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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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The fact that Trump still wanted to be seen there after years of being snubbed suggests you’re right. It’s more the red carpet than the studio. It has as much relationship to important things happening as the Oscars do to good movies being made. Consequence, not cause.
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I think you’re thinking of influence in terms of realized consequences, whereas Hirschman would point to intended but unrealized consequences. In I would say competitiveness is an interesting case study. It’s work had consequences...and not just cos I was a small part of it
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