The [busted] pipe dream of Globalization

When you go to college, you read your textbooks and listen to your lectures, and learn many things.  And your profs, the EXPERTS, would tell you what is and what is not, and you are tested on your ability to memorize the shit.  Define XYZ and show its application in this or that context.  Sound familiar?  No doubt.

But what if the thing you're learning is actually full of shit?  Does the prof tell you that?  Take the product life cycle, for instance.  It's a given that it is taught in every single Marketing class (except MINE!).  And the consumer decision-making process.  Same shit.

Well, here's another one.  Globalization.  Yep.  Remember?  Every.  Single.  Business.  Student. has been taught that.  I hope you realize by now that it's all bullshit.

For decades, most of us have been sold this snake oil called Globalization.  According to Ted Levitt, who made the term popular circa 1983 with his "The Globalization of Markets" article in HBR, nation-states are on the wane, and the world is one big market serviced by manufacturing products where cost is lowest, and made efficient by supply chains that know no national boundaries.

"The products and methods of the industrialized world play a single tune for all the world, and all the world eagerly dances to it."  So wrote Levitt.  And since then, indeed companies have followed that creed and drank the Kool Aid.

As you all know, if you tell yourself the same shit enough times, you'd start believing it, too.  Sure enough, it's almost taken as a truth that this Globalization shit is for real, and is REALLY the best thing since sliced bread.  Many a business guru book has been published since then, all singing from the same song sheet.  Kenichi Ohmae's The Borderless World, for instance, set the business community on fire in 1990.  And if you are a business major, you have no doubt been told that Globalization is it.

Only it isn't, is it?

Sure, we can all buy cheap shit from China courtesy of Walmart and Amazon, and in the process add to the pile of land fill crap because that shit doesn't last.  You know what I mean?  Remember how a Made in US t-shirt could last you through college and beyond?  Now you can buy some poorly made garbage from that evil empire and it lasts two months, tops.  Not only are we adding to the landfill problem, we are also enabling the use of slave labour and encouraging human rights violations.  Enough said.

But this is really brought into focus with the fucking Covid.  Remember how there was this lack of N95 surgical masks?  There still is, apparently.  The damn thing was developed by 3M, yes?  Out in good old Minnesota.  Hey, but we make them in places that are cheaper, no?  And when the shit hit the fan, guess what?  There's none to be found here.  And then we have counterfeits to boot.

In Canada, the government (and here don't blame Trudeau and the Liberals, because this agenda was set during the Harper Conservative years) decided in their infinite wisdom that we don't need a vaccine making capability anymore.  We can rely on other countries to supply us as long as we pay.  Globalization, you see.  And look at what happens now.  We can't make any vaccines, and the new facility won't be ready till at least 2022.  Great.  So we are at the mercy of countries that actually make the thing.  And of course they look after their own first.  Who can blame them?  So we signed contracts to buy tens of millions of doses, only to be told now that shipments are delayed and we won't get them that quickly.  Yeah, we bought enough to vaccinate everyone in Canada, but without the actual shipments, that's gonna take a while.  According to (optimistic) estimates, even though yours truly is over 65, I won't get vaccinated till maybe June or July.  If you're in your 20s, fuck, maybe 2036?

This lamentation is not only about Canada.  You can thank Levitt and gang for a lot of the ills of society.  The income gap, for example.  Remember the GINI index?  Let's not even go there.

Nation states are the most important players in the world.  Period.  Rumours of their death have been greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase Mark Twain.  Just consider the uselessness of the UN, for example.  Countries violate treaties they subscribed to, and then simply say fuck off to the UN.  Sure, I signed the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but if I violate it, what are you going to do about it?  Invade me?  I'd like to see you try!  Oh, you want to try my officials in the International Court of Justice, sorry, but I don't recognize your jurisdiction.  Seriously, as Mao once said, power is derived from the barrel of the gun.  Indeed.  Might, unfortunately, is right in the real world.

