Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

austin-distel-WtXcbWXK_ww-unsplash.jpgThese two “E-F-F” words are what drives a lot of what happens in society today. If you want to run a successful business or a successful organization, you’ve gotta find a way to increase your efficiency, while maximizing your effectiveness. But which one is more important? As is often the case in life, it depends on the context.

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For me, I’ve often defaulted to trying to be as efficient as I can (mostly). In the last few months, I’ve come to realize that my worshipping at the feet of efficiency might actually be costing me in effectiveness. Huh? Yeah, if you’re too efficient, it might mean that you’re lowering your effectiveness. In my head, I’m imagining one of those graphs where efficiency is plotted on the x-axis and effectiveness on the y-axis. As efficiency goes up, so does effectiveness. However, there’s a point towards the right of the graph where an increase in efficiency leads to a decrease in effectiveness. Becoming more efficient is no longer in yours (or the company’s best interest).

That’s a lot of words — how about an example. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. A recent episode of The Next Big Idea illustrated how you can have a wholly efficient system in AI/ML, but this increase in efficiency is lowering the system’s effectiveness. For example, let’s say you’ve got an algorithm that’s screening out candidates for specific qualities in your hiring process. Using AI/ML can accelerate the efficiency — it can read 1,000’s of applications in the time it would take a human to read a handful of applications. However, the system probably won’t be well-calibrated for racial bias (as has often been showing on numerous occasions). Increase in efficiency, decrease in effectiveness.

I liked the way that Prof. Eberhardt framed her suggestion: “add more friction to the system.” This will lower the efficiency of it, but it will increase the effectiveness. By adding friction, you’ll slow down the processing speed, but the slow down in time will build-in an opportunity to correct misgivings before they become official.

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This also reminds me of a Farnam Street article about the difference between speed and velocity:

Velocity and speed are different things. Speed is the distance traveled over time. I can run around in circles with a lot of speed and cover several miles that way, but I’m not getting anywhere. Velocity measures displacement. It’s direction-aware.

A lot of people think in terms of one dimension (speed). Almost all of those people are passed by people who think in multiple dimensions (velocity).

On Judging a Book, er, Manager by its Cover

mona-eendra-NZNFY_g6ong-unsplashThere’s been some news recently regarding the Toronto Maple Leafs that’s, well, that’s frankly, the very opposite of heart-warming. And hearing this news, put some other news in a different light for me. Before we get to that, let’s back up to the 2014 Olympics in Russia.

Heading into the ’14 Olympics, Canada returned its head coach for the men’s hockey team that had led them to victory in the 2010 Olympics held in Canada. As a good Canadian boy, I was super-excited to see Canada defend its Olympic gold medal. In watching the games, I remember thinking that it was like Team Canada was playing with some kind of ‘cheat code.’ Their style of play made it very difficult for teams to score on them — they allowed three goals the entire tournament. One of those was on the penalty kill in their first game of the tournament. They also held their opponents in the semi-finals and the gold medal game scoreless. Very well done, eh?

Fast-forward a year and the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that the coach that led Canada to gold medals in 2010 and 2014, Mike Babcock, would now be the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs (he led the Detroit Red Wings to a Stanley Cup victory in 2008). I was overjoyed. Overjoyed! The Leafs won the draft lottery to select first overall at the end of Babcock’s first season and with it, the opportunity to get a generational talent — Auston Matthews. Things were looking pretty good.

Fast-forward to the current season — things haven’t been going swimmingly for Babcock and the Leafs. Expectations were high after resigning some of their stars to expensive contracts. However, the proof very much wasn’t in the pudding. In the first quarter of the season, the Leafs didn’t play well enough and ultimately, the team decided to part ways with Babcock. When I first read the news, I was stunned. I knew that there had been talk of it, but it didn’t seem like the right call. Babcock was a coach with a record that preceded himself and I still had in my mind the images of how much better Team Canada at the ’14 Olympics looked in comparison to other teams. Hoo boy, was I wrong.

That brings us to this week. Earlier this week, there was a story that came out in the middle of the night about some, oh, shall we say, “poor motivational techniques” employed by Babcock with the players. Now, before I should go on, I should say that I’ve never played professional or organized hockey. I don’t know what it’s like in the “locker room” or on the “practice ice.” I have, however, played organized baseball, so I am familiar with some of the groupthink and harsh conditions that can be employed by coaches/managers for any number of reasons. OK, back to it.

