whyroots - Ottavio Siani

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: The best & worst of Obama's new team

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:13:29 +0700

I see Robert Gates as Obama’s most enlightened appointment. Here is why:

In conflict management and resolution, whether the conflicts be wars or disagreements over defense policy or education reform, the relationship between the person who brings the conflict to an end and their opposition is often more important than their relationship to their own constituency.

Possibly the most extreme historical example of this is Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein (the political arm of the Irish Republican Army) and the de facto leader of the IRA. Among other violent acts Gerry Adams helped organize the “Bloody Friday” response bombings to the “Bloody Sunday” protester shootings made famous in U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday. Despite his radical views (from the British perspective) on the necessity of violence he ended up being the one to successfully sell the peace to the IRA and their constituents. Paradoxically this man of war succeeded in creating a lasting peace and it was his credibility with the IRA, not with the British Government, that allowed him to do that.

I see this principle running through many of Obama’s appointments, most of all evidenced by his appointment of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. I think this principle will allow Gates, a very credible seemingly non-partisan pragmatist (see his recent piece in Foreign Affairs titled “A Balanced Strategy”), to be successful in selling Obama’s foreign policy agenda to a conservative defense apparatus. How will conservatives buck the very guy they themselves chose?

This principle certainly has its limits. Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld would have been terrible choices. You must agree on a certain level (Gerry Adams wanted peace at a base level after all) as Obama and Gates do on the need to close Guantanamo Bay and the central location of the war on terror, Afghanistan.

That said though you may still be asking, “why appease conservatives with someone they like when we have 80% approval ratings and more political capital than we have seen since Kennedy?” As I mentioned in a previous piece (see Bush, Business School, and Bad Decisions) the Presidents role is a managerial one. Obama gets to give orders from 10,000 feet but how they are carried out depends on the people he is delegating too. If his appointments have credibility in their own organizations as Robert Gates certainly does they will be more successful in carrying out his foreign policy agenda.

I am too hopeful to choose a bad pick. I’ll wait until January 21st for that.

-- Ottavio Siani

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: George W. Bush in hindsight

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:17:53 +0700

As may already be evident, I am a fan of the Economist and normally agree with its opinions (and often plagiarize them in one for or another). I find the Economist to be more practical than political and, as far as American politics are concerned have agreed with their last two votes in presidential elections (John Kerry and Barack Obama). That said, in 2000, they endorsed President Bush. So why did they make this misjudgment (I see the subsequent endorsement of John Kerry as proof that they too see it as a misjudgment)?

I blame their misjudgment on the disconnect between Presidents campaign promises and their actual deeds. Bush was a "compassionate conservative" who was opposed to nation building (see the Daily Show debate between President Bush vs. Governor Bush). Obviously his choices as president did not match his promises.

Now, having just finished a big campaign full of all sorts of promises, we have to ask, will history repeat itself? Will President Obama and Senator Obama be able to have as full a debate as President Bush and Governor Bush? If William Kristol´s recent New York Times Op-Ed is any clue I think we may be in for another interesting debate.

So, my question then is, should we care? Do campaign promises need to be fulfilled or are they just thought exercises so the public can try to get an idea of how a candidate thinks?

-- Ottavio Siani

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: Might we be the next "greatest generation?"

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:13:46 +0700

More often than not, opportunity, rather than intrinsic greatness, makes people great. America's current troubles, many of which are global, have provided our generation with the opportunity for greatness. The things that have made Americans successful in the past will make our generation successful and bring us through our current crisis.

We have concrete assets that will continue to make us prosperous: Our infrastructure (though in need of an update); our institutions (unfortunately not our financial regulatory institutions), public and private; and our land.

We have cultural assets that will continue to make us prosperous: The American belief in a meritocracy; American individualism, the American desire (not that it is unique to America) to be more successful than your parents; and American optimism.

As Winston Churchill said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else." A lot has been tried and the time for the right thing is here.

-- Ottavio Siani

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: Progressives & Evangelicals

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:51:30 +0700

The progressive movement should change in emphasis only. Let’s find and emphasize issues where the two movements agree, like social justice and environmental protection. With issues where there is a traditional disagreement, like abortion, let's emphasize the common ground that exists. Instead of emphasizing a woman's right to choose, we should emphasize the common goal of preventing unwanted pregnancies, for example. Avoiding ideological arguments and replacing them with pragmatic ones will more successfully court social conservative voters and more effectively make the progressive case.

