The NY Times Jumps the Shark — Again
UPDATE: Tristero piles on the details that I assumed. And Bloix in comments there makes it clear that the diagram which has the Generals’s panties in twists is relatively straightforward compared to a car’s electrical system (as anyone who has used Erwin or Visio or even Powerpoint to build data flow diagrams can tell you).
Why does Elizabeth Bulmiller have a job? Because she writes nonsense quoting Important Sources:
The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina.
Now, some of my best friends live in North Carolina, so I won’t say Gen. Mattis got cause and effect backwards. But if you really believe that the article’s attached graphic is either a bad representation of the situation in Afghanistan or an impediment to understanding, then you shouldn’t be in a position to command hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel.
In short, you probably thought it was a good idea to invade in the first place because everything would be perfect and you would be greeted with flowers, not putting them on 5,000+ American graves to date.
Because you didn’t understand that countries are both made up of living organisms and that they, in turn, act as if they are living organisms, with interactions that change depending on the conditions, facilities, and income flows (or, as the graphic says, “narcotics”).
If you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand nation-building, and have no excuse to claim that is what you are doing.
It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools, and an even poorer reporter who takes those claims at face-value and presents them in “the paper of record.”
But, but, but,…nothing of what you’ve written here addresses the central point of the article, which is whether Powerpoint is getting in the way of US military officials doing their jobs. What you’ve said about attitudes toward Iraq or implied about the intelligence of of people living in North Carolina could all be true, and would still not constitute an argument against the premise of Bumiller’s article. She could have been an agent of the erosion of US power and status in the world through her writing on Iraq, and it still would not mean that she is wrong about Powerpoint.
It is probably a good idea, when criticizing the writing of others as “nonsense”, to make a cogent argument of one’s own.
“It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools, and an even poorer reporter who takes those claims at face-value and presents them in “the paper of record.”
We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us. — Marshall McLuhan
“If you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand nation-building, and have no excuse to claim that is what you are doing.”
I am unaware of any evidence that the U. S. military has ever understood nation building. Starting with the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. As McCain has suggested (about another country) the military occupation of the South might have needed to last 100 years.
Y’all–May I suggest that Power Point presentations are usually the work of staff, and really don’t have a lot to do with the quality of the thinking and execution behind ’em. The General here may really mean something like, “I’m trying to fight a war and they want me to make Power Point presentations.” The General wouldn’t be the first soldier to complain about the brass and the staff’s being out of touch and probably has a point. If this is all it takes to get an article printed in the NYT, though, maybe they should tighten up their editorial standards. Nancy Ortiz
Actually, the US — military and all — did a superb job of helping with the rebuilding of Japan and Germany after World War II and not repeating any of the mistakes made after WWI. Made us no end of cocky. it did.
I doubt that the military has much enthusiasm for nation building. Not that they are against it. But it seems mostly one of those ideas touted by politicians who then leave the impossible details up to the soldiers.
If one is to judge by the onslaught of criticism from retired/retiring military personnel in 2003-2004, the military probably was no happier about the Iraq War than we liberals were. However, deciding who to fight is not the militariy’s job. It’s the president’s job. If only we’d had one ….
Anyway, the complaint that power point and Excel have made us stupid(er) isn’t limited to the military. I can’t remember the exact source, but I recently read a comment somewhere that these computer tools have managed to make business planners even worse at planning than the Soviets were. Some of that is hyperbole of course, but I fear that there is no small amount of truth there.
I don’t know much about military planning, but what General McMaster describes as the main issue in question here: ““It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” is something I see every day here on the econo-blogs. More often than not statistical analysis is a confirming effort that begins with a desired outcome and then the analysis needed to confirm that outcome is applied as needed with other considerations being ignored, also as needed. Bumiller’s article makes this point well enough I think and most readers, except for those who take statistical analysis more seriously than they should, are well aware of just how much misleading factual ‘crap’ is in play these days, and so, the premise of the article was supported adequately enough for most readers. Plus, what Secretary Gates said about understanding the chart being as difficult as winning the war is especially amusing because his statement captures the sentiment of the American people in regards to the attempted wizardry of the economics field. Economists, or Statisticians, are increasingly being regarded as people who are fooled by their own ineffectual magic and so perhaps the validity of Bumiller’s piece is easier for some to appreciate than it is for others.
