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OK folks, I said I will discuss politics more, albeit in my own way so don’t assume this is going to be typical ranting. It’ll be my ranting, so it’s from a source you can trust.
So let’s talk the Iran War. A lot of people are talking about the Iran War of 2026, and everyone is wondering what will happen and in a lot of case telling us what is going to happen.
Now me I am going to say that I think the war is a bad idea, done under multiple questionable circumstances, with multiple unpredictable factors. There’s a can of worms, then there’s this, and know what, we don’t need this.
But am I going to say exactly what will happen? No, because:
- My skills relevant to this are Project Management, Technology, and a slight bit of economics.
- My knowledge of the Mideast is mostly “oh, gods, not another war” when other people know it far better than me.
I’m not exactly the guy to predict things. I am the guy to go “oh, not again” and “hey, remember how things went for the Kurds before?” but not laying out probabilities. In fact I’m suspicious of people who seem sure how things are going to go, because my PM instincts say a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about.
Whenever some political event happens like the Iran War people start making very solid predictions about things. It’s not academic predictions (many an academic seems to be more in the “oh, no” category). It’s stuff that I’ve seen christened Political Fanfic, stories spun of wishes, dreams, hallucinations, agendas, and possible substance abuse.
I love that term, because it’s accurate.
It’s not hard to find politicians, pundits, preachers, and a lot of people on social media who have too much time on their hands writing political fanfic. They’re sure what’s going to happen. They spell it out in excruciating detail that sets off my Project Manager senses (if people can’t agree on fonts, you can’t predict the next ten years, bub). They’re very sure and very elaborate.
If your response to a war is to do some Game of Thrones level description, you are, as the kids say, “sus.” Also I will try to drop no more slang in the rest of this essay as it makes me feel old.
I see this all over and have seen it for so long. People just weaving tales for whatever reason – to feel smart, to get attention, to get social media clicks, or just plain arrogance. When it gets to actual politicians it’s potentially fatal, but when it’s just someone with fourteen Instagram followers it can still become a force multiplier for B.S.
It’s really starting to wear on me. The world is quite messy before the Iran War, and as this all can get very bad and fatal I’d like to focus on actual goals and solutions. It’s not reality TV here, even if the Iraq War seemed to kick that politics-as-reality TV into overdrive further all those years ago.
We don’t need political fanfic. We need to be asking what kind of world do we want and how do we get there. It’s two very hard questions! They’re so hard and so revealing that maybe it’s easier for some people to create their political fanfic.
But take it from a Project Manager – something I am qualified to speak on – we need people who show us goals and ways. Not political fanfic. If I want fiction, I’ve got plenty of that, and the plots are more sensible than whatever the heck people are spinning about Iran.
Steven Savage