Thomas L. Friedman

I tried to plow through this book, but Thomas Friedman is the most brain-dead parrot of the ruling class I have ever known, so I couldn't finish it.

His view of globalization is that now, thanks to the paternalistic global order constructed by US multinational corporations, there is cultural and monetary things of worth out there in the vast unexplored jungles of savagery called "not the United States." As an ahistorical text that ignores the fact that elites have been trading from Occident show more to and from Orient for hundreds of years, the book ignores entirely the poor.

How wonderful it is to be ruling class in this new era, where poor people from all over the world can service the rich like Friedman. What an asshole.

Recommended for: fireplaces, doors that need stopping, houses without coasters, etc. show less

This book felt like two, disparate parts: A compilation from his New York Times columns and then a travelogue of encountering people in Saudi Arabia reacting to his writing. The first part I found very uninteresting. The columns I found poor; the snarky and jokey attitude and multiple mock letters seemed to trivialize and provided not real insight. They were not illustrative or enlightening, at all. I would give that two stars as its own book. I would give four stars to the second half where show more Friedman reported his interactions with ruling class and middle class Saudis hindered by their beliefs that "Jews run everything" in America and their own cultural issues resulting in unemployed, bigoted males and a feeling that Israel is diabolical and Palestinians scapegoats that can do no wrong. Behind these black and white and unsupportable attitudes, some very intriguing reflection arose, largely in some personal communications beyond the veils that may obscure women of the stripe that will someday lead The Kingdom into a more balanced future. show less

This book follows a chronology of the Middle East that begins in 1882 and ends in 1988. It could be seen as a love story, a biography about a region Friedman knows intimately and loves dearly despite its many contradictions. In spite of the ever-roiling Arab-Israeli conflict Friedman is right in the thick of it and writes as if he is at home. While he has a reporters flair for the detail there is a cavalier nonchalance when it comes to the dangers. He has grown used to the gunfire, the show more bombings and the kidnappings. His ambivalence in the face of such violence could almost be comical if it was not so conflicted. show less

Finally managed to finish reading Thank You For Being Late by Thomas Friedman (author of The World is Flat). It’s been a bit of stop-and-go for this book, picking it up only during weekends.

I’ve decided to take a more conscientious approach in jotting down my own thoughts and certain interesting passages, not only because this book touches upon a number of important and thought-provoking topics, but also to make sure my reactions, however fleeting, are given a chance to be put on paper show more (or at least into the cloud).

The book, as I noted in a couple of reading notes along the way, touches upon the three forces that Friedman believes have the largest impact on the 21st century - technology, globalization, and climate change & biodiversity loss, and the acceleration we are all experiencing around us, at once.

He notes, for example, that in 2000, advances in technology made connectivity fast, free, easy and ubiquitous, and in 2007, made complexity fast, free and easy but also invisible, were in fact inflection points in our modern history that have blown apart our work place and our society at large, beyond anything we’ve seen since the Industrial Revolution blew away the guild-based workplace.

Friedman states that changes we are experiencing in this age of accelerations are in many ways happening faster than most of us in the industrialized and developed world can comfortably adjust, and it is many times tougher for the less connected, less open part of the world to adapt. Social media, while it has made human interaction seemingly faster, more convenient and information sharing more instantaneous, has also presented challenges that have profoundly impacted the political and economic environment and social dynamics around the world.

For example, he notes five critical challenges facing today’s social media in the political arena:

1. 1. We don’t know how to deal with rumors
2. 2. We create our own echo chambers
3. 3. Online discussions quickly descend into angry mobs
4. 4. It becomes really hard to challenge our opinions
5. 5. Today our social media experiences are designed in a way that favors broadcasting over engagements, posts over discussions, shallow comments over deep conversations.

We tend to talk at each other instead of talking with each other.

Friedman spends three-fourth of the book laying out the big issues facing all of us, globally, in this age of accelerations, yet the solution he proposes which he dedicates a good portion of the last few chapters, is a need to promote resilience and propulsion via innovation in the building of healthy communities.

He takes us back to his hometown of St, Louis Parks, Minnesota, and walks us through how this small town has, with the resilience of its communities, its emphasis on education and cooperation, its openness to changes in economic, social and demographics, has anchored its success over the last five decades.

Most of the issues Friedman identifies and analyses, with the help of experts in respective fields, are not new. However, it is worthwhile to ponder whether the acceleration we all experience in the world around us, in particular in the last 10 years, is causing a fundamental change, or have already caused a fundamental change in this society we all live. Social media now play a critical role, perhaps even disproportionate role in politics, in business and finance and beyond. We’ve seen global, regional and national level politics become overtaken by extremists with moderates’ voices being quickly drown out. Yet we have seen local governments (in New York, California in the US, regional, provincial even city governments in Europe) take on more prominent roles in defining and enacting more moderate and effective policies amidst stalemates on the same issues at a national or international level. Communities are gaining more power and influence derived from people feeling more anchored and more trusting of their communities than their national or federal governments.

In dealing with the much larger issues identified and described in the first 300 pages of this book, we need to pause and focus on building a stronger tie to our immediate surroundings, our communities. Hope lies in all of us. show less