His TED talk is here. Filmed last February and with three predictions about Iran. How did he do?
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His TED talk is here. Filmed last February and with three predictions about Iran. How did he do?
Previous post: Where does power lie in Iran?
Next post: I, Toaster
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I have to watch a 20-minute video to find out how he did? I bailed after four. Couldn't you tell us? Or point to a transcript… I'd much rather read text than watch video.
Not so well. But the more general point BDM makes in "The Logic of Political Survival" is that a leader can rig an election in a polity like Iraq, if he's been around a couple of years and has learned the ropes. Was the Presidential election really in doubt if Ahmadinejad retained the Supreme Leader's support?
Given some of the personnel appointments Ahamdinejad was making at least when I was watching more carefully — putting more people from the Revolutionary Guard in positions of power — I thought he was attempting to establish his own power base.
"I have to watch a 20-minute video to find out how he did?"
No. You have to watch a twenty minute video to understand his reasoning process. If you had read a transcript, you would never understand how his confidence influenced his reasoning.
Since you "bailed" at four — you now don't have this information.
The TED lecture wasn't as good as BDM's EconTalk podcasts. The talk was jargony, and he seemed nervous.
As for how he did on his three predictions, I'd say it's too soon to tell (for those who can't bother listening to the entire talk, he predicted that A-jad would lessen in influence over the next two years, that the moderate mullahs would gain in influence, and that Iran would produce enough weapons-grade uranium to prove that they could make a bomb if they wanted to, but that they wouldn't actually make on.