OK, Ken, I’ll call your bluff. Explain the graphic.
And while you’re at it, explain this:
“Now, some of my best friends live in North Carolina, so I won’t say Gen. Mattis got cause and effect backwards.”
Because I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
I’ll help you, JJ. The graphic is a gross oversimplification of all the causes and effects that interrelate in the process of pacifying a country and installing an effective governing regime via a military operation. It is localized for Afghanistan.
The cause and effect problem is that any fool should have understood that the problem was at least as complex as displayed in the slide. And they should not have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, our good name, and the lives of a few thousand Americans and a few tens of thousands of Afghanis, trying to do the impossible. And only such a fool would waste hundreds of hours assembling slides when they could just read Heart of Darkness, withdraw all troops, and achieve the same result without resort to PPT and without spending hundreds of billions of our grandchildren’s money.
Any more questions?
Dollared: ” And they should not have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars,…”
I heartly agree with all that you say. Just one small correction. The waste is now tracking at between $750Billion and $One Trillion ANNUALLY counting Iraqq and Afghanistan. And none of the estimates of total costs seem to include Veteran’s issues following their return.
Um, no. The North Carolina, cause and effect backwards business is about “”PowerPoint makes us stupid”. It was a poke at North Carolinians. It’s a suggestion that the speaker feels stupid when confronted with Powerpoint graphics because the speaker is from North Carolina.
You could be right…we’ll let our fearless leader respond
The naivete of the ignorant, tsk, tsk. How better to impart an idea? A set of grphics which are creatred by a tool, or a multi, multi-page wriiten document?
The slide in question was quite clear. Things/organizations are complex in Afghanistan. One slide. One message.
But, that’s OK, never give up a chance to bitch.
@CoRev–depends on the idea…and on the tool.
The graph is impedement to understanding. I suggest you try to read it. There is no real analysis going on in that graph. Better to say that a situation is a clusterF*, than to actually draw a clusterF*.
@kharris–here are a number of possible objects in that sentence-NC, Army, Powerpoint, Marines. Typical of the muddled way Ken writes.
RL,
That is a fine comment, and I agree!
Dollared,
“And they should not have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, our good name, and the lives of a few thousand Americans.”
If our good name was waisted, why has there been so much support from the other nations in helping in Afghanistan?
The total Incremental cost to date in Afghanistan is $299 Billion. How does that measure up to the Stimulus Package?
The total American Fatalities to date in Afghansitan is 1050 (518-Bush) – (532-Obama). How does that measure up to the number of people killed on 911?
Agreed on Bumiller, but the claim here about PowerPoint is a little bit like the “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people” line. Criticism of PowerPoint is deep and long-standing. The information design expert Edward Tufte has written extensively on this. PowerPoint may not force terrible presentations, but it makes near-impossible to produce a good one. Moreover, people use PowerPoint as a crutch in lieu of actual thought and effort.
PowerPoint is directly implicated in the chain of events that lead to the Columbia space shuttle disaster. It is routinely used in a host of disciplines as the _only_ means of conveying information. I have seen biology researchers utterly unable to speak about their work at all when their PowerPoint show failed.
This sad dependence on Show and Tell toys goes back to the 1980s. Remember the shock (if I remember right, it made the front page of the Wall Street Journal) when Lou Gerstner, on first being given a summation by IBM execs, went up to the presenter and turned off the overhead projector?
You seem to think that tristero helps you make your point. He doesn’t. He makes mine.
The US military is desperately running around trying to find ‘moderate Taliban’ to cut a deal with, much as they did with the Awakening folks in Iraq. They are done with Afghanistan more or less; Iran is the big prize.