IPCC is the most important single input to international climate policy. However, in his experience publishing through the IPCC, it was a thorough, honest process, and he thinks hijacking the IPCC by a small group is simply not possible.
5) Is public perception of climate science affected? His answer: Yes. Media's ability to analyze hard science is diminishing, particularly as news sources continue cutting science writers. Moreover, the emails contained juicy soundbites for story writers and therefore gained a larger audience.
6) Can we do better as client scientists? His answer: We need to step back and move away from a knee-jerk tendency for polarization. The almost religious "Believers vs. Nonbelievers" framework needs to be moved away from. We need mutual respect and communication tools, not just on our conclusions but on our process as well.
Through this lense, it seems to me that the actual results of the Climategate scandal - from a climate science perspective - are not nearly as damaging as they have been made out to be. This is not to say they haven't had a meaningful impact on public discourse - the headlines surely provided fodder for those on one side of the political war. And let's be clear, this is a political war; the event was no accident - someone with a vested interest in the outcome hacked into a server, stole information, and released it to coincide with the largest international climate summit (December 2009, Copenhagen) since Kyoto.
But in my view, one major positive of Climategate is the opportunity it has provided us laypeople to think about how science and politics are married on this important issue. On the video panel, Judy Layzer, a Professor of Political Sciences at MIT and Government at Harvard, walked us through this intersection of the vastly different worlds of science and politics. Most people have a rational view of policy making - that is, the more we know about a problem the more we should be able to solve it. But that is simply not how it works.
Science is about assessing theories and advancing our understanding of the world in which we live, a process that is never complete, never certain, and always skeptical. She contrasts this with science-based policy decisions, in which people have to act in the very near-term on imperfect information. She points out that what we are asking of scientists in this situation isn't science at all. It is regulatory science, and regulatory science is inherently uncertain. And so scientists are asked to make assumptions, and assumptions are based on their values. Once we have assumptions based on values, we have moved from pure science into some other realm.
And from the purely political side of the equation, she says policy making is not at all linear - in other words we are never choosing the "best" from an array of options. Rather, there are many advocates - each with its own ideology, interests, and funding source - competing for the right to define a problem and therefore be able to give the solution. She goes on to say that, unfortunately, in many cases the underlying science has no impact on policy - it has to be woven into a political story to make a difference.
In climate change, environmental skeptics have learned the political game and know that discrediting the science is very important. Spinning the issues is not at all difficult - whether creating and using words like "Climategate" that conjure up previous scandals or simply discrediting scientists' models. Professor Layzer notes that a major problem is that scientists are not equipped to deal with such political attacks. Scientists are traditionally reserved in their language and the way in which they present arguments and conclusions. But when faced with a politicized opposition, they want to react. Imagine being a climatologist who has studied meticulously the issue of global warming and come to the independent conclusion that it is a major problem for the planet, your children, and the human race. Now imagine your valid work being discredited by some partisan hack as nothing more than the ramblings of an idealogue - wouldn't you be more willing than usual to use stronger language to persuade the public of your case? It's hard to imagine scientists not having more of these types of problems following the Climategate emails, which show impropriety on the part of only a very few scientists. While unfortunate, it represents the arena in which climate scientists, willingly or not, have been thrust.
To summarize, politicians are being politicians, some interested party hacked into computers and stole information for its gain, and a few scientists succumbed to human temptations thereby discrediting their work... What is the takeaway? First, it's clear to me that with the stakes so high all around, we will only continue to see a politicized and contentious debate on the issue of global warming. Climategate has reminded me that powerful misinformation campaigns exist, and they exist at very high levels. The incentives for scientists on both sides to be discredited are high, and my sense is that sides will only become more entrenched as we move closer to global climate regulation. This week's research has reiterated the need to have a healthy skepticism for everything that we read or are told. But also, I think we should be looking for and advocating forums, publications, and platforms that are focused on giving people access to the best possible information.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Week 3: How to Live to be 100+ (just kidding)
Week 3 is going out a litte early given the upcoming ski weekend!
Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Dan Buettner (National Geographic), Dean Ornish (USCF)
Format: Video
Length: 19 minutes, 39 seconds & 3 minutes, 14 seconds
Links:
Dan Buettner: How to Live to be 100+
Dean Ornish: Your Genes are not your Fate
The first two posts have stemmed from lectures and interviews posted to iTunesU. This week's source is TED.com; if you haven't visited TED I would highly recommend it. TED consists of a series of phenomenally interesting video lectures and in my opinion the tagline says it all - "TED: Ideas Worth Spreading." If I somehow manage to keep your attention for another few months I'm sure you will hear more from TED through this site.
When I hear titles similar to the one of this blog post, I think of either hokey "cure-all" pills for which you get weird email solicitations or crazy futurists like Ray Kurzweill who, while brilliant, don't exactly inspire me to take up their cause. So I was much more receptive to Dan Buettner's approach, who began his talk by telling us why you won't live to 100 and gave some common myths about aging. He basically said that we are not wired for aging, but rather for "procreative success." In other words, once you have children and your children have children, the effect of evolution dissipates and, well, we all know what happens next...
He counters this, however, by saying something that shocked me: his research suggests that 90% of longevity is not genetic! With the right approach and barring a freak accident, we could very much control our own longevity maximization. Of course this doesn't mean we all live to 100 (the overwhelming majority of us cannot), but it does mean that whatever our capacity is can be realized by the right choices - i.e., our fates are not written on the proverbial wall.
Here are two myths he gave on aging:
- If you try hard to live to 100, you can. He claims you have to live a very good lifestyle and hit the genetic lottery to accomplish this. But don't completely give up hope: he also notes that the 100 demographic is the fastest growing demographic in the US.
- Treatments exist to stop or slow aging. To this he says our bodies have 35 trillion cells (this is unfathomable to me), each of which turns itself over once every eight years. Every time there is a cell turnover degenaration occurs, and the rate of degeneration gets higher. In fact, someone who is 65 is aging at a rate that is 125 times faster than a 12 year old person! (apologies to the 60+ crowd; don't shoot the messenger...)
So given the morbid realization that we age at an increasingly faster rate and that most of us can't live to be 100, why should you keep reading? Because we can do much better than we currently are! According to Buettner, the average capacity of a human body is 90 years. But we all know that life expectancy is only 78 years... Why are we leaving 12 good years on the table? One approach is to look at areas around the world where people are living to be 100 years and older at up to a 20x greater rate than we are and where life expectancy is up to 12 years higher. Buettner calls these "Blue Zones" and identifies three of them:
The highlands of the Italian island of Sardinia has 10x more centurians than America. (sidebar: the video opens to an AWESOME clip in which one of the super old Italian guys crushes one of the camera staff in arm wrestling!) In general the residents of this area live on a plant-based diet. A key point seems to be how they treat their elders. Unlike in America, where finding a nursing home for your parents is treated the same as choosing your child's grade school (or if you live in Manhattan, pre-school), in Sardinia the older you are, the more respect you engender.
The Japanese island of Okinawa, 800 miles south of Tokyo is what Buettner calls the "ground zero" for longevity. This represents the longest disability-free lifestyle on the planet - on average seven years longer than Americans, with five times as many centurians. They also follow a mostly plant-based diet, and eat eight times as much tofu as Americans. Interestingly, he cites their strategic anti-binge eating culture as a major reason for longevity. Not only do they have smaller plates than Americans, they say our equivalent of a blessing before each meal which urges them to stop eating when they are 80% full. It is laughable to even consider this - or anything close to it - happening in my hometown of Houston, Texas. The culture also dictates a group of close, lifelong friends called a "moi." Some mois have average ages of 102, and have been together for decades. Another key difference from Americans relates to our focus on working incredibly hard and then retiring. In Okinawa there is literally no word for retirement. The Japanese culture also dictates that everyone has a "ikigai," translated as "something important one lives for." Of the centurians Buettner interviewed, one woman's ikigai was her great, great, great granddaughter. Another caught fish for his family each day.
