[lit-ideas] Re: Salt Grains
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 21:06:19 -0800
Having worked in Aerospace for a zillion years, I developed a very poor
opinion of decisions reached by committee. McDonnell Douglas, Boeing and
the Air Force did as well. Instead of committees, the police became getting
giving the best person they could find the responsibility for the desired
result. Then if he didn't achieve what they expected they canned him and
got the next person. Committees are notoriously timid and produce timid
results which don't suceed in a competitive environment.
A problem with your containment theory is that the Iranian leadership is
obligated to remain loyal to Khomeini's vision which is the exportation of
"the Revolution." Iran attempted to export their Revolution to Iraq under
Khomeini(which helped precipitate their 8-year-long war with them). They
exported it to Lebanon. They are exporting it to Azerbaijan and the other
nations in Central Europe. They envision a Pan-Islamic Empire with Iran at
its head. Some suspect that Rafsanjani might be more reasonable if he were
head of state and wasn't constrained by the Khomeini constitution, but he
isn't. The present leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,was head of the Iran's
prestigious Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guard, the most hawkish of the
Iranian hawkish organizations. He is called a hard-liner for a reason.
Think what Hitler would do in the furthering of his goals to conquer Europe
and Russia and that will be a fair parallel in what we can expect from the
Iranian leadership with similar ambitions for the Middle East and Central
Europe. Parallels with the USSR and the US don't fit Iranian leadership or
goals. A parallel might have worked with the USSR if Trotsky had won out
instead of Stalin, but Stalin put the exportation of the Revolution on the
back burner.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of John McCreery
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 8:37 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Salt Grains
On 2/18/06, Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Eric: Could you explain what you mean by that?
> "Grain of salt" usually means to view a statement
> with a skeptical attitude. What are you skeptical
> about? My personal feelings or the undefined
> notion of technological destiny?
>
The undefined notion of technological destiny. From Cold War science
fiction to the "New Economy/DotCom" bubble to the tales I spin to help
ad agencies sell campaigns to their clients, my whole life's
experience (bit over six decades now) suggests that predicting what
will happen is, outside of the harder sciences, mostly a fool's game.
How, then, do we deal with life? To me one compelling model is Spenser
in the Robert Parker novel in which he meets and rescues Paul Giacomin
(probably mispelled the name) from his abusive, mob-connected parents.
As they head for a cabin in Maine where Spenser plans to hide out for
a while, Paul asks if he thinks that the mobsters will pursue them
there. Spenser replies that he can't predict whether the mob will come
after them or not; he only worries about what he will do if the mob
does come after them.
Another possibly useful approach is scenario planning that
incorporates systems thinking. The trick here is that you have to get
a bunch of people with radically diverse views to cooperate by sitting
down to work out in detail a variety of possible scenarios based on
various assumptions. If enough diverse views are taken into account,
the consensus that emerges will be relatively solid: not 100%
predictive--that never happens--but solid enough to coordinate action
based on shared understanding. Given that the understanding in
question includes several possible futures, it is possible to respond
more quickly and still somewhat effectively if incoming evidence shows
that one or more are off the table.
In the case at hand, the most likely outcome it seems to me is that,
no surprise, the Iranians will get their nuclear bomb. Once they have
it, they will find themselves in the same position as the Russians,
Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis before them. They will be one of the
big boys now and less inclined to risk their new position by doing
something crazy. If they do, that will be a disaster. If others do
something crazy in an effort to stop them from getting their bomb,
that, too, will be a disaster. Best case the world will muddle along.
For my daughter and soon-to-be-born grandchild's sake, I hope that the
muddle is the most likely scenario. But, hey, what do I know?
I take some comfort from the fact that, worst case, they now live in
an area unlikely to be a target in anything short of the total nuclear
holocaust we worried about when I was a kid, and since both the
grandkid's parents did well in SERE school, their and the grandkid's
chances of survival in a nuclear winter world are probably a bit
better than most.
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd.
55-13-202 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku
Yokohama 220-0006, JAPAN
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