Travelling to meet face-to-face is certainly bad optics, but it can be far more impactful than teleconferencing in situations negotiations take place. If there’s a real chance that extra face time could swing an important vote over or it might reinforce the importance of the matter to someone and thereby encourages them to redouble their efforts, I’d argue that’s entirely worth it.
Oghier
2663
I wish you were right, but I don’t agree. I’ve attended countless remote meetings, from simple Skype connections to full-blown telepresence suites. The latter can, indeed be pretty impressive. The first time I used one, I nearly stood up to shake hands afterward, with a woman sitting five time zones away.
But it’s not the same as meeting in person. Telepresence is absolutely the best alternative for meetings to disseminate information or to hold general discussions. But if you need to change someone’s mind, or to get them to do something truly difficult, you’re better off interacting as two animals who can touch each other, smell each other and make direct eye contact.
If those climate talks were mostly a ceremony to formalize agreements already reached in the preceding months, then I agree they missed an opportunity to send a better message. We should ask, “was this trip really necessary?” If serious cajoling or dealmaking was required, though, then they were better off flying.
Timex
2664
This is what people say, but there isn’t any REAL reason for it to be the case. The only reason is that we are used to phone meetings being different from face to face meetings. It’s just due to our attachment to old, outdated communication requirements.
Consider the types of communications that we, as gamers, have conducted for years. Discussions among our gamer friends, many of whom we have never met AT ALL, or maybe have no idea what they actually look like, with them being only voices through a headset. And yet those interactions are just as real as direct face to face communications. Add in video chat, and the difference essentially disappears entirely. Above a certain level of intimacy, things like physical contact and pheromones aren’t a real factor.
There’s something to be said for that, but we have to deal with the psychology of the people as it is, not how we want it to be.
True, just like there’s no REAL reason for people to kill one another over thousand-year-old grudges or religious differences, buy fuel-hogging trucks when a economy car would do, exploit one another for profit, etc, etc. There are some folks who are able to get past their hangups, and a whole lot that can’t. Maybe in 30-40 years when the politicians are all children of the Internet age, this particular hang-up on in-person meetings will go away, but certainly it’s not the case now. (And in my opinion, unlikely to go away even then.)
Politics is a dirty game, so i don’t see private face to face meetings going away for a while. In other news that El Nino is causing serious problems all around the world:
‘Hunger threatens millions as El Niño causes drought and floods’:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/dec/30/hunger-threatens-millions-el-nino-drought-floods-humanitarian-disaster
Aid agencies have warned that tens of millions of people in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia face severe hunger in the next six months following failed harvests, stunted crops and soaring prices of staple foods.
Droughts and floods have occurred across the world as a result of the strongest recorded El Niño weather event. The natural climate phenomenon is peaking now and leading to a humanitarian disaster, say agencies including Oxfam, ActionAid, Care International, Plan and Catholic Relief Services.
“The effects of the strongest El Niño in several decades are set to put the world’s humanitarian system under an unprecedented level of strain in 2016 as it already struggles to cope with the fallout from conflicts in Syria, South Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere,” said Oxfam in a briefing paper.
According to the UN refugee agency, the number of people forced to flee their homes because of conflict has reached nearly 60 million, a level unknown since the second world war.
But in addition, nearly 39 million people will need food aid because of shortages. “Millions of people in places like Ethiopia, Haiti and Papua New Guinea are already feeling the effects of drought and crop failure. It’s already too late for some regions to avoid a major emergency,” said Jane Cocking, Oxfam GB’s humanitarian director.
“The situation is serious and deteriorating, and urgent early action is required to prevent a slide into crisis that would put the humanitarian system under enormous strain,” she said.
Timex
2668
But surely you see how laughable it is to say that we need to spend thousands of gallons of jet fuel for private jets, because it’s too hard for people to make a minor change to their preconceptions and behavior, in order to go to a conference whose goal is major changes to the entire world’s preconceptions and behavior?
ShivaX
2669
Sure, but it not like you have have Heads of State ride coach either.
Oghier
2670
Over time, you can become friends with people online. In person, it can happen in minutes. We’re pretty smart, with our fancy-pants internet and all, but we’re still jumped-up animals. The way we form bonds reflects that.
If the Big Oil interests had not tried to stop the transition to clean energy for, well decades at the minimum, it would not even be a topic for discussion, about heads of state having to fly to climate change meetings. Just putting that out there to focus the blame where it should go :)
KevinC
2673
There’s plenty of blame to go around. When gas was cheap for a stretch, the size of American automobiles was getting absurd. $4+ gas was a corrective measure to that. It’s cheap again now, and if that builds into a long term tend I won’t be surprised to be sharing the road with nothing but monster trucks and MRAPs in a year or two.