Buettner's team also found an American blue zone, which, surprisngly to me was a large, 70,000 person Seventh Day Adventist congregation in southern California. The average age of women in the congregation is 89 (vs. 80 in the general US population), while the average age of males was 87 (vs. 76 in the general US population). The congregation is heterogeneous, so what they share is not genetic, but rather their process and lifestyle. The Church recognizes Friday night to Saturday night as the Sabbath, giving the congregation 24 hours of sanctuary time per week. They look to the Bible for their diet, take many nature walks, and do not use any drugs or drink alcohol.
So what were the similarities between the three Blue Zones? Buettner's team found a few:
- They all move naturally - none of them "exercise" the way we think of exercising (going to the gym, buying a treadmill, etc.), but all have activities in their regular lives that involve movement. Most do not have many conveniences and choose to do their own chores; many also keep their own gardens.
- Each group has a positive outlook - all have a method for down-shifting thir lives or "de-stressing." Slowing down for even 15 minutes per day can apparently turn back inflammatory responses induced by stress.
- All have and use language related to a purpose-driven life.
- All eat wisely, but have no real diet. Many drink wine, most have a plant-based slant, and most prevent overeating.
- Each values meaningful, regular connection with others. Family and friends come first; these are faith based communities where people belong to a tribe of similar people.
After watching this video, I was fascinated but wanted to learn more, particularly about the impact of your genetics vs. your choices in life. I came upon Dean Ornish's video, which in fact claims that your genes are not your fate. His message was simple: when you eat healthier, manage stress, exercise and love more, your brain gets more blood flow and oxygen. This is not particularly new or interesting. What is incredible to me is his claim that your brain also gets measurably bigger! His studies found that walking for three hours per week for only three months caused so many new neurons go grow it actually increased the size of people's brains! He then put a list of those inputs that increase - and decrease - brain cell count.
Those that increase include, fortunately, things I like (with the exception of the last one, of course... hey, it's a family blog):
- chocolate
- tea
- blueberries
- alcohol (moderate)
- stress management
- cannabinoids
Those that decrease brain cells include:
- saturated fat
- sugar
- nicotine
- opiates
- cocaine
- alcohol (excess)
- chronic stress
Dean Ornish concludes by saying that when you are healthier it isn't just your brain that benefits, your skin gets more blood flow (causing less aging), your heart gets more blood flow (actually reversing heart disease) and tumor growth is inhibited.
It's clear to me after watching these videos and writing this summary that I don't live as healthy a lifestyle as I can and should. Incidentally, my other new year's resolution (the first being the writing of this blog) is to on the margin pick the healthier option on the menu in 2010. Maybe I'll also work up the guts to send my boss a link to this post the next time I want to go to the gym but have too much work...
Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Dan Buettner (National Geographic), Dean Ornish (USCF)
Format: Video
Length: 19 minutes, 39 seconds & 3 minutes, 14 seconds
Links:
Dan Buettner: How to Live to be 100+
Dean Ornish: Your Genes are not your Fate
The first two posts have stemmed from lectures and interviews posted to iTunesU. This week's source is TED.com; if you haven't visited TED I would highly recommend it. TED consists of a series of phenomenally interesting video lectures and in my opinion the tagline says it all - "TED: Ideas Worth Spreading." If I somehow manage to keep your attention for another few months I'm sure you will hear more from TED through this site.
When I hear titles similar to the one of this blog post, I think of either hokey "cure-all" pills for which you get weird email solicitations or crazy futurists like Ray Kurzweill who, while brilliant, don't exactly inspire me to take up their cause. So I was much more receptive to Dan Buettner's approach, who began his talk by telling us why you won't live to 100 and gave some common myths about aging. He basically said that we are not wired for aging, but rather for "procreative success." In other words, once you have children and your children have children, the effect of evolution dissipates and, well, we all know what happens next...