Yeah, nation states don't matter until they matter.  Borderless worlds indeed.  Remember that big debacle about a new NAFTA last year?  Most of you ain't old enough to actually remember the whole point of NAFTA back when Reagan/Bush and Mulroney signed it.  The idea was we would eventually be like the EU (sorta, though not completely).  Like hell.  That ideal, my friends, was as much PR as was driven by shitheads like Levitt and company.  Globalization was the way of the future, after all.  The whole world was going to dance to it.  Only when they don't.

 

A bit of News, plus "Fighting Received Wisdom"

Well, my friends.  I have finally made a decision about next year, and officially accepted the offer to pursue the MA in Sociology starting this coming Fall.  I don't have much more detail than this for now.  Maybe once the powers-that-be processed my acceptance, I will hear more from them regarding logistics and so on.

My sense is that the Fall will be online once again.  I just don't see this Covid shit stopping in its tracks.  Perhaps we will all get vaccinated by then (I think I am tentatively getting mine some time June-July, but who knows).  But even then, who's to say it will do the trick?  UOttawa has announced that summer school will be 100% online.  I think they will play it safe and do the same for the Fall.  We shall see.

Not for it, of course.  This online shit is getting on my nerves.  I think learning suffers, and there's no replacing in-person classes (assuming the prof is not a total ass or an absolute bore).  Such is life, eh?  Again, look at the bright side, I suppose.

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I was watching a video about this particular group of people who speak "Piraha."  It's only spoken by 400 people or so.  It will probably die away in a few decades.  Sadly.  But what's interesting is that these folks can whistle the language to each other.  They can hum the language.  They can also speak it in the normal way.  Pretty cool, eh?  Also, they have no numbers.  No past or future tense.  And a lot of these interesting stuff.

Here's the link to the video if you are interested.

 

It's really cool.  But you know, the reason I share this is not that it's interesting.  The researcher who "discovered" this language also challenged one of the linguistic universals.  

 You may have heard of Noam Chomsky.  Well, he's a god in linguistics, and many have staked their whole careers on everything he says.  Anyway, one of his universals (i.e. every language has this) is that languages have recursions.  By recursion, think: "I feel that he feels that I feel that he feels that I feel that he feels that I feel that he is a shit."  Got it? 

OK.  Well, according to the research in the video, this Piraha language has NO recursion.  Thus, recursion is NOT a universal!

OMG, alarm bells ring everywhere.  Someone is challenging Chomsky!  How impertinent!  And they all ganged up on this researcher (Dan), badmouthed him, and even managed to get the authorities to ban him from visiting the tribe again! What a bunch of god damn motherfuckers!

You know, though, that these things happen.  It's just human nature.  Many moons ago, when doing my doctoral dissertation, I had data to show that the conventional way marketers measure ethnic identity was bogus.  As in unreliable and thus invalid.  Wrote papers about it and all that.  Guess what?  It has NEVER EVER been picked up and pursued or even mentioned by anyone!  Why?  The guy I said was wrong was a big name dude from a big name school who published regularly in big name journals.  You got the picture?  I was in fact lucky no one trashed my work!  Maybe they took one look at me and said, let's not piss him off.  Who knows.

The moral of the story?  If you dare to rock the boat, be prepared to deal with the shit that will come your way.  People are just assholes, plain and simple.

The Pragmatic Sort

Before I get into the main topic of my post today, I want to let you know that this afternoon I sent in my registration for graduation this spring.  Hurray!  Assuming I pass everything, I'll be receiving my fourth degree in May/June :)

Now, for the main feature.

This post is about Indigenous rights in Canada.  So if you are not interested, don't read on.  And if you do, be forewarned that I might very well offend your sensibilities.  But you know that I do have a habit of offending people with things I say.  And I don't fucking care.  Anyway, here goes.

I don't know enough about the US situation to comment, so my post is restricted to what's happening in Canada.  One of the things I've learned is that the First Nations here were never conquered.  No 7th Cav charging the Reserves, that sort of thing.  What happened was that the Brits and the French actually signed treaties with sovereign First Nations people, on a nation to nation basis.  And then went back on their words.  Furthermore, much of the land was not even covered by said treaties.  And in the last couple hundred years, Indigenous peoples have suffered greatly, and so on.  So, that's the background.

