8. Redrawing the Map
Studying the history of Poland, you’ll find it begins as a Duchy in 990 (a millennium ago); 150 years later, the Poland is replaced by the Duchies of Krakow, Silesia, Mazovia, Sandomierz, and Greater Poland (which lesser than before). Then, Poland returns, eventually joining forces with its growing neighbor, Lithuania—a successful union for almost 400 years. Then, Poland is gone—the Russian Empire gobbles it up in 1795, but only for a few years, when Poland returns only to more fully digested by the Russians who keep it until the end of World War I. By 1940, Poland is gone again, first taken over by the USSR, then by Germany (which takes over the USSR). Back again after World War II, Poland is now bordered by the Czech Republic, Belarus and the Ukraine, with bits of Russia and a much-smaller Lithuania—the newer nations tell similar stories. Here in the 21st century, it's easy to forget borders are political inventions; borders change, but the people remain (if they aren’t relocated or killed along the way). In 1981, Joel Garreau considered The Nine Nations of North America. “The West is the region with the most people transferring in, out and around…notable for ‘big, shallow nets, not ties that bind, but connections that inspire innovation.’” He also found “…for most of U.S. history, the South has been the nation's most violent region, logging the highest rates of homicide, domestic violence, corporal punishment, gun ownership, and support of wars…Southerners also go out of their way to protect the honor of others, which is one reason they are so courteous....” Locally, when physical change threatens to redraw a map, citizens become vigilant: one Baltimore community refused to be bisected by a city interstate, and I-70 was never built through that section of the city; it's one of hundreds of “highway revolts”). Preservation of old buildings; support of local businesses; keeping the local school, library or hospital open; keeping the park clean and safe, even at night; nostalgic respect for a now half-empty Main Street; cleaning up after your labradoodle. Community members share the space, so, we are responsible to one another for decisions large and small.
7. Network Effect
“A group’s complexity grows faster than its size…You can see this phenomenon even in small situations, such as when people clink glasses during toast. In a small group, everyone can clink with everyone else; in a larger one, people clink glasses only with those near them… In 1998, Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz published their research on a pattern they dubbed the “Small World Network.” Small World networks have two characteristics that, when balanced properly, let messages move through the network effectively. The first is that small groups are densely connected. In a small group, the best pattern of connection is that everyone connects with everyone else. The second characteristic of Small World networks is that large groups are sparsely connected. As the size of your network grew, your small group pattern, where everyone connected to everyone, would become first impractical, then unbuildable. By the time you wanted to connect five thousand people, you would need a half million connections… As long as a couple of people in each small group know a couple of people in other groups, you get the advantages of tight connection at the small scale and loose connection at the large scale. The network will be sparse but efficient and robust.” —Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody
6. Does the U.S. produce too many college graduates--or not enough?
Less than half of Americans graduate from college. That may be sufficient. We may have all the college graduates we need, and then some. If you consider the present job market, that’s a reasonable conclusion—within a limited perspective. In the long run, more college graduates, and a richly educated society and workforce, ought to yield greater economic benefits to everyone. We begin with a clear understanding of the statistics: the number of new college graduates each year, their lifetime earning potential, the cost of college compared with the investment’s benefits, equal access, equal opportunity for long-term success, the current scope of available jobs, the ways in which new jobs and industries are created (and the pace of change), a comparison of the U.S. vs. other nations. In the end, we come to rest on the age-old question: is the purpose of college to train people for jobs, or provide a foundation for a well-lived life?
5. Should we choose to live in the city--or live a comfortable suburban or rural life?
Much has been written about the environmental and economic benefits of city living, and the extreme inefficiencies and damage caused by suburbs. From a planning perspective, the key concept is density. Over 60 percent of Americans live in single unit detached housing. At three such dwellings per acre—a common lot size in many housing developments—the only reasonable transportation solution is the automobile (and for some, bicycles). At twenty dwelling per acre, busses make sense. At thirty or forty, rail-based transit is a good solution. Square feet per person is another useful measure: in 1960, on average, four people shared a 1,200 square foot abode; in 2010, fewer than 2 1/2 people shared an average 2,135 space. If we wanted to explore the extreme, with livable density, we could fit the entire world population in a space the size of Texas. If not Texas, certainly we benefit from the proximity that metropolitan areas provide: they produce 90 percent of the U.S. GDP and 86 percent of our jobs. “If you love nature, don’t live in it!” In the exurbs, the carbon emission per household is over 8 tons; in the suburbs (3-4 dwellings per acre), it’s just over 5 tons, and a dense city with large apartment buildings, it’s closer to 2-3 tons. Commuters are 50% more likely to be overweight, and twice as likely to divorce—and cities that allow high-density skyscrapers tend to be wealthier than those that do not. By so many measures, cities are the best place to live and work, and they’re becoming the safest, too. Unfortunately, we don’t always do what’s best for us, and besides, the country is mighty pretty this time of year. (Mostly from A Country of Cities by Vishaan Chakrabarti).