He counters this, however, by saying something that shocked me: his research suggests that 90% of longevity is not genetic! With the right approach and barring a freak accident, we could very much control our own longevity maximization. Of course this doesn't mean we all live to 100 (the overwhelming majority of us cannot), but it does mean that whatever our capacity is can be realized by the right choices - i.e., our fates are not written on the proverbial wall.
Here are two myths he gave on aging:
- If you try hard to live to 100, you can. He claims you have to live a very good lifestyle and hit the genetic lottery to accomplish this. But don't completely give up hope: he also notes that the 100 demographic is the fastest growing demographic in the US.
- Treatments exist to stop or slow aging. To this he says our bodies have 35 trillion cells (this is unfathomable to me), each of which turns itself over once every eight years. Every time there is a cell turnover degenaration occurs, and the rate of degeneration gets higher. In fact, someone who is 65 is aging at a rate that is 125 times faster than a 12 year old person! (apologies to the 60+ crowd; don't shoot the messenger...)
So given the morbid realization that we age at an increasingly faster rate and that most of us can't live to be 100, why should you keep reading? Because we can do much better than we currently are! According to Buettner, the average capacity of a human body is 90 years. But we all know that life expectancy is only 78 years... Why are we leaving 12 good years on the table? One approach is to look at areas around the world where people are living to be 100 years and older at up to a 20x greater rate than we are and where life expectancy is up to 12 years higher. Buettner calls these "Blue Zones" and identifies three of them:
The highlands of the Italian island of Sardinia has 10x more centurians than America. (sidebar: the video opens to an AWESOME clip in which one of the super old Italian guys crushes one of the camera staff in arm wrestling!) In general the residents of this area live on a plant-based diet. A key point seems to be how they treat their elders. Unlike in America, where finding a nursing home for your parents is treated the same as choosing your child's grade school (or if you live in Manhattan, pre-school), in Sardinia the older you are, the more respect you engender.
The Japanese island of Okinawa, 800 miles south of Tokyo is what Buettner calls the "ground zero" for longevity. This represents the longest disability-free lifestyle on the planet - on average seven years longer than Americans, with five times as many centurians. They also follow a mostly plant-based diet, and eat eight times as much tofu as Americans. Interestingly, he cites their strategic anti-binge eating culture as a major reason for longevity. Not only do they have smaller plates than Americans, they say our equivalent of a blessing before each meal which urges them to stop eating when they are 80% full. It is laughable to even consider this - or anything close to it - happening in my hometown of Houston, Texas. The culture also dictates a group of close, lifelong friends called a "moi." Some mois have average ages of 102, and have been together for decades. Another key difference from Americans relates to our focus on working incredibly hard and then retiring. In Okinawa there is literally no word for retirement. The Japanese culture also dictates that everyone has a "ikigai," translated as "something important one lives for." Of the centurians Buettner interviewed, one woman's ikigai was her great, great, great granddaughter. Another caught fish for his family each day.
Buettner's team also found an American blue zone, which, surprisngly to me was a large, 70,000 person Seventh Day Adventist congregation in southern California. The average age of women in the congregation is 89 (vs. 80 in the general US population), while the average age of males was 87 (vs. 76 in the general US population). The congregation is heterogeneous, so what they share is not genetic, but rather their process and lifestyle. The Church recognizes Friday night to Saturday night as the Sabbath, giving the congregation 24 hours of sanctuary time per week. They look to the Bible for their diet, take many nature walks, and do not use any drugs or drink alcohol.
So what were the similarities between the three Blue Zones? Buettner's team found a few:
- They all move naturally - none of them "exercise" the way we think of exercising (going to the gym, buying a treadmill, etc.), but all have activities in their regular lives that involve movement. Most do not have many conveniences and choose to do their own chores; many also keep their own gardens.
- Each group has a positive outlook - all have a method for down-shifting thir lives or "de-stressing." Slowing down for even 15 minutes per day can apparently turn back inflammatory responses induced by stress.
- All have and use language related to a purpose-driven life.
- All eat wisely, but have no real diet. Many drink wine, most have a plant-based slant, and most prevent overeating.
- Each values meaningful, regular connection with others. Family and friends come first; these are faith based communities where people belong to a tribe of similar people.
