Okay, you’re asking, I get the value of sport in opening communications anywhere and thawing relations with people across adversarial borders. What about the games themselves? Did you have fun? Did they? You’ll have to wait for when my posts on pictures from North Korea reach the Ultimate games, but don’t worry, I’ll post interesting stuff in between. For now I’ll say this. You can read books, search online, watch[…] Keep reading →
A friend and reader, es, commented Your posts about North Korea remind me of some parts from Amartya Sen’s “Identity and Violence†and “the Idea of Justiceâ€. Over-generalization, exclusion, multiple identities, basic norms existing in each society and universal norms that should transcend them. Narrow views on North Korea can be attributed to people only focusing on one aspect of North Koreans’ identities through the lens of basic norms in[…] Keep reading →
I should note a caveat for the transition stage. Since this stage involves conflict, feeling fake, and overcoming inertia, you may use a lot of willpower. How do you know you’re moving in a direction that improves your life? How do you know you aren’t pushing hard on something that you thought would help but isn’t? The best answer is through experience. After a few transformations you pick up the[…] Keep reading →
Yesterday I hinted at why playing sports yourself differs from watching sports, especially the big ones. Why not promote interactions through the big sports, like basketball, soccer, Olympics, and so on? First, I don’t discourage them, but I would point out their size, scale, and corporate and government backing make everyday human interaction more difficult. All the profit available makes them easy pickings for rent-seeking government bureaucrats and corporations. As[…] Keep reading →
The one-on-one interactions between regular players I described yesterday not representing their countries led to a series of ping pong players from each nation touring the others’. With the Vietnam War raging, the press around the world covered the interactions. According to Smithsonian Magazine Soon after the U.S. team’s trip, Nixon, not wanting to lose momentum, secretly sent Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to Peking to arrange a Presidential visit[…] Keep reading →
You can usually do the preparation stages of transforming a part of your life easily since you can do them yourself, without someone else. Working with other people usually makes things more complex. Still, you generally do benefit from involving others. Because they have different perspectives and can see your life from further away, their input usually helps. At the end of the preparation stages you have two sets of[…] Keep reading →
Yesterday I suggested Nixon couldn’t have opened China since ping pong opened it a year before. If you’re like me, you’ve never heard of “ping pong diplomacy.” Or maybe you’ve heard the words together, but don’t know what they mean. I understand people who were adults at the time will all know the phrase, if perhaps from hazy memories. From Wikipedia’s page on ping pong diplomacy: Ping pong diplomacy refers[…] Keep reading →
We’ve covered the preparation stages of transforming a part of your life to bring more reward by choosing environments, beliefs, and behaviors based on your interests. Of course your life changes all the time whether you intentionally cause those changes or not. Using the Method, based on the Model, lets you do it systematically, intentionally, and makes you more likely to succeed than alternatives. Now let’s look at how the[…] Keep reading →
I left off yesterday’s introduction to Ultimate Frisbee in North Korea, which recounted China’s change from a failing planned economy to an increasingly market-based economy, with the question “Did Nixon open China?”. It looks that way. Yesterday’s post described the huge changes to China’s government and economy occurring immediately after his visit. Searching “Nixon opened China” gets you innumerable hits on the internet. According to the Wikipedia page on Nixon’s[…] Keep reading →