This strategy has important electoral implications. In electoral contests broadening your appeal seems like a logical strategy to me. Remember, President Bush's first victory came on the back of campaign run on compassionate conservatism. If progressives can present themselves as candidates who social conservative voters are willing to lose too (people who will fight to reduce the number of abortions for example) then progressives will have a much easier time winning.

-- Ottavio Siani

Bush, Business School, and Bad Decisions

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:46:28 +0700

I have sympathy for President Bush, our first Business School President (A graduate from Harvard Business School no less). By way of his father’s network and influence he came to know Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Richard Pearl among others, as the best foreign policy minds the United States had to offer. So logically he asked them to serve with him and take part in the highest levels of his decision-making apparatus.

Early in his presidency the attacks of September 11th provided him with power few presidents have ever acquired. These “great minds,” with the exception of Colin Powell who was excluded from Bush’s inner circle for dissenting and ultimately fired, came to him and told him that if he chose to he could use his new found power to topple dictators allowing democracy to spring forth from freed peoples. In essence, he was told that if he was bold enough his legacy could be one of a man who through temporary military action created a lasting peace in the Middle East and the world at large. The temptation of such a legacy turned out to be too great to bear.

The president’s role is a managerial one. There is not enough time for study and research. He or she must create an organizational structure that funnels the right information to the top allowing for good decision-making. It follows then that having a business school degree would help a president be successful.

I have not been to business school but I assume that they teach their students how to manage large organizations. In my research on what they teach in business school I have come across a business principal that I imagine they teach on the first day of any management class: in any decision making process, disagreement is good. If it so happens that everyone agrees, force someone to disagree. There is no introductory course for presidents but if there were this basic principal should be included.

History proves the importance of this lesson as well. Lincoln, touted by many as our greatest president, took this basic business school lesson to heart. Upon his inauguration he appointed his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, who were against going to war with the south, to his cabinet. These dissenting voices no-doubt helped Lincoln refine his arguments and think through his toughest decisions.

President elect Obama is not a graduate from a business school but I hope that he internalizes this principal (his appointments suggest that he has). We live in a complex world. The temptation to simplify it in an attempt to make decisions easier is great. I hope our next president heeds the advice that all business schools offer that our current business school president seemed to miss.

-- Ottavio Siani

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: Responding to Michael G. Franc's views on taxes & subsidies

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:53:38 +0700

"We must patiently explain why taxing or regulating noble things (like work, saving, and entrepreneurial risk-taking) means you’ll get less of what makes America great and why subsidizing other things (like idleness and single parenthood) means you’ll get more of the destructive behaviors that ultimately will drag us down."

— An excerpt from a piece in the National Review by the vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation.

Before beginning, I would like to re-publish an Adam Smith quote brought to my attention in Walter Lamberson’s response to last weeks question: "Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things." I find these two ideas to be the solid foundation from which most conservative arguments are made and the two ideas that most easily highlight the inconsistencies in the conservative agenda.

Fiscally speaking, conservatives seemingly aspire to use the state and its coffers to accomplish a lot more than both of these principals suggest they should. Maybe it is just that the only Republican presidency I have truly experienced has been that of President Bush, but I do think that the below cartoon is representative:

Furthermore, I find that these principles -- especially the second one -- suggest that people should be left with a great degree of freedom. Combining this notion with social conservatism seems completely inconsistent. The state should not tell you how to run you business, or spend you money but should tell you who to marry, how to make love, and structure your life? That doesn’t make sense to me.

A further inconsistency in conservatives’ and the Republican Party’s agenda is their lack of support for excellent, free public education and health care. Let's assume that we do not subsidize these services and leave them to the free market, which seems to be the conservative position. Will the free market provide superb health care and education for all people? Of course not, it will provide a tiered level of both with the better services costing more. Therefore, if you are born into a poor family your education and health services will be worse than they will be for people with money, handicapping a portion of our population and squandering some of our human potential. If the first quote is correct, and we chose to subsidize them, won’t we have a healthier and ore educated population? Won’t this population be more productive, and more able to carry a state to “the highest degree of opulence?”

Essentially, I am compelled by these arguments but I believe that conservatives and the Republican Party that they support fail to live up them. If they begin to, as I hope they do, choosing whom to vote for might actually become a difficult task.