After watching this video, I was fascinated but wanted to learn more, particularly about the impact of your genetics vs. your choices in life. I came upon Dean Ornish's video, which in fact claims that your genes are not your fate. His message was simple: when you eat healthier, manage stress, exercise and love more, your brain gets more blood flow and oxygen. This is not particularly new or interesting. What is incredible to me is his claim that your brain also gets measurably bigger! His studies found that walking for three hours per week for only three months caused so many new neurons go grow it actually increased the size of people's brains! He then put a list of those inputs that increase - and decrease - brain cell count.
Those that increase include, fortunately, things I like (with the exception of the last one, of course... hey, it's a family blog):
- chocolate
- tea
- blueberries
- alcohol (moderate)
- stress management
- cannabinoids
Those that decrease brain cells include:
- saturated fat
- sugar
- nicotine
- opiates
- cocaine
- alcohol (excess)
- chronic stress
Dean Ornish concludes by saying that when you are healthier it isn't just your brain that benefits, your skin gets more blood flow (causing less aging), your heart gets more blood flow (actually reversing heart disease) and tumor growth is inhibited.
It's clear to me after watching these videos and writing this summary that I don't live as healthy a lifestyle as I can and should. Incidentally, my other new year's resolution (the first being the writing of this blog) is to on the margin pick the healthier option on the menu in 2010. Maybe I'll also work up the guts to send my boss a link to this post the next time I want to go to the gym but have too much work...
Friday, January 8, 2010
Week 2: Einstein's Ethics
Distribution Source: iTunesU
Content Source: American Public Media
Format: Audio
Length: 51 minutes, 3 seconds
Anyone who has taken a basic physics course (and many who haven't) will recognize the theories of special and general relativity as the work of Albert Einstein. These and countless other advancements in science have made Einstein's name synonymous with brilliance. While scrolling through lecture options for this week I was drawn to a series of interviews with physicists in which they discuss not Einstein's science but rather his ethics, covering everything from his views on religion to the development of nuclear weapons.
I went into these interviews expecting that Einstein's views on the atomic bomb and, by extension, World War II, would be most interesting to me given his unique perspective as a German Jew and his status as arguably the most prominent physicist of his time. While not disappointed on this front, I was fascinated by the fact that Einstein was an avid supporter of civil rights, specifically with regard to the plight of African Americans in the United States. This was surprising to many at the time, including the African American population. To Einstein, however, it was simple. Just as he approached science by asking simple questions whose answers would often lead to unique insight, he also approached social issues by asking basic questions: What if I were black? Would my work be as respected? Would my ideas be given the same weight? This thought process, coupled with his own family's persecution during the war, helped shape his ardent stance on civil rights. In his elder years he turned down lectures everywhere (including Harvard), yet chose to speak at Lincoln College, the first college to embrace and admit men of African descent.
Einstein was also philosophically anti-war. Interestingly, he seemed to accept the futility of this philosophy, noting that only if everyone is fully committed to peace could it be achievable. Given his sardonic view on the general intelligence of humanity, it is easy to see how Einstein believed the human race is basically screwed. He blasted those who led wars as nothing more than children fighting in a sandbox. These types of analogies represented an underlying view, which Einstein discussed with Sigmund Freud, that aggression is innate to humans. His discussions with Freud led him to the belief that only through wealth generation could we reach a societal tipping point at which people would believe that fighting wars was too expensive. He believed this wealth creation over time would instigate an evolutionary change that would effectively reverse the aggression instinct.
It is ironic that such a strong anti-war activist played an important role in convincing President Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb. Of course Einstein did not actively work to create the atomic bomb (though his E=MC^2 discovery was instrumental to the process); he did, however, sign a letter to Roosevelt urging him to create what became the Manhattan project. He did this because he realized very early on that Adolf Hitler could be stopped only through force, and that the Germans were pursuing a nuclear program (having split an atom in 1938). As early as 1933, Einstein informed Churchill that Hitler could be not be defeated politically, and that military force would be necessary. Einstein's support of such a project demonstrated a sharp pragmatism that contrasted with his idealist lamentations that technology was not being used to make life happy and carefree; at a disarmament conference in 1932 he said "as it is these hard won achievements (technological advances) in the hands of our generation are like a razor in the hand of a child of three."
