[Long]: Dangerous Ideas In Dangerous Times: Globalization, tipping points, and Trinidad and Tobago

This week, a lot of things that have been weighing on my mind have cleared up with something that could not be avoided: decisions. And a lot of these decisions got cleared up with information and real world experience - like the fledgling on the left that I had to help as it got lost within the house. Then there are two books I am reading (I usually read more than one at the same time), some experiences over the year, and a few other things. All of these culminated in this Sunday morning, coffee fueled rant - a rant which covers a lot of ground, perhaps because my mind has been attempting to make sense of all sorts of data. It's always from the most disparate data that I seem to find my solutions - perhaps it's the creative side, or perhaps it's the engineering side that simply pays attention to everything... or maybe the creative side and the engineering size are, in me, on the same side instead of in some odd opposition that can be found in ways of thinking in the West. I don't know. Here's what I saw, and the conclusions below. Hopefully the reader will suffer through this to get to the end, since the end cannot be understood without the middle.

Besides, Sunday is a slow day on the internet. Maybe Sunday will be my 'long meandering editorial' day here on KnowProSE.com.

The Fledgling

A few days ago, working as I do from my workspace, I was doing something which seemed awfully important at the time - probably working on OpenDepth.com - but for the life of me, I don't remember exactly what I was doing. The sun fell, as it usually does, and I was awakened to my surroundings with the sounds of chirping, the erratic flapping of wings, followed by a tap against dry wall and a bump against wood. I chose not to ignore it; I chose to turn around and see a fledgling trying to get out of the house.

At first, I sat and watched. There are enough openings in the house, even at ground level, for an errant fledgling to find. But after a few minutes, it became apparent that the fledgling was not too interested in walking - perhaps it's legs were too weak - and that it was trying to fly, getting up to about 6 feet in the air at the times - but it had no control over where it was going except up and forward, and the ultimate down. Poor guy was getting stressed out. I can relate.

So I tried directing it with the aid of a towel - showing it the way out.... but it consistently flew in the direction of the towel or wall - not the open space. This went on for about five minutes, two rooms and a few thousand wing beats. We had rapidly continued without progress, if such a thing is possible (we'll get back to that later), and I threw in the towel. Actually, I threw the towel on the wayward bird, picked him up, and placed him on the mango tree out back, above most predators and yet in the open.

But I wondered - why did this fledgling keep flying into walls? Was it that because the light was reflected off of the walls, and it mistook the reflection for sunlight? Could it not see properly yet?¹ Or was it that it just couldn't turn?

Maybe I did it a disservice by moving it; maybe this was part of the build up of cognitive dissonance necessary for it to learn how to turn. I don't know.

What I do know is that I empathized with the bird. No matter which way it turned and attempted to go, there was a wall. They were well lit walls, easily seen - and the outside, at that time of day, may have been dark and daunting. Maybe it didn't want to go outside into the dark. Maybe it mistook the light on the wall as that of the sun, just as we humans sometimes mistake the light of an oncoming train as the light at the end of a tunnel.

I am certain that I do not know why this bird did what it did, coming through the back door to bump into walls throughout the house. It obviously didn't want to be enclosed, trapped... but it just couldn't seem to find the way to move 'forward'.

The Search For Contracts

The first Rule when it comes to seeking contracts and employment, at least for me, is to not to look for them within Trinidad and Tobago. The reason is that it's a small space where everyone claims to be the best, and where the lack of bandwidth gives businesses weak muscles, and the burns of former 'experts' have left thick scar tissue on just about every business when it comes to Information Technology (IT). IT is one aspect of what I do - but it's the best bet in Trinidad to get paid for, but to get contracts and employment, one has to have contacts and has to take part in an intricate dance and 'mutually beneficial' back scratching. It's not different than anywhere else in the world in that regard, but in a small country, the inertia is horrendous. I could probably get a gig doing a Microsoft Access database, or writing Visual Basic code, but either one of these is actually a step down in growth - it's like flying into walls. We'll get back to this.

