the story of the davy lamp and how some safety precautions make systems more dangerous/fragile

there’s a section in resilience: why things bounce back that explains how measures to create safety can backfire in the long-run. i’ve been thinking about that effect a lot as we get closer and closer to a full-on trump presidency. the story (pages 192-193) basically goes like this:

in the 1800s, mining was a super dangerous profession. in 1815, sir humphry davy created a lamp that allowed miners to better explore down in the caves. unfortunately, the net effect was that mining as a profession became more dangerous. turns out, the lamp operated below the ignition point of methane. before the davy lamp, miners were more cautious certain caves were just off limits. when the lamp was created, this allowed exploration into more methane-rich areas of caves. these methane-rich areas are more dangerous. in the end, this caused as net increase in injuries and deaths in the mining injuries.

this story brings up two points. the obvious one is that interventions don’t always have the consequences they intend. for me, it reinforces that notion that interventions really need to be designed from a systems lens. narrowly targeted solutions without attention to the system in which they’re being deployed can have catastrophic impacts.

the other point for me was an introduction to the idea of risk tolerance. there is a theory (risk compensation) that individuals, groups, and societies have a threshold level of risk that they equilibrate to. it’s why people started driving faster when seat belts were made mandatory. it’s also why when condoms are present, people engage in riskier sexual activities. this risk tolerance level can be measured within an individual and it seems like a group of individuals can find their by averaging everyone’s in the group.

whether or not this theory holds in all cases, if we started planning societal safety interventions with it in mind, i have a hunch we’d come out a lot better. we’d also probably spend less money on expensive but ultimately ineffective (and sometimes counter-effective) “solutions.”

writing: 11:08
spell-check, link-finding, & formatting: 9:32

valuing people for what is internal not external

letter XLI to lucilius from seneca has this passage that really resonated with me:

For what is more foolish than to praise in a man the qualities which come from without? And what is more insane than to marvel at characteristics which may at the next instant be passed on to someone else? A golden bit does not make a better horse. The lion with gilded mane, in process of being trained and forced by weariness to endure the decoration, is sent into the arena in quite a different way from the wild lion whose spirit is unbroken; the latter, indeed, bold in his attack, as nature wished him to be, impressive because of his wild appearance, – and it is his glory that none can look upon him without fear, – is favoured in preference to the other lion, that languid and gilded brute.

No man ought to glory except in that which is his own. We praise a vine if it makes the shoots teem with increase, if by its weight it bends to the ground the very poles which hold its fruit; would any man prefer to this vine one from which golden grapes and golden leaves hang down? In a vine the virtue peculiarly its own is fertility; in man also we should praise that which is his own. Suppose that he has… a beautiful house, that his farm is large and large his income; none of these things is in the man himself; they are all on the outside. Praise the quality in him which cannot be given or snatched away, that which is the peculiar property of the man.

i think what i really like about seneca’s letters to lucilius are the simple way that he expressed big truths. this insight, for example, isn’t a new point. in fact, it aligns with most of my christian upbringing where possessions are perceived as a liability. Jesus himself tells people that some of them are actually hindered on getting into heaven because they have too much stuff:

Truly I tell you, it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” —Jesus

but what seneca’s phrasing adds to it (which the bible says, just in other places and not that same passage) is that it’s ones internal characteristics that should be celebrated and praised. if our society could get a real handle on that truth, we’d be such a different reality.

on a similar note, my friend caroline, i were talking the other day and she came to a similar conclusion though from a different angle. she’s had a really tough year. when we were chatting she said something like: “at some point in life, everything external that we have will be stripped away or taken from us (if we don’t die first, which is the ultimate stripping). and yet, who we really are still exists in those moments of having almost everything taken away.”

both of these insights have reminded me this week that what’s internal is more important than what’s external. as much as society repeatedly tells us that material possessions matter, they really just don’t.

writing: 9:34
spell-check, link-finding, & formatting: 8:02

how silencing oppression and silencing the silencing of oppression are different

i recently finished the show about race episode where they were discussing the election, the press, and race. it reminded me of a point that meant to write about a while ago, but forgot.

