The Technology that Isn't

I used to work on Wall St. with a salesman who was very successful selling software that didn't exist except in rudimentary form. When I asked him how he managed to pull this off, how the clients couldn't detect his ruse, he said, "We show them what we want to show them."

In other words, it was sleight of hand. Show them a bit of this, a bit that, talk real fast, sound credible, pat them on the back, and you got a sale. Then he'd hand over the account to the onboarding people who would be under insane pressure to deliver something. There was disappointment on all sides, except that he was happy that he made a sale. Note, this was at a company that won awards for being a great place to work. Such a sham.

So, too, aliyah pushers, try to give the impression that SSOI is just busting with the world's greatest technology. After all, it's a country full of Jews, and Jews have won 1/4 of all Nobel prizes (178 ). However, that statistic doesn't apply to Israel because only around 5 prizes have gone to people born and educated in Israel. Jews do well when in normal, affluent countries, and that's not SSOI.

One aliyah pusher told me of how Israeli engineers are able to desalinate water from the Mediterranean and ship it inland in 1/2 an hour. That's impressive. But he said it in a way that suggested that only Israeli engineers are capable of this. 

But are they? There are now about 21,000 desalination plants in operation around the globe.  The world's largest desalination plant is located in Saudi Arabia (Ras Al-Khair Power and Desalination Plant) with a capacity of 1,401,000 cubic meters per day. After desalination at Jubail, Saudi Arabia, water is pumped 320 km inland to Riyadh.(Wiki) From the Mediterranean to Jerusalem is around 50 km. So I'm more impressed with the Saudis.

Desalination - Wikipedia

Another aliyah pusher bragged about how electric bus signs at the bus stops tell you when the next buses are arriving. Smart bus signs it's called. He said they use satellite technology for this. That's a fancy way of saying GPS. My car in America had a GPS device that I bought at the electronics store. He made it seem as if this unique to SSOI.

Whatever the method, is that such a big deal and is it unique to Israel? The Jerusalem Post gives us a more accurate picture:

Such public transportation monitoring systems that are based on satellite positioning operate in countries such as Spain, France, Germany and Switzerland. Here is Israel, both Egged and Kavim bus companies have taken steps to try out similar systems.

So neither desalination nor smart bus signs were invented in Israel nor was SSOI the first to implement them. They are in use in many other places.

And I'll bet that the smart signs in Switzerland actually work. In SSOI a high percentage either are inaccurate, don't light up at all, or have been smashed to pieces by vandals. And the signs are not replaced.

On one of my bus routes, the smart signs are situated at every other stop. The first one doesn't work. The second and third have been vandalized and not replaced. The fourth one doesn't work. The fifth one has been vandalized. That's 10 stops with no working smart sign.

I didn't seek out broken signs. This is what encounter every day.

Are these guys liars? Do they know that they are being misleading? 

I think that they are egomaniacs. That tends to be who makes 'aliyah.' You have to be half a nut to move across the world. It takes boldness. And ego. These two guys have big egos. They dominate conversations. They come across as if they have all the answers to any topic. And their ego extends to what they are associated with. So if they see Israel as their country, Israel must be the best in everything. You'd think that they'd fact check before speaking but they are not that type.  If they were, they'd consult the Torah before embracing Zionism.

So watch out for aliyah pushers. They show you what they want to show you.

Now you could say that I'm showing you what I want to show you to cast SSOI in a bad light. Actually, I'm not trying to disparage SSOI. I'm just trying to help people to make educated decisions about aliyah, to move there only if they know what they are getting themselves into. If you are assuming that it's a high tech, modern society then you will be disappointed. 15 years ago when I made my first trip to Israel in more than 15 years, somebody told me that I would not recognize Tel Aviv because it has evolved and grown so much. So I went with great expectations. But it wasn't much different from how I remembered it. They put up a few 30 story buildings. Much of the city still looks like a dump. You'll be far more impressed with the development of about 100 cities around the world.

When the prime minister addressed Congress recently he referenced - as you knew he would - the alleged symbiotic relationship between America and Israel with America providing the money and Israel the high technology, thus endeavoring to propagate the myth of Israel technological prowess. America has money but Israel has the brains. That's the suggestion.

So let's look at some facts. In reality, comparing American technology to Israeli is like comparing an NBA player's ability in basketball to a high school player. Israel is not actually a leader in technology. The technology is not non-existent, but it's not that wonderful really. It ranks behind many countries of a smaller size in the innovation index. 

Israel is 21st on the list. It's not terrible, but let's not pretend that Israel is a world leader in technology. And not only that, much of Israeli technology is weapons technology and security so it's not as if your daily life is brimming with home grown technology.

Again, I say all this so you know what you are getting into. And know this as well, if aliyah pushers are misleading you about this topic, they could be misleading you about every other topic. And they are. But that's for other posts.