Other's Search For Work

I ran into a former student of mine yesterday - a good student, an honest man (and this I mark a rarity in the IT field), who had actually started something despite the odds against him. He and a friend had started a business, and he told me that they had built 10 machines over the last few months. He deserves to move ahead. He would hound me after class, trying to get more information out of me, and we would sit down sometimes for hours talking about what works and doesn't in Trinidad. We talked about wholesalers for computer parts, about how many people who expressed interest actually bought machines, and the difficult art of selling a machine. About a year later, he was using it, and he had all the answers - he just wanted a few new ideas, like anyone else during the first year of business.

Dealing with customers and hardware is a tricky business, and in Trinidad where everyone who can insert 'tab a' into 'slot b' is building computers, it's even worse. Frankly, I have family members in the business who I wouldn't give work to based on what I have seen them do. But I'm a stickler for quality, which seems to be a liability in business. And still, being a stickler, with a recent price list I have found I could build an entry level system with 1 gigabyte of RAM and a 17" monitor, a combination CD/DVD Writer, and an 80 gigabyte hard drive for $TT 3489.36 ($US 562.80).² Price is not the issue. Quality and warranty are the issues. The typical price in labor to build such a machine is about $350 TT - $US 56.45; 10.03% of the cost of the actual hardware. The way to make money, then, is in volume - and volume is a cutthroat business.

So what did I advise my student to do? 'Go to the mattresses' - pull out all the plugs and go to war. And he's doing that, because after Caroni (1975) Ltd. was closed, he had nothing.³ He's built where he is from the ground up. And while he wasn't the highest scored in his class, I would give him business because he's an honest, hard working man who is trying to get ahead. The problem is that he is surrounded by a lot of people who are dishonest, lazy people who are also trying to get ahead. I've been there. It's ugly.

So suddenly, one has to wonder - why does a man of his talents and abilities, as well as personality, stay in Trinidad? The answer is that he isn't planning to stay, because he sees the glass ceiling that I've had been flying into locally for quite a while. I'm not politically connected. I'm apolitical. I speak my mind. In a small country, that's a liability.

Why Am I In Trinidad?

That's an involved question. I grew up here, from age 9 through 17. In that period I became a 9 year old with an American accent to a 17 year old with a Trini accent, who left for Dallas, Texas to be an alien again. I did a lot of things in the U.S., of course, and when my father said he would like me back down here, I came.

When I couldn't get reliable work here, I left. When my father died, I came back. I'm still here because of legalities related to an inheritance, and I have found that this is the only reason I am here. That's sad, actually, because I do have family here but of the family, only a few are active in my life. There's friction right now, actually, over something which I would not stay quiet about. So, with limited or no job prospects in the country, living in a house which is not in my name (because of a variety of reasons depending on who you talk to), looking at the wrong end of a cue ball - I'm not finding many reasons to be here other than the solitude I have grown to enjoy.

I could just as easily be somewhere else, and that is probably the smartest option. Like the fledgling bird, I've bumped into walls over the last 5 - almost 6 - years. When my father was alive, there was a sense of belonging, but that sense is gone. Where I used to see a lush paradise of opportunity, where I once struck out into the NGO world to try to make things work more to my favor, I sit and watch the country as if it were a desert. Perhaps this is why I come across to many as a cactus.

Trinidad? Technology?

I see a country with political initiatives such as FastForward which ebb and flow with political need, since they are politically controlled. I read about The Tamana InTech Park the same way I read about it 4 years ago; no progress but now, a website. 4 years for a website. Wow. I read in the Trinidad Guardian, 'eTech bypasses TSTT' - IBM will provide first world networking and access instead of the 51% government run monopoly in danger; and myself and at least one other are concerned that if you don't rent in the park, you're stuck with developing nation connectivity.

