Clustering

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit London and Paris. I was in London for just about a week for a business trip, so I extended the trip for a day to take in Paris. I'll try to blog about my day in Paris at some point. But, luckily for me, being a lone in Paris, I had as my only companion, my iPod, with the Kindle App loaded on it. I was able to take in a bit of reading while waiting in line for various tourist attractions. The book I was reading? The Black Swam, a book basically about risk. The fact is that we're living in a heavily black swan world, but we live like we don't. The notion of the black swan implies this belief that just because we haven't lived through an event, the event is highly unlikely. But these big events (say the massive earthquake in Japan), are much, more common and much more likely than we think.

He covers a lot of ground in the book, and while on my trip, I was able to finish it. I can imagine a whole series of blog posts on the the book itself, we'll see how many I get to do.

One of the themes of the book is to really point out how many blind spots we, human beings, have without realizing it. The author really wants us to get how flawed we are and how much we should be suspicious of our human failings. One example of this flaw, is our desire to cluster.

"If you want to see what I mean by arbitrariness of categories, check the situation of polarized politics. The next time a Martian visits earth, try to explain to him why those favor allowing the elimination of a fetus in the mother's womb also oppose capital punishment. Or try to explain to him why those who accept abortion are supposed to be favorable to high taxation but against a strong military. Why do those who prefer sexual freedom need to be against individual economic liberty?"

"The best way to prove the arbitrary character of these categories, and the contagion effect they produce, is to remember how frequently these clusters reverse in history. Today's alliance between Christian fundamentalists and the Israeli lobby would certainly seem puzzling to a nineteenth-century intellectual - Christians used to be anti-Semites and Moslems were the protectors of the Jews, whom they preferred to Christians. Libertarians used to be left-wing. What is interesting to me as a probabilist is that some random event makes one group that initially supports another issue ally itself with another group that supports another issue, thus causing the two items to fuse and unify... until the surprise of the separation."

Here's the problem with this clustering and categorizing:

"Categorizing always produces reduction in true complexity. It is a manifestation of the Black Swan generator. Any reduction in the world around us can have explosive consequences since it rules out some sources of uncertainty; it drives us to a misunderstanding of the fabric of the world. For instance, you may think that radical Islam (and its values) are your allies against the threat of Communism, and so you may help them develop, until they send two planes into downtown Manhattan."

The principal remedy in the book is to have the guts and the humility to admit our lack of certainty and knowledge on the issues.

Individual issues, like abortion or the death penalty, are complicated. To decide to map, seemingly disconnected points of views from a whole swath of issues into a single political party, seems absurd on its face. I get why we do it, to make our political system easier to comprehend, to reduce the true complexity of the world. But know this, we take serious risks when we do so. The world is much more complicated, much harder to understand, and impossible to define or reduce so cleanly.

The best answer to most political questions, is probably "I don't know", or "I'm not sure". Either that, or just inject a lot of "probably's" or "maybe's", or "in my uncertain opinion" into your conversations. The problem, of course, is that kind of language will most certainly not get you elected or listened to. It takes guts to face and admit uncertainty. But those who do, are the ones worth listening to.

And its why I feel that both parties are usually correct on most issues, correct but enormously flawed and limited in their point of view. Believe in your political party like it was your religion at your own risk.

Strawbery Girl - How it Ends

Well, I just finished the book and it turns out Mr. Slater finds God. His conversion story is interesting as well. After he shoots his chickens (every single one of them - chickens his wife used to pay for necessities because the cow money mainly went into alcohol), Mr. Slater ditches his family for a while. His wife and kids get deathly sick, the Boyer family take care of them and literally nurse the Mrs. Slater her young girls and little newborn back to health.

When Mr. Slater returns, he finds that the Boyers found it in their heart, despite all of the trouble he caused them, to save his family's life. Something he was unwilling to do himself. That humbles him. Coincidentally, just days before his return, a traveling preacher comes by the Slater's home and Mrs. Slater tells the preacher all of the trouble alcohol has caused her husband.

Shortly after his return, the Slaters go to church and the preacher especially gets after Mr. Slater. Already humbled by the Boyer's kind and forgiving acts, his heart is softened (like mud he says) and he changes his ways.

