Outside The (Cardboard) Box - Scientists Discover Thomas Friedman Wrong: World Is Round!

March 6, 2010

Scientists Discover Thomas Friedman Wrong: World Is Round!

Scientists from JPL have disproven Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Friedman’s bestseller The World Is Flat. Team leader Dr. Daniel Saunders spoke to Outside The (Cardboard) Box on the Team’s discovery.

DS: It’s not a discovery. And this isn’t the Jet Propulsion Laboratory either. This is Jesse’s Papaya Lounge. And I’m no Ph.D. I’m the bartender. And I think you’ve had enough.

OTCB: But you’ve debunked the Friedman premise, haven’t you? <burp>

DS: Well, me and some of the regulars were talking about it. You just heard us. Harry over there, he’s a regular, has just read the book. I read it when it first came out. A couple of the other guys have read it.

OTCB: What did you think of the book? <clink>

DS: Have you seen the movie The Aviator?

OTCB: Oh yeah. I remember hearing how Hughes was a crazy recluse at the end but hadn’t realized how long he’d been goofy. He was messed up. <slurp>

DS: There’s a scene where DiCaprio playing Howard Hughes has a severe episode of OCD at a reception. He starts repeating “The way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future.” Over and over and over.

OTCB: Yeah. You wanna smack him to the get him to shut the hell up. So? <clink>

DS: If you were to have DiCaprio replace “The way of the future” with “The World is Flat” and extend the scene for several hours you’ve pretty much just heard the audio version of the Friedman book. It was tedious, repetitive and an overall painful experience beyond Chapter one. It would have made a excellent pamphlet but stretching it to book length was just absurd.

OTCB: I’ll wait for the pamphlet. <clink> But do you agree with Friedman that the Earth is flat? <sluuurp>

DS: The Earth’s shape was pretty much determined by the time Aristotle opined on the topic in 300 B.C.E. And by around 240 B.C.E. Eratosthenes had figured out the Earth’s circumference. But Friedman’s Flat World is a metaphorical one. He’s saying that technology is making the world a smaller place and that rapid technological advancements are reducing the effective differences in skill sets across disparate global labor pools thereby expanding and hastening the ongoing labor arbitrage that impels the flight of manufacturing and service industries from industrialized to emerging nations.

OTCB: Whatever. <clink> Do you agree with that? <slurp>

DS: No. Friedman oversimplified a complex system to fit his premise. It was an interesting premise but now we’ve seen what a spike in energy prices does to his model. We may yet get a chance to evaluate what a deflationary spiral does with the concept as well. Therefore I’d say the world is round and may even be getting bigger in some ways.

OTCB: Bigger? <burp> Like inflating? <slurp>

DS: No. It’s another metaphor. Massive economic disruptions, violent natural disasters, sudden resource shortages; these are the types of events that make the world seem a larger place from a local viewpoint. These don’t occur on Friedman’s flat world. But here on the round world, they happen all too often and they readily disrupt those enabling technologies that the Friedman premise relies upon.

OTCB: <clink> Could I get another scotch? <sluuurp> You’re bumming me out. <clink>

DS: Was that Oban? Ooops. McCallan. Sure. You’re really knocking those back. No hurry. We’re open late. As I said, the flat idea was interesting when it came out. I saw a talk Friedman gave shortly after the book was published. It was a pretty compelling talk. Friedman is a good speaker and the idea beautifully rationalized what we were seeing at the time. Now in hindsight we can attribute a lot of what transpired to policies in place at the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Federal Reserve, and various pieces of legislation passed by Congress. Technology was merely a contributor rather than the driving force.

OTCB: Uh huh. <clink> So I don’t get why you agree with Friedman so much. <sluuuurp> You must be a liberal or something. <slurp> <clink>

DS: What are you talking about? Have you been listening? I just don’t really agree with his World is Flat book now that we’ve seen what can transpire. What else are we talking about? He’s a Pulitzer Prize winning author. He’s an excellent public speaker. He’s a pretty accomplished guy. I give him a lot of credit. That said, I don’t know if he’s cut out to be a columnist. He has interesting things to say, just not enough of them to fill a regular column. You could’ve spotted that in The World is Flat.

OTCB: <clink> Muh huh mmbbrg <clink>

DS: Sorry, I didn’t get that. Another drink? Sure thing. Anyways, I was reading his column in the New York Times earlier this year and he was rambling about the war, the economic crisis, poverty, some other social ills and was trying to tie it all back to Dick Cheney’s mean spiritedness. If that’s not a sign of desperation then I don’t know what is. We’re a year into the new President’s term, the war has re-escalated in Afghanistan, the economy is down the tubes, there’s all manner of other relevant national & worldwide topics hitting the newswires daily and all Friedman comes up with is that Dick Cheney is mean? I almost felt bad for the guy. Talk about a dry well……So sorry for going on so long……Sir? Sir? Are you ok? Sir? Hey Jerry, could you give me a hand? Our friend here is taking a little nap. Let’s get him to the table in the corner and see if a little down time perks him up. He left a digital recorder on the bar. Grab it and turn it off, will you? I’ll put it in his pocket. There. To the left. It’s over th <CLICK>

~ Reporters Note: Radical liberals drugged and attempted to kidnap this reporter to keep our readers from learning the truth about our spherical world.

~ Editors Note: Frankly, we doubt our reporter’s kidnapping story. We think our reporter was merely over served. It’s happened before. He LIKES his scotch…. In the meantime, you might enjoy our sibling publication The Looming Doom. By sibling I mean like the sibling that you kept in the basement and would occasionally throw a pork chop down the stairs for them. Not a favored sibling in the least. No, rather like a mutant, bastard stepbrother with strange, protruding ears and extremely short arms, who has thick, sausage-like fingers and greasy, stringy hair. That kind of sibling….

~Reporter’s 2nd note: My Editor is a POS and should just shut the hell up about stuff he knows nothing about. I was almost kidnapped! And my credit cards were stolen, a $3,000 tab was run-up at Puss ‘N Booths, and then the cards were put back into my pocket while I was still unconscious by the radical left thugs who tried to abduct me.

~Editors 2nd note: Dude, you really need to clean up your act! Seriously. Puss ‘N Booths??? OMG!

~Reporter’s 3rd note: I’ll have you know I was nefariously drugged, my credit cards were stolen and I was almost kidnapped. And I think I’m going to be sick again……

~Editors final note: Just a final reminder for you to check out our deformed sibling blog, The Looming Doom . It’s a more sober effort dealing with the pressing issues directly affecting our readers. At least it was sober earlier. I’ve been out for a couple hours so it’s hard to say what’s been going on in the meantime. I sure hope they didn’t defecate on my desk blotter again. That really raises my hackles! They just don’t appreciate what I have to go thru to get things done. It’s not my fault we still don’t have indoor plumbing at the OTCB World Headquarters Shed….<sigh>

OTCB - We make it up, so you don’t have to!