-- Ottavio Siani

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: $5 billion to spend any one issue

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:19:30 +0700

If I were Obama (yes, I added that to the question), I would use the money to publicly close Guantanamo Bay. I would try the people still held at Guantanamo Bay in U.S. courts and run the risk of releasing potential terrorists due to lack of evidence. I would offer compensation to those who are not proven guilty and consequently released. I would hold a public denunciation of torture and make an epic speech about the thin line between darkness and the light of civilization. I would even drop at least one heavy-handed Heart of Darkness reference. (For example: We must not "surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge" and let "the horror... the horror" of extremism push us away from the light into the dark corners of our humanity.)

Today's most pressing issues—the economic crisis, Islamic extremism, rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, and global warming—are global issues. Not a single one of these issues can or should be solved unilaterally. To successfully tackle these problems, we need support. We need to make sure that when we make sacrifices, as we already have and will continue to do, their benefits are compounded. Guantanamo Bay gives credence, for good reason, to the view that the United States' only true objective is to get and keep power. Shutting it down and admitting our errors would go a long way to restoring our much-needed credibility.

-- Ottavio Siani

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: Thanksgiving 2008

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:03:07 +0700

I am thankful for peaceful transitions. We just witnessed a 2-year battle for the title of most powerful person in the world, all the while as we faced one of our country's most trying times (wars, economic collapse, etc.) without a single bullet fired or a single punch thrown. Mean things were said, no doubt, but, it turns out, our political system and those who run it can handle these verbal attacks and act like adults.

My continued contact with a young man from Tanzania, discussions with Guatemalans about the violence involved in their election process, and general awareness of how violent a government transition can be, have led me to an immense feeling of gratitude for the American democratic system and the people that make it function.

I could do without the disconnect between what America preaches and what it practices. I want us to work for international law, order, and justice.I want us to follow through on our promises -- renouncing torture, closing Guantanamo Bay, making trade free, tackling climate change, truly saying "never again" to genocide, and building a stable democratic regime in Iraq are all examples.

I could do without our current developmental and moral stagnation. I want us to have the fastest trains, the coolest cars, and the most impressive computers.I want us to have the best schools, the most impressive companies, and the most powerful workforce.And I want the U.S. to be on the forefront of granting people equal rights, leading by example and making the rest of the world play catch up.

-- Ottavio Siani

Wireless Power Watch

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:07:06 +0700

For one reason or another during finals week in the fall of 2005 I decided to spend my time looking into wireless power and its inventor Nikola Tesla, the Austrian scientist who invented electricity. Ever since then I have eagerly anticipated any technological developments related to wireless power.   

A quick side note: Thomas Edison, who is widely cited as the inventor of electricity, invented direct current (DC) electricity while Tesla invented actuating current (AC) electricity, the more common kind of electricity that now flows through power lines (that box on your laptop charger is a power converter that converts the AC that comes from the wall to DC). Also, suspiciously, Edison's invention came shortly after he fired Tesla who initially came to the United States to work with Edison.  

Tesla succeeded in transmitting power wirelessly (radio waves have enough energy to light a small light bulb) he never figured out how to transmit it efficiently. The energy lost in the process doomed any potential commercial applications.   This problem may have been overcome by Marin Soljačić, a professor at MIT.

Soljačić landed on the phenomenon of resonant coupling, in which two objects tuned to the same frequency exchange energy strongly but interact only weakly with other objects. A classic example is a set of wine glasses, each filled to a different level so that it vibrates at a different sound frequency. If a singer hits a pitch that matches the frequency of one glass, the glass might absorb so much acoustic energy that it will shatter; the other glasses will remain unaffected. (You can read more about this evolving technology in this article from the MIT Technology Review.  ) 

The implications of this technology are endless. I am personally looking forward to the day when I can walk around my house carrying a lamp like it was a torch in one hand with a battery-free home computer in the other hand while my cell phone charges in the pocket of my glowing electric pants.

PROMPT OF THE WEEK: Gay Marriage: What now?

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:58:30 +0700

Gay people do not deserve the same rights as straight people. Their morals are compromised as their sexual orientation clearly demonstrates. We must shelter our children from their example and the scary prospect of being raised in one of their morally decrepit families. Even though we have won this last battle against liberal America, we should still all move to Iran where Mahmud Ahmadinejad has assured me there are absolutely no gay people. Death to the Great Satan. All hail the union of the penis and the vagina.

But seriously, if we want to take more cues on how to govern our country from the Bible, I suggest we start with the issues that Christ emphasized the most and work our way down towards the issues he emphasized the least. Lets deal with the poor, the weak and the suffering and then, once there are no more poor people, no more weak people, and no more suffering people, we can get to the issue he mentioned vaguely, a few times.

-- Ottavio Siani