Just thought I'd let you know. There's always hope for everyone. And when we can find it in our hearts to be kind to everyone, even those folks we don't particularly like, and most especially, even those folks who don't particularly like us, you'll never know what kind of effect you might have on another person.

I guess this is all too simple and tidy (its a book for kids after all), but the book does a masterful job of brining you into a world that no longer exists (as far as I know), of families scraping by, living off the land, shortly before the industrial age is about to take over.

The last chapter also talks about a new Phosphate plant moving in that'll fence in a bunch of land so they can use dynamite to extract the phosphate for fertilizer manufacturing.

Mr. Slater's meager livelihood will be threatened since he depends so much on access to an open range. Boyer's fence drove him into a rage that lead him to increasing violence.

In this case his response is different:

"'That makes it mighty bad for you, if they fence in your range,' said Boyer. 'What will you do?'

'Sell out,' said Slater. 'Can't do nothin' to stop it. Citrus people are fencing, too. Got to quit the cattle business, I reckon.' A week before, Slater would have ranted with furious anger. Now he spoke quietly and peaceably. Every one noticed the change.

'What you fixin' to do?' asked Boyer.

'Take a job with the phosphate company, I reckon!' Slater laughed heartily. 'Ain't nothin' else to do. Hear them loud booms goin' off early every mornin'? They're dynamitin' the stuff out of the ground. I went over to tell 'em what I thought of 'em forr fencin' my cows out, and I come home with the job of dynamiter! Hit will jest suit me. Grandpa was an old Indian fighter in the Seminole War. He liked nothin' better than firin' off a gun, and I favor him in most ways. I reckon' hit'll jest about suit me to touch off a fuse in them pits, then run as fast as I can, and listen to it go BOOM and blow the whole place up!'"

Strawbery Girl

I'm currently reading Strawberry Girl to my kids, and I'm surprised by how much I enjoy reading these pretty sophisticated children's books to my children. I enjoy these books I'm sure more than they do.

This book is about a couple of families, neighbors, in backwoods Florida during the turn of the century. The family highlighted in the book, The Boyers, had just moved in from South Carolina, to start a farm. They had cattle and chickens, but mostly, they were growing crops - most notably - strawberries. They are an industrious, innovative, hard working family that start having some success. Their closest neighbors, The Slaters, however, are trouble. Unlike the Boyers, the Slaters are content to scrape by with as little effort as possible. They are a cattle herding family, but they let their cows wander the land, open range style, eating whatever they can find. Mr. Slater drinks a lot and raises rough children.

The contrast I think hurts Slater's ego and they have trouble. Mr. Boyer fences in his land, taps into underground water, grows strawberries, something nobody else thinks is possible, feeds his animals feed. He's educated and innovative. Slater lets his cows and pigs wander, lets them eat what they can and resents the fence that Boyer builds that keeps his animals from the nearby lake.

As the book goes on, Mr. Slater resorts to stronger and stronger violence. He starts a grass fire that threatens the Boyer's house. He poisons their mule. He cuts their fence and lets his cows and hogs ruin the Boyer's crops.

Its jealousy really. But as he does this, he spirals. He drinks more and more, self medicating his guilt and jealousy. In a drunken rant, he shoots all of his own chickens just to prove to everyone he's a good shot, but in doing so, he's hurting himself. Its a death spiral he's on.

I'm not sure how it'll end yet, I'm a few chapters off.

But I'm sure there's some Boyer in me and some Slater, but I'm much more aware of the Slater part. Its hard to notice the ways that I'm actually succeeding and doing well, but its easy to see how I come up short as I compare my weaknesses with other's successes.

It's also easy to feel jealous and to think of was to pull others successes down, or at least to try to. But sabotaging others inevitably hurt ourselves much more.

So, what Mr. Slater could have done, but didn't, is to accept that Mr. Boyer was a bit further along then him, and learn from him and then perhaps build from Mr. Boyer's knowledge and then innovate in his own way. Then Mr. Boyer, perhaps, may have had a chance to learn from Mr. Slater.