Personally I think that's really nasty, and some kind of reparation should be made, and the First Nations should be recognized their due status, and so on and so forth.  But what irritates me to no end is all these bleeding hearts in Canada for whom the only thing is life is to bitch and moan about how Canada (and the British Crown before Canada was a thing) had been asshole evil.  Yes, I get that.  I agree.  Can we move on now?

Here's my pragmatic side coming in.  What is to be done?  I see no point just saying how bad things were.  Let's do something about it, eh?  Now, if you're not Canadian, you can be excused for whatever, because you have nothing at stake, right?  But if you're Canadian, are you talking from both sides of your mouth?  I shall elaborate.

So they want John A MacDonald (the first Prime Minister) demonized, because his quest to build Canada meant doing great harm to First Nations in a racist kind of way etc.  OK.  But what about the Canada he built.  Should we not, lest we be hypocrites, also give up everything we know about Canada?  I mean, seriously, the RIGHT thing to do is to leave the fucking place, and everyone who is not First Nations goes back to whatever hell hole they or their forefathers came from.  I mean it.  "This land is not OUR land.  It belonged to the First Nations."  So, let's put our money where our mouth is, and fucking get the hell out of Dodge.

No?  Don't want that?  It doesn't matter how many generations one's family has been here.  You are not fucking First Nations, and everyone you have is built on stolen land and shit.  What do you have to say about that?

Well, you know me, I also feel that extreme positions bring out the clarity of an argument.  A person who only trashes, but offers no solution to the issue, is a simple asshole expressing their opinion.  And opinions are like assholes.  Everybody has one.

Sort of like those who trash the government for not bringing in vaccines fast enough.  What the FUCK would you have done differently?

So back to the Indigenous question.  Instead of bitching about it, as if you meant business, why not come up with ways to deal with the problem?  What will make things right?  What can we afford to do?  Can we not have the parties meet and come up with a middle ground?  And get the thing dealt with once and for all?  Oh, and if one (as in a non-Indigenous person) says I'm not willing to give up ANYTHING, then well, that person has no fucking right to criticize the past.  But, hopefully, enough Canadians will acknowledge that a great wrong was done, and will want to make things right.  

The government likes to apologize and shit.  Fucking senseless.  A First Nation chief said in an interview, You keep asking for forgiveness.  I will forgive anyone who is stepping on my feet, as long as you remove them right away.  But if you keep stepping on me, how do I forgive you?

Instead of saying "sorry," find out from First Nations what should be done.  Find out from non-Indigenous Canadians what CAN be done.  Hire a bunch of business professors, who are not interested in mouthing off shit and never doing anything, have them try to help negotiate a meeting ground.  In a sincere way.  No rhetoric.  Just deal with the issue.

Now of course none of this matters to you if you aren't Canadian or don't care.  But I think the theme of my post is applicable to a whole spectrum of issues.  Too much bullshit rhetoric in this world.  Let's see action instead of constant complaining.  As most of you know by now, I am pretty left of centre.  But I am not an idealist.  Let's be pragmatic for a change.

Taking stock of my undergraduate adventure

 At this point, folks, I am leaning towards going for the MA.  That means that once I finish this current degree in spring, my undergraduate adventure is over for the time being.  Unless I change my mind, of course.

Thinking back, this last three years as an undergraduate has been fun.  Overall, I have enjoyed my experience at UOttawa.  I really like the school, as a matter of fact.  Academically, it's been both fun and challenging.  I seriously didn't expect to work as hard as I did.  But that's good, no?  Professors, well, I've had two that I absolutely detest.  One in the current semester, no less.  At the same time, I've had some very good ones.  Two in particular I really love.  As for the others, they were either "fine" or "pretty good."  So, in three years, I've only had two that I really really absolutely detest.  Pretty good odds, I'd say.  I wonder how your own previous experience was like, how you feel about your profs, and so on.