there has been an obvious backlash in the country. the direction things have been going for the last 8+ years has been, for many marginalized people, a good one. i’m not saying that the government has been doing good things, but the political leadership has made it safer and more acceptable for some things (issues of being oppressed) to be heard and less acceptable for other things (oppressing) to be heard.

what’s happening in the backlash (or the white-lash as van jones put it), is that people who have felt like they’ve been silenced for the last few years are acting up and acting out. the most explicit version of this to me is the backlash against political correctness.

now, anyone with any sort of justice analysis is aware that pretty much anyone who is opposed to political correctness is usually covering (unconsciously or not) up some sort of oppression (chescaleigh nails this in her video: is pc culture anti-free speech?). people in positions of power were just used to saying shitty things and don’t particularly like being called out about it. lashing out against political correctness a tactic to preemptively shutdown getting shutdown themselves.

what i feel like is left out of many of these conversations is that the major difference in these two shifts is that in one of them, people are afraid of being silenced and not being allowed to say what they want to say… in the other one, people are afraid of being hurt or killed. we’re just not talking about lobbing ideas back and forth on an even playing field. one side of this table has been able to use words to disregard and dehumanize people. and i don’t think that it is actually important that we give equal credence to voices on that side of history. should we write them down? probably. but only so that we remember how to not let it happen again. 

imo, this is parallel to the gun conversation when obama was elected. many people who were pro-gun were worried about someone taking their gun away. people who are anti-gun are worried about people coming to kill them with a gun (citizen, neighbor, paramilitary, police, whoever) and there being no consequences.

there is a serious difference between these two sides of the table.

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writing: 15:15
spell-check, link-finding, & formatting: 7:56

why is it that impactful people seem to have bad relationship outcomes over time with the people closest to them?

my friend, jonathan, and i have a shared theory about the lives of big figures in society. basically, it’s that people who have significant impact on the world also tend to have really difficult relationships with the people closest to them.

i don’t know where jonathan lands on this, but i think it’s a resource flow problem. when you are continuously focused outwardly, the people who love you and are around you work really hard to support you. unfortunately, because they’re focused on supporting you and you’re focused on supporting the world, the flow of care is just in one direction.

i’ve seen it repeatedly with the leaders of social change organizations. they work all the time and their family life suffers terribly. children feel neglected, spouses are frustrated, friends are annoyed. there are tons of historical examples (presidents, political movement leaders, etc.) of this, too.

the result tends to be that the lives of the people doing the support get burned up… often to the point of being detrimental to those relationships in the long-run.

i think, in some ways, the potential to create this pattern exists in everyone. there are just some people whose life pathways make it more likely.

i don’t really know where to take this, but i guess i wonder if it’s a necessary pattern. do social change leaders have to have this effect on their families? is it a requirement of being an important societal figure that your relationship with people closest to you turn sour in the long run? i want to hope that it’s not, but the evidence definitely makes it seem that way…

writing: 11:20
spell-check, link-finding, & formatting: 4:00

the benefits of staying in place/focus

as i’m reading this book of letters from seneca, i’ve realized some things. 

1. there is so much good and simple stuff here that i could write a post per letter (sometimes more). 
2. there are recurring themes and that it might serve me to wrap thematic insights together. 
3. while the stuff in here is good, i really want to get back to reading more strategy stuff (even though i’m increasingly understanding how important internal personal work is for strategy) and also more work by people in oppressed groups (black, indigenous, queer & trans, women, colonized, etc.).
   

all that aside, this post is about two letters that all discuss the importance of staying in place and focusing.

the first, letter ii, is about focusing. on developing strong friendships and how “people who spend their whole life travelling abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find hospitality but no real friendships” and how reading a single author to learn deeply is more important than reading one book by everyone and learning broadly.

the second, letter xxviii, is also about how traveling doesn’t necessarily solve one’s woes. it basically says that sometimes people who want to travel think it will be a cure for their discontent, but what they’re actually running from is internal. once one figures out how to deal with one’s internal problems, traveling is nice but everything needed can be found wherever you are.

all of those points are basically made without saying much more, but it definitely is adding fuel to my “stay in boston” fire.

ps - so great that i found all seneca’s letters online!

writing: 11:50
spell-check, link-finding, & formatting: 5:42