While coming from a Jewish family, Einstein himself had a tumultuous history with his religion, and did not fully support Judaism until after the Holocaust. As a teenager, Einstein began to view religion as inconsistent with objective reality and his evolving understanding of scientific truths. Following the second world war, Einstein began to re-connect with his Jewish roots. He adopted a view that intertwined his deep respect and belief for that which science had proven with the staggering amount that we could not (and cannot) possibly understand about the world. He said of religion: "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind, that deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." To Einstein, God is about what we cannot understand - all the mysteries of life - and this concept delighted him.
I was also struck by the multiple references to Einstein's personal life; there seems to have been a dichotomy between his normative, idealistic views on humanity and the intense pain he caused those closest to him. It is written that after dumping his first love for his eventual wife, Einstein continued to send his dirty laundry to his ex (which she, apparently, did willingly). Einstein accepted himself as a deeply flawed individual.
It's clear to me that Einstein was a rebel; he turned away from religion at a young age, routinely (and publicly) berated those in charge of the world, and took an unapologetic and atypical view on civil rights. He did what so many of us want, but do not have the courage, to do: he disregarded dogma and authority and blazed his own trail...
Content Source: American Public Media
Format: Audio
Length: 51 minutes, 3 seconds
Anyone who has taken a basic physics course (and many who haven't) will recognize the theories of special and general relativity as the work of Albert Einstein. These and countless other advancements in science have made Einstein's name synonymous with brilliance. While scrolling through lecture options for this week I was drawn to a series of interviews with physicists in which they discuss not Einstein's science but rather his ethics, covering everything from his views on religion to the development of nuclear weapons.
I went into these interviews expecting that Einstein's views on the atomic bomb and, by extension, World War II, would be most interesting to me given his unique perspective as a German Jew and his status as arguably the most prominent physicist of his time. While not disappointed on this front, I was fascinated by the fact that Einstein was an avid supporter of civil rights, specifically with regard to the plight of African Americans in the United States. This was surprising to many at the time, including the African American population. To Einstein, however, it was simple. Just as he approached science by asking simple questions whose answers would often lead to unique insight, he also approached social issues by asking basic questions: What if I were black? Would my work be as respected? Would my ideas be given the same weight? This thought process, coupled with his own family's persecution during the war, helped shape his ardent stance on civil rights. In his elder years he turned down lectures everywhere (including Harvard), yet chose to speak at Lincoln College, the first college to embrace and admit men of African descent.
Einstein was also philosophically anti-war. Interestingly, he seemed to accept the futility of this philosophy, noting that only if everyone is fully committed to peace could it be achievable. Given his sardonic view on the general intelligence of humanity, it is easy to see how Einstein believed the human race is basically screwed. He blasted those who led wars as nothing more than children fighting in a sandbox. These types of analogies represented an underlying view, which Einstein discussed with Sigmund Freud, that aggression is innate to humans. His discussions with Freud led him to the belief that only through wealth generation could we reach a societal tipping point at which people would believe that fighting wars was too expensive. He believed this wealth creation over time would instigate an evolutionary change that would effectively reverse the aggression instinct.
It is ironic that such a strong anti-war activist played an important role in convincing President Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb. Of course Einstein did not actively work to create the atomic bomb (though his E=MC^2 discovery was instrumental to the process); he did, however, sign a letter to Roosevelt urging him to create what became the Manhattan project. He did this because he realized very early on that Adolf Hitler could be stopped only through force, and that the Germans were pursuing a nuclear program (having split an atom in 1938). As early as 1933, Einstein informed Churchill that Hitler could be not be defeated politically, and that military force would be necessary. Einstein's support of such a project demonstrated a sharp pragmatism that contrasted with his idealist lamentations that technology was not being used to make life happy and carefree; at a disarmament conference in 1932 he said "as it is these hard won achievements (technological advances) in the hands of our generation are like a razor in the hand of a child of three."
