The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 11, 2014, 11:54:05 am ---I'm sort of geocentric that way. :-\
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 11, 2014, 12:12:29 pm ---Is there a word that means "focused on one's own continent or hemisphere"? Isn't that what you really mean?
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: serious crayons on July 11, 2014, 05:23:14 pm ---Sort of. I'm actually focused on my own culture, I think.
--- End quote ---
Well, that word would be ethnocentric, wouldn't it?
Front-Ranger:
Speaking of culture, there must have been something that allowed 33 miners to all survive almost two MONTHS underground in a small refuge in a mine. That's why I found the article interesting. I would assume that after a couple of weeks they would start attacking each other. But according to this story they didn't even have much of any disagreements. And on the surface, I would think the rescuers would give up the search after a certain period of time. The big unknown in the story was how they persevered to the end, and I think the author did get to the bottom of it. When you are faced with your impending mortality, the mettle of your soul is proven.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 12, 2014, 09:27:06 am ---Speaking of culture, there must have been something that allowed 33 miners to all survive almost two MONTHS underground in a small refuge in a mine. That's why I found the article interesting. I would assume that after a couple of weeks they would start attacking each other. But according to this story they didn't even have much of any disagreements. And on the surface, I would think the rescuers would give up the search after a certain period of time. The big unknown in the story was how they persevered to the end, and I think the author did get to the bottom of it. When you are faced with your impending mortality, the mettle of your soul is proven.
--- End quote ---
Well, they were underground for 69 days--about ten weeks--but they were out of touch with the surface for about three weeks. People survive in jail for a lot longer than that, and I would think it made some difference once they were in contact with the surface and food and other things could be passed down to them. It seems to me this is one failing of the article, it doesn't really go into what it was like for them after the rescuers made contact with them and they waited for the escape shaft to be drilled. Surely it made some difference. Surely it was difficult to wait for that shaft to be drilled, but surely it wasn't like it was during those first three weeks.
Edit to Add: Tell you what, it occurs to me that this is the sort of New Yorker story that ends up as a full-length book. I won't be surprised at all to see this one as a book. Perhaps the book will address what I see as the shortcomings of the magazine article.
Front-Ranger:
In the June 23 issue I'm reading "The Disruption Machine" by Jill LePore; she reviews Clayton M. Christensen's 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma, and the industry of disruptive innovation it has spawned. Two of his handpicked case studies are Morrison-Knudsen and Time, Inc. He blames MK's embrace of the mass transit business line for destroying the company, when, as I recall, it was the mismanagement and corruption of MK's leader at the time, William Agee. Christensen doesn't mention anything about Agee's infamous mis-leadership of the company.
Time, Inc. failed in its foray into new-media with the Pathfinder portal. I was involved in a company that invested hundreds of thousands into development of a "portal" which is just a glorified web site. Such facades failed because there was little or no content to make it worthwhile to access and navigate through their elaborate and counter-intuitive structures. LePore concludes that disruptive innovation for its own sake is merely a gimmick and I agree with her. I'm all for innovation, but it is not the goal in itself, it is merely a tool.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 13, 2014, 10:47:56 am ---LePore concludes that disruptive innovation for its own sake is merely a gimmick and I agree with her. I'm all for innovation, but it is not the goal in itself, it is merely a tool.
--- End quote ---
She really picks that theory apart, doesn't she?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version