And the folks in administration at UOttawa are by and large very pleasant to deal with.  The people at the Faculty of Arts (where my degree is from) are super friendly.  And beyond my own faculty, everyone I've dealt with, from parking permit to building maintenance, to librarians, IT people, campus security, they have all been great people to deal with.  What more can I ask for?

No wonder Alex Trebek liked his alma mater so much that he gave $10 MM to the school!

If I had that kind of money, I would do the same.

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Enough of advertising for UOttawa.  I am just trying to find something positive to say in the middle of this fucking pandemic.  If you know the song "Alone Again, Naturally" you will know how I feel these days.  Many a times I have thought about the line about visiting a nearby tower.  If you don't know that song, well, Youtube it.  It's great.  And so fucking appropriate.

And that reminds me of the good old days when you had to pay to use the public toilets.  I remember what someone wrote on the wall of one of the stalls -- "Here I sit broken hearted.  Paid a dime, and only farted."

That is essentially the ethos of life these days...

Decisions, Decisions

 

 

Well, dear reader, I have a decision to make.  And soon.

I got word today that I have been admitted to the MA Sociology program.  Deadline to respond is March 2.  Earlier, if you recall, I have been admitted to a Bachelor of Social Sciences program as well.  Now it's decision time.  And I have less than a month to make it.

What to do... 

Would welcome any ideas you have!

Canal fully open for skating

Disclaimer:  I don't even skate, hahahahah

 

 

The canal finally looks to be fully open for skating.  On a snowy Sunday, where else is there to do?  You can see the Chateau Laurier (a hotel) in the distance.  Not as crowded as it used to be, due to social distance restrictions (there are actually officers on patrol to enforce the bylaw).

Welcome to the world's largest skating rink!

 They have finally opened the canal for skating!  Well, not all of it.  They typically set up about five miles of it for skating, with food stalls and stuff along the way.  I don't know if they will still have food stands this year, given Covid.  And there's about half a mile that they didn't open yet.  But I passed by the canal today, and sure enough people were skating on it.  In normal times, people who live along the canal would even skate to work downtown.  But, alas, these are different times.  Still...

That's a comfort station or something you see in the photo.  Do you see the clutter of trees in front of the building?  They are little pine trees in pots.  Pretty nice.  I think the red building on your left is a food stand, but I can't be sure.

Same thing from another angle.  Sorry, the sun was right in my eyes.  But you can see people skating along the canal.  I wonder how busy it gets on the weekends.  Skaters have to wear masks, and unless you are a family you have to keep at least six feet apart.  

With the weather supposed to warm up a bit the next few days, I wonder if the ice will still be thick enough for this.  The last few days we've had some -20-ish temperatures, so that's not an issue.  But with temperature expected to get all the way to just -3, I wonder if they will have to shut it down again.

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On a different subject, this is my fourth week of classes.  Not overly motivated this semester.  I guess all this online stuff and the lockdown etc. is finally getting to me.  But this is my last semester towards the degree, so this particular chapter will be over in a few months.

What will I do next?  Not sure yet.  I have applied to and been accepted into another undergrad program, this time in social sciences.  And I am still waiting to hear from the MA program to see if I get in.  I have till March to let the undergrad people whether I will enrol in the fall, so I will give the MA folks till end of the month, and then I'll make a decision.

This being my last semester, I just need to not let my semester average fall too low so as to graduate summa cum laude.  Pretty excited about that, really.  The first time around as an undergrad, I missed the cut and only got magna. So this will be a first, haha (Oh, grad school doesn't do the cum laude stuff).  Will keep you posted!

Still going out for walks, though when temps drop to -20 the going gets tough.  Actually had to wear longjohns and base layers to go out walking.  And of course after an hour or so I start to boil.  Not the most pleasant experience.  But with gyms closed (I am not sure I'd go even if they reopen), what else can one do?

Meanwhile, dear reader, be safe!  Let's hope this shit clears soon...