While coming from a Jewish family, Einstein himself had a tumultuous history with his religion, and did not fully support Judaism until after the Holocaust. As a teenager, Einstein began to view religion as inconsistent with objective reality and his evolving understanding of scientific truths. Following the second world war, Einstein began to re-connect with his Jewish roots. He adopted a view that intertwined his deep respect and belief for that which science had proven with the staggering amount that we could not (and cannot) possibly understand about the world. He said of religion: "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind, that deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." To Einstein, God is about what we cannot understand - all the mysteries of life - and this concept delighted him.
I was also struck by the multiple references to Einstein's personal life; there seems to have been a dichotomy between his normative, idealistic views on humanity and the intense pain he caused those closest to him. It is written that after dumping his first love for his eventual wife, Einstein continued to send his dirty laundry to his ex (which she, apparently, did willingly). Einstein accepted himself as a deeply flawed individual.
It's clear to me that Einstein was a rebel; he turned away from religion at a young age, routinely (and publicly) berated those in charge of the world, and took an unapologetic and atypical view on civil rights. He did what so many of us want, but do not have the courage, to do: he disregarded dogma and authority and blazed his own trail...
Sunday, January 3, 2010
About the 52 Week Project
This project is derived from a variety of recent events in my life. Over the past month, I've realized that I am bored with having a day job and want to do more to learn about the fascinating world in which we live. A first step was to basically stop watching TV and switch to reading books. The process of reading led me to think more about the idea of writing.
Simultaneously - and surprisingly - after over a year of owning an iPhone and using it religiously, I stumbled upon iTunesU. Put simply, iTunesU is a massively scalable, free distribution platform for a tremendous amount of searchable, free educational content. I thought immediately of other impressive collections of educational content available for free on the internet - wikipedia, TED, Cornell's eClips, free courses from Stanford, MIT and others. The list goes on...
The idea for the 52 Week Project is simple: every week I will select and write about at least one audio or visual clip from the many sources of free educational content on the web. The only caveat? The topic has to be something about which I know almost nothing. This guarantees that I go out of my comfort zone, learn new things, expose myself to criticism, and hopefully come away with a positive experience. Here we go...
Simultaneously - and surprisingly - after over a year of owning an iPhone and using it religiously, I stumbled upon iTunesU. Put simply, iTunesU is a massively scalable, free distribution platform for a tremendous amount of searchable, free educational content. I thought immediately of other impressive collections of educational content available for free on the internet - wikipedia, TED, Cornell's eClips, free courses from Stanford, MIT and others. The list goes on...
The idea for the 52 Week Project is simple: every week I will select and write about at least one audio or visual clip from the many sources of free educational content on the web. The only caveat? The topic has to be something about which I know almost nothing. This guarantees that I go out of my comfort zone, learn new things, expose myself to criticism, and hopefully come away with a positive experience. Here we go...
Week 1: What is Distinctive about South India?
Distribution Source: iTunesU
Content Source: Stanford University
Format: Audio
Length: 23 minutes, 24 seconds
To me, India is an enigma. Working in finance I hear incessantly about China - its growth prospects, its massive stimulus plans, its 1.4 billion people, its human rights violations... you get the picture. But why don't I know more - and hear more - about India? According to wikipedia, India is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world.
But this post isn't about India, it is about South India. Before today I didn't realize there was such a meaningful distinction between the two, seemingly far more so than the North-South divide in the United States.
Only 233 million of India's 1.2 billion people live in South India. What jumped out at me from this short clip is how fractured South India seems to be - linguistically, politically and religiously. This in contrast to North India, which in part because of its proclivity to being invaded, seems to have a far more cohesive social structure. The lecture refers to these distinctions from the north as "Dravidian distinctions." Dravidian seems to be synonymous with the cultures and people of South India, who among other differences have much darker skin than those of the north. In searching for the origins of this word, I found that the word may be derived from the Sanskrit word 'Drava', meaning water or sea. If this were the case it would certainly make sense to identify those from South India - surrounded on three sides by water - with this word.
