How to see the world with the insight of NYTimes' Thomas Friedman

Friedman's books and he himself calibrate using kinesiology at 470, the level of intellectual genius, so it is well worth while having a glance at his methodology of understanding the world.

He uses a number of lens he calls his "Ds", dimensions.

Dimensions One and Two are Politics and Culture. 3D is National Security. 4D is Financial Markets. 5D is Technology.

Becoming a multi-perspective writer for Friedman meant "adding Silicon Valley to the list of world capitals - Moscow, Beijing, London, Jerusalem - that I felt I had to visit once a year just to stay abreast of what was going on."

See if you can guess which world capital relates to which dimension of insight!

The sixth dimension is, of course, environmentalism.

Operationally speaking, Friedman defines his role as "information abritrage" - that is to say, he buys information cheap in one arena (say, envirenmentalism) and sells it expensive in another arena (say, national security).

He explains:

"It was said of the great Spanish writer Jose Ortega y Gasset that he 'bought information cheap in London and sold it expensive in Spain'. That is, he frequented all the great salons in London and then translated the insights he gained there into Spanish for Spanish readers back home."

A brilliant strategy for an aspiring globalist writer!