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Davos stands for nothing except for the maintenance of the systems which make Davos itself possible.
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I suppose it is inevitable that future historians will regard the annual gathering at Davos as symbolic of our present era. The problem is, Davos is *nothing but* an emblem: it promulgates no original thoughts; it entails no responsibilities; and nothing gets decided there.
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Nice to find some company in my anti-Davos stance. Rare in our....uh, layer of the literary-industrial complex pyramid 😆 It throws off a vibe that really turns me off
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To paraphrase Huxley, “I'm really awfully glad I'm a Premium Mediocre, because I don't work so hard. The Plutocratic Insurgents work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever.”
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I think you’re too hard on Davos as not the place decisions are made. At times it is where ideas are seeded, where official futures grow. That influences later choices. I challenge you to show me actually existing globalization would have been the same as it is without Davos
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Oh, it’s influential alright, just not on what I consider the right side of history.
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My main mental model for Davos now is the Council of Trent. The analogue to Luther nailing 95 theses to a church door is not the WSF, but Barlow composing his Declaration of Independence for cyberspace while attending Davos in 1996. wired.com/2016/02/its-be
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I’m not even sure Davos is that influential. The burden of proof surely lies on that side of the register: name one event or episode or process or whatnot that would have happened differently without Davos. You can maybe point to a few trade deals and commercial transactions. 1/2
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