South India is divided into a cluster of different states, with the lines having been redrawn in the 1950s-60s. Most of these state lines were drawn based on linguistics. While the north speaks predominantly Hindi, the South has a variety of languages, among them Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
In the same way that the south has no unifying languages, it has no unifying politics; in the north, because of the Gangetic basin and multiple invasions, there are large, imperial political structures covering millions of people and hundreds of thousands of miles. The most concrete political areas in the south are around the Tamil and Karala regions.
Religiously, South India is mostly Hindu, with 60 million followers. The spawn-offs from Hinduism - Buddhism and Sikhism being two notable examples - have more followers outside the south. However unlike the north, both Christianity and Judaism have a marked presence in the south. Christianity likely came to South India from St. Thomas in the first century, while Judaism came when traders settled in the region (also likely around the first century). While there are tensions in the north between Hindus and Muslims, exacerbated I'm sure by the always contentious Pakistani-Indian relations and the recent Mumbai bombings, this is not the case in the south. There simply are not many Muslims in South India. Rather it is inter-Hindu problems that dominate the south, particularly the politics of the caste system. Still today lower castes cannot so much as walk on the roads of higher castes!
So, what have I learned? South India is fundamentally different from North India, and aside from the Dravidian distinction and Hindu predominance, there are not many generalizations that can be made. It would take far more than a 30 minute clip to even begin to learn the nuances... See you next week!
Content Source: Stanford University
Format: Audio
Length: 23 minutes, 24 seconds
To me, India is an enigma. Working in finance I hear incessantly about China - its growth prospects, its massive stimulus plans, its 1.4 billion people, its human rights violations... you get the picture. But why don't I know more - and hear more - about India? According to wikipedia, India is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world.
But this post isn't about India, it is about South India. Before today I didn't realize there was such a meaningful distinction between the two, seemingly far more so than the North-South divide in the United States.
Only 233 million of India's 1.2 billion people live in South India. What jumped out at me from this short clip is how fractured South India seems to be - linguistically, politically and religiously. This in contrast to North India, which in part because of its proclivity to being invaded, seems to have a far more cohesive social structure. The lecture refers to these distinctions from the north as "Dravidian distinctions." Dravidian seems to be synonymous with the cultures and people of South India, who among other differences have much darker skin than those of the north. In searching for the origins of this word, I found that the word may be derived from the Sanskrit word 'Drava', meaning water or sea. If this were the case it would certainly make sense to identify those from South India - surrounded on three sides by water - with this word.
South India is divided into a cluster of different states, with the lines having been redrawn in the 1950s-60s. Most of these state lines were drawn based on linguistics. While the north speaks predominantly Hindi, the South has a variety of languages, among them Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
In the same way that the south has no unifying languages, it has no unifying politics; in the north, because of the Gangetic basin and multiple invasions, there are large, imperial political structures covering millions of people and hundreds of thousands of miles. The most concrete political areas in the south are around the Tamil and Karala regions.
Religiously, South India is mostly Hindu, with 60 million followers. The spawn-offs from Hinduism - Buddhism and Sikhism being two notable examples - have more followers outside the south. However unlike the north, both Christianity and Judaism have a marked presence in the south. Christianity likely came to South India from St. Thomas in the first century, while Judaism came when traders settled in the region (also likely around the first century). While there are tensions in the north between Hindus and Muslims, exacerbated I'm sure by the always contentious Pakistani-Indian relations and the recent Mumbai bombings, this is not the case in the south. There simply are not many Muslims in South India. Rather it is inter-Hindu problems that dominate the south, particularly the politics of the caste system. Still today lower castes cannot so much as walk on the roads of higher castes!
So, what have I learned? South India is fundamentally different from North India, and aside from the Dravidian distinction and Hindu predominance, there are not many generalizations that can be made. It would take far more than a 30 minute clip to even begin to learn the nuances... See you next week!
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