A parody with video style and presentation inspired by Bill Wurtz.
short mid long
How Short-Term Thinking Makes the U.S. Worse at Fighting Wars
The Atlantic. 2012. In 2010, the U.S. adopted a new tactic in southern Afghanistan: it began to bulldoze entire villages to clear them of IEDs. The policy — reminiscent of Vietnam, of destroying villages to save them — spoke to a deeper issue with how the war was being fought.
Short-term objectives were emphasized over long term planning or consequence management. Destroying villages carries enormous long-term costs for a region, and the U.S. military just wasn’t paying attention to what those would be.
Yes, Short-Termism Really Is a Problem
Harvard Business Review. 2015. Thirty years ago, no less a business guru than Peter Drucker weighed in, skewering short-termism in a Wall Street Journal editorial.
“Everyone who has worked with American management can testify that the need to satisfy the pension fund manager’s quest for higher earnings next quarter, together with the panicky fear of the raider, constantly pushes top managements toward decisions they know to be costly, if not suicidal, mistakes,” he wrote.
How to Stop Short-Term Thinking at America’s Companies
The Atlantic. 2016. There was a time, half a century ago, when what was good for many American corporations tended to also be good for America. Companies invested in their workers and new technologies, and as a result, they prospered and their employees did too.
Now, a growing group of business leaders is worried that companies are too concerned with short-term profits, focused only on making money for shareholders. As a result, they’re not investing in their workers, in research, or in technology—short-term costs that would reduce profits temporarily. And this, the business leaders say, may be creating long-term problems for the nation.
How Short-Term Thinking is Threatening our National Security
September 2022. Many of the problems we face today, from recent global recessions to climate change, can be traced back to short term thinking. This week, host Elisa is joined by Ari Wallach, futurist and author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors our Future Needs.
Ari acutely notes that we are at a significant turning point in history, one when bold change is needed to lay the groundwork for future generations. Yet, many Americans remain distracted by division and focused on the here and now.
How do we compare to other nations that might be taking a longer term view of themselves? And how can we rethink our political, corporate, and education systems to better adapt to, and take leadership in, establishing the innovations to come?
Germany’s Roman architecture
Although most of Germania was never conquered by the Romans, some of its western parts were incorporated into the Empire. Here the Romans brought all the hallmarks of their civilization, and left behind many impressive structures like bridges, baths, palaces and monuments. In this video we look at seven of these that are still standing in Germany.
Julius Caesar on the Germans
This is an extract from Julius Caesar’s ‘Commentaries on the Gallic Wars’, first published between 58 and 49 BC. In 60 BC Rome was not yet an empire, but soon it would be. The momentous events of the next decades, many of which were put into motion by the famed politician Julius Caesar, were some of the most important and formative of the Western World.
We tell this story directly from the words of Caesar himself. Starting with his masterpiece ‘Commentaries on the Gallic Wars’ – first published over two thousand years ago yet still widely read all over the world today.
Long-term planning
The Technical University of Dortmund in Germany:
What will the city look like in the future? How do we deal with climate change? What will tomorrow’s transportation look like? How do we use the limited space we have? Spatial planning is an interdisciplinary engineering and social science field that deals with spatial developments in living, working and environmental conditions.
The different spatial levels range from the living environment and residential quarter to the urban district, the city as a whole, the region, the state and federal levels, and even the European and international levels. On all spatial levels, different technical orientations, such as urban development, housing, traffic, landscape, are considered in their interdependent relationships and effects.
Plan your week
Stephen Richards Covey (1932 – 2012) was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time.
A viewer of the video summarized: Three principles for effective weekly planning: 1. Review mission and roles (in work, community, home; don’t forget the “relationship” with yourself) 2. Choose big rocks i.e. the single most critical task that will move the needle. 3. Schedule the week i.e. dedicate time and plan the big rock activity into your schedule. Then plan other activities around it.
USA. Immigration.
A state-by-state look at the history of U.S. immigration, showing the leading country of origin for newcomers in each territory, by decade. Fascinating !