4. Bet your bottom dollar that the sun will come out tomorrow?
Seems like a safe bet. The sun has been rising for over 5 billion years, and if that’s difficult to contemplate, we’re all pretty sure the sun has been coming out every day throughout our lifetimes (allowing for clouds and rainy days, we know the sun is obscured, not absent). Can we logically prove that the sun will come out tomorrow? That’s another matter because, as the financial speculators explain, “past performance is no guarantee of future outcomes.” Equipped with extensive monitoring equipment, a century’s historical data, plus extensive software and artificial intelligence, weather forecasters sometimes fail to accurately predict the future. Some scientists keep an eye on the sun, but the network of information and analysis is less extensive. Some of us continue to ask for certainty from the shaman or his/her modern equivalent. Mostly, we rely upon the past and upon reasonable expectations and come up with a “yes” answer—confirming the Broadway version of Little Orphan Annie’s optimism. That’s the best we can do right now. In the future, we might be able to do a better job, but we all recognize that there are only two ways that we can be sure. First, we can wait until tomorrow. Typically, this works out, but there are no guarantees. Second, we can time travel: visit the place, observe that the sun is, indeed in the sky, perhaps collect a few confirming measurements, and return to today with a confident “yup, it’s up there!” to all who expressed concern. So much of life is in that “we’ll see what happens” category—so we combine reason with optimism, past history with probability, correlation with coincidence…and place our bets.
3. Can you come back here next year?
The quick answer is probably, “sure, why not, assuming I’m not too busy or out of town,” but the language is imprecise and, for most people, so is the associated thinking. Begin with “can,” a word that measures ability (“I can run fast”), which is different from “will,” a word that expresses intention (“I will walk the dog”). Maybe change the question to: “Will you come back here next year?,” and maybe move on to “you”—and if “next year” is the time frame, we’re fine. The physical version of “you,” the cellular version, is refreshed every ten years (varies by age). How about “here?” If you’re traveling precisely one year, then earth will have completed an annual orbit around the sun, but you’ll be one quarter of a day further along than you were a year ago (remember: leap years!), but that’s just the start of complexity. The sun is moving, so is the milky way, and the universe is expanding. So: if you placed a marker in space precisely where you are today, and you attempted to “come back” a year later, that marker would probably be several thousand miles away from where you left it a year ago. The problem is common throughout our lives: we’re always dealing with a lot of variables, and ways of measuring, and variously precise and imprecise words and measurements, so absolute answers are hard to come by. Instead, we work with approximations and best guesses—and live our lives hoping to see the world more clearly tomorrow.
2. Weighing the Empire State Building
Since it’s difficult to shove a traditional scale underneath a large building, the ability to answer requires an equal mix of imagination, judgment and estimation. Many of our decisions require this type of nontraditional thinking—moreso as we face future that’s heavy on technology and innovation. “Remember, the point is not to come up with a number, but to come up with a line of reasoning, an algorithm for figuring it out…For size I need to know height, length, and width. I don’t know how tall the Empire State Building is, but I know that it is definitely more than 20 stories tall and probably less than 200 stories. I don’t know how tall one story is, but I know from other office buildings I’ve been in that the ceiling is at least 8 feet inside each floor and that there are typically false ceilings to hide electrical wires, conduits, heating ducts, and so on. I’ll guess that these are probably 2 feet. So I’ll approximate 10–15 feet per story. I’m going to refine my height estimate to say that the building is probably more than 50 stories high…“I’ll assume that on any given floor, 95% of the volume is air, and 5% is steel…“I don’t know what a cubic foot of steel weighs. But I can estimate that, based on some comparisons. It seems to me that 1 cubic foot of steel must certainly weigh more than a cubic foot of wood. I don’t know what a cubic foot of wood weighs either, but when I stack firewood, I know that an armful weighs about as much as a 50-pound bag of dog food. So I’m going to guess that a cubic foot of wood is about 50 pounds and that steel is about 10 times heavier than that. If the entire Empire State Building were steel, it would weigh 60,000,000 cubic feet × 500 pounds=30,000,000,000 pounds.”—Daniel J. Levitin, The Organized Mind
1. Measuring the Coastline of Australia
First look, the question seems straightforward, and the answer is 25,760 km. A closer look makes the measurement more complicated: all of those nooks and crannies, eroded rocks. Use a more precise measurement tool, and the answer doubles. Take an even closer look, and those nooks and crannies have their own irregularities, so you must measure them, too. Now, the total seems to be over 100,000 km—and the closer you get, the more precise the measuring tool, the longer the coastline seems to be. In fact, the “Coastline Paradox” applies to any coastline, and just about any measurement of length. Reason: you’re not dealing with straight lines; you’re dealing with fractals. And fractals turn out to be extremely common, so nearly every similar measurement turns out to be extremely imprecise. The best we can do is an answer along the lines of, “it depends…”
Although it may be contrary to state education standards, we’re becoming more comfortable with the idea that every question may not have an easy answer, and that it’s perfectly acceptable to answer a question with the phrase “I don’t know!” Schools teach closure: dates, timelines, quick biographical sketches in which Columbus discovers America and Pluto was but isn’t a planet. Open-minded learning is less concerned about correct answers, more concerned about reasonable questions. Columbus did not discover America because there was no America to discover, but he did abuse a native tribe on a Caribbean island, enslave them and kill many of their children. How many people did Columbus and his men kill? How many native Americans were subsequently killed; how many died as a result of the European takeover of their lands? Will we ever know? In every part of our past, we can study fragments, but the big picture seems unattainable. So we ask questions, uncover evidence, search for answers. And we do our best to tell ourselves the truth.