I cannot properly describe how frustrating stuff like that is, living in Utah in the winter. Due to our geography, we suffer from major temperature inversions during high pressure weather systems. That leads to some absolutely disgusting air quality for stretches of a time. Bad enough that you don’t want to do much outside if possible, and you can feel the irritation in your throat. Yet here all the yahoos were driving around in their hummers…
Ugh, sounds awful. Portland gets that once in a while, usually in the summer, but rarely. What pisses me off when it happens is seeing my across-the-street neighbor, who freaking LIVES for her lawn, fire up every stupid two-stroke-engine-powered mower/trimmer/whatever despite the crappy air quality.
As to R-worded-ly large vehicles: on top the carbon footprint considerations, if you still drive around in a sedan or coupe WHICH USED TO BE THE NORM BTW you can’t see jack if you’re behind one of these ridiculous behemoths.
No, because what you’re arguing against is human nature and the facts that face to face meetings are far, far more effective at politicking and development of truly collaborative solutions.
In other words, try convincing your mom that a phone call is as good as a visit and that it would be more efficient to just talk on the phone and never see each other in person again.
Oghier
2676
I have this argument at work fairly often, and I am going to use your analogy from now on. Awesome :)
Maybe this is the space VR can really break ground in (imagine the President and other world leaders getting zipped into a suit and helmet and going all ‘lawn mower man’ while trying to save the planet)?
Timex
2678
Sorry, but I think you are just stating your preconceptions, and assuming them as truth. Face to face communications is better because… Reasons? There is this suggestion that everyone just knows this, but I suspect that’s merely an unfounded assumption. Being able to use videoconferencing is a relatively new thing, and tons of people are used to the choice being either face to face, or phone… And in that case, you lose some significant element of communication be not being able to see the responses of the person you are communicating with. There is a concrete, tangible difference.
What is that tangible difference when using a video conference? I’ve used them very effectively. In a business meeting, I don’t really need to touch or smell the person in working with.
There are folks who believe there is some difference, but it almost always just comes down to this internal assumption that face to face meeting has some kind of magical effect that cannot possibly be duplicated. And frankly, as time progresses and the workplace is filled with people who grew up with this technology, that preconception is almost certainly going to evaporate.
not only do those politicians fly around in airplanes but those blue recycle containers are made out of plastics!!!1!!!1111
ShivaX
2680
http://www.leadingvirtually.com/is-video-conferencing-a-good-substitute-for-face-to-face-meetings/
In summary, the evidence presented by Ferran and Watts suggests that video conferencing may not be comparable to face-to-face meetings because it changes the nature of information processing by its users. In that sense, it does not substitute for face-to-face meetings. Consequently, simply thinking that video conferencing can be made to approach face-to-face meetings by improving the picture quality may not suffice. One needs to focus on reducing the cognitive burden imposed by video conferencing in order to make it approach face-to-face meetings.
To make a real connection i do prefer face-to-face, but i am old-school in many tech related things?
‘North pole could be 35C warmer than average this week, warn meteorologists’:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/30/north-pole-could-be-25c-warmer-than-average-this-week-warn-meteorologists
The north pole could be hotter than Chicago, Vienna or Istanbul on Wednesday due to the low pressure system that has brought tornados to Dallas and high winds and heavy rainfall to the UK.
The Arctic could reach temperatures about 35C (63F) warmer than average for this time of year, meteorologists have warned.
Computer model projections earlier this week suggested that the air temperature at the pole, which is currently shrouded in 24-hour darkness, could reach 5C, rather than the usual -30 to -35C, according to Mashable. This would make it milder than much of Canada and the US.
Temperature fluctuations are fairly common in the Arctic, where shifts in sea ice cover can significantly affect local air temperatures, but such a strong variation is extreme.
“That’s absolutely terrifying and incredibly rare,” meteorologist Eric Holthaus told Slate.
“By any yardstick, these are extremely warm and likely record readings for the north pole,” noted climate blogger Robert Scribbler. The strange weather coincides with an unusually warm winter in Europe and the eastern US and torrential flooding in parts of south America.
The warm weather could affect the buildup of Arctic sea ice during the winter. Ice cover has already been vastly reduced by global warming.
The conditions have been caused by one of the biggest storms ever to hit the northern Atlantic, reaching speeds of up to 230mph. Storm Frank lashed the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland with downpours and gale force winds on Wednesday.
Temperatures have reached or exceeded freezing point at the north pole during December on only three occasions since 1948, according to meteorologist Bob Henson of WeatherUnderground.