One person commented on a list - paraphrased - that the chief problems in Trinidad and Tobago are: (1) affordable bandwidth, (2) systems of authentication and payment, and (3) getting goods into/out of the country easily - and also noting that the drug lords don't have these problems - which should be funny, but isn't.

I recall a conversation with Richard Jobity on the problems faced by youth within Trinidad and Tobago, and he said the problem in one word: Hope. And I have found that I have lost hope myself in Trinidad and Tobago. It's not a bad country, it's just a country that seems quite happy with the status quo. At least until it hits the tipping point, or finds it's Olive Tree instead of looking for a better Lexus.

Tipping Points, Olive Trees and the Lexus

The two main books I have been reading are Thomas Friedman's, 'The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization' and Malcolm Gladwell's, 'The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference'. Each book, on it's own, is a worthy read - but I am finding that bouncing between the two is excessively interesting. Friedman's work does an excellent job of explaining globalization, and seems to be read even better in the context of this quote by Kevin Donahur:

There are two kinds of "globalization" going on simultaneously right now. One is the much-touted economic globalization being pushed by the TNCs, the national elites and their pet institutions like the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. The other globalization - which you won't hear a peep about, by the way, in the corporate media - is the bottom-up, grassroots, internet-mediated, people-based movement springing up all over the world. It's saying, 'We know how to do renewable energy. We know how to do organic agriculture. We know how to do economic democracy. We know how to create a sustainable society.' All the pieces are there. Now we just have to connect the dots.

Connecting the dots. That's what Trinidad and Tobago doesn't seem to be doing, or doing fast enough - the local media doesn't inform much beyond keeping score for the West Indies cricket team, the Soca Warriors, the number of murders (one IT professional was gunned down in Port of Spain; a staff member of NEXT technologies)⁴ and the number of kidnappings. I don't know that people in Trinidad and Tobago have a sense that this is a global market - limited by a slow to implement Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME), and Caribbean mailing lists which are slow to accept global issues as part of Caribbean issues.

Where's the tipping point? What will make the people within the country actually tip things toward progress? I wonder.

And Trinidad and Tobago, the 'tiger of the Caribbean' because of it's oil, is supposed to be ahead of other countries in initatives in the Caribbean.

So, What Am I Doing in Trinidad?

For the life of me, I cannot find an answer to that question. I could sit here, stagnant, dwindling away and blaming the limitations of infrastructure on why I am where I am. Or I could pick myself up in a towel and place myself outside again - and in the latter I have a distinct advantage. I can fly, I can move in a direction, and I know how to get out and survive outside.

Maybe it's time to wrap up everything and move on. I'd say that I would miss my family here, but I don't see them anyway - and I don't pretend to correspond to them in any way but name, though there are a few who I am close with. The job market really doesn't have anything along my lines or anything that will allow me to look myself in the eye in the mirror. The infrastructure doesn't allow for serious entrepeneurial efforts in endeavours that I am skilled to pursue. The crime definitely falls under, 'not good'.

So I remember a 16 year old young man with suitcases packed with too much stuff back in 1988 fondly. He had the world in his eyes, and a mind like a sponge. Maybe he's still around 18 years later. It's a thought and feeling which grows more frequent and stronger every day that I am here.

But I am only one. And who cares about one person, anyway? :-)

The picture at top is one of mine, and can be viewed here.

¹We rant and rave about stereoscopic vision and depth perception, but birds don't have eyes at the front of their heads - so how can they land on a wire? Answer: Monocular clues. There. I learned something.

² Of course, most people toss in a pirated copy of Windows XP on these machines just to keep prices down. It's not legal, but it is accepted. Linux stands no chance until people actually have to pay for Microsoft Windows, which is probably Microsoft's strategy.
³And for you Trinbagonians reading this, let's clarify something - my student isn't from Indian descent, he is of African descent. Leave your race card at home. And his politics? I don't care, and I don't think he does either. :-)
⁴Murders should exceed one per day by the end of the year, if not already.