Right, Babcock and poor motivational techniques. When I first heard this story, and it wasn’t coming from a “major publication,” I didn’t want to believe it. Instead, I told myself that it was an unsourced claim and that someone was trying to vindictive or hurtful in dragging Babcock’s name through the mud. Flat wrong. The next day, the beat reporters interviewed the player subjected to the poor motivational techniques and… well, as it happens, it did happen. Colour me surprised. Very surprised.

I had this image in my head of this great coach, this coach who had it together, who could command the locker room and motivate the players to do great things. I mean, just look at what he did with Team Canada in 2010 and 2014 — how could the guy who brought so much joy to Canada in these times be the same guy who would subject a player to abject humiliation in front of his teammates? Major cognitive dissonance for me.

And as quickly as I was having those thoughts, it was a stark reminder that you can’t judge a book by its cover. You can’t judge a coach from what you see in the 2+ hours during the 80+ games they play during the season. There’s so much more than meets the eye in sports. The coaches are with the players as part of their frickin’ job (!). They seem the daily for many stretches at a time. As fans and viewers, we go to work all-day. We spend time with our kids. We have other hobbies. There is so much behind the scenes in sports that we don’t see. Yes, we see the players/coaches give interviews, but that’s a very small snippet of their personality and it might even be some kind of a “show” that they’re putting on. Some famous examples: Bill Belichick and Gregg Popovich. There’s more than meets the eye.

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In trying to pull out a more applicable lesson, I can’t help but thinking about leaders, managers, or senior management, in our day-to-day work as public servants. Yes, we see pockets or snippets from people who come from these groups, but that doesn’t mean that what we see is a true representation. In this case, counter to my example from above (in that I was thinking the best of Babcock, while it turns out there were some unsightly things going on), it’s common to associate negative action with “management” (i.e. they’re not doing enough, they don’t see me, they’re not responsive, etc.). While all of that might be true, let’s consider for a moment that maybe there’s something else going on there. Maybe management is doing a lot to try and make sure that they’re meeting needs. Or, maybe that senior leader in the meeting who seems like they’re not taking an interest in you, that senior leader who’s not recognizing you for who you are — maybe there’s more to their story. Maybe they’ve got things going on in their personal life. Maybe they’re in the middle of a messy divorce. Maybe they just heard that one of their parents has Alzheimer’s. Maybe their dog is sick. Who knows!

The point here is that, in all the circumstances that bring people together, all the times where we’re greeted by the faces of people near our orbit, we can never really be sure of the events that immediately preceded the stranger to be sitting across from you. So, take a moment, take a breath, take a beat and remember, there’s more to this person’s story.

Square Peg for a Square Hole Inside of a Square

jehyun-sung-6U5AEmQIajg-unsplash.jpgEvery couple of weeks or so, Ben Thompson from Stratechery and James Allworth from Harvard Business Review sit down to talk tech and society. On their most recent episode, I couldn’t help but think of some of the parallel applications to the public service. At around the 30-minute mark of the podcast, the two start talking about the different kinds of organizations (functional and divisional) and how certain leaders are better suited to lead from the different structures.

For instance, they use the example of Steve Jobs — who, most regard as a very successful leader. At the time that he was in charge of Apple, the organization operated, mostly, in a functional structure. The two referred to Jobs as the ultimate “product manager” — all decisions ran through him. As organizations grow, it’s natural for them to shed the functional structure for a divisional structure.

In listening to Ben and James talk about this, the thing that got me excited was that we could almost draw up a 2×2:

  • Functional Leader
  • Divisional Leader
  • Functional Org Structure
  • Divisional Org Structure

Naturally, you’ll want a functional leader operating within a functional org structure and a divisional leader within a divisional org structure. So, it could be that the person who looked like they had potential to be a good leader might be mismatched in the type of role they’ve found themselves in.

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This episode also made me wonder if there needs to be more intentionality around, not only finding the right kind of leader suited for the org structure, but also being clearer about what kind org structure is best for the work being done in the organization. For instance, let’s say we’re in an area of a department that’s highly segmented for projects. OK — maybe that area should be setup in a ‘functional’ way. Or, maybe let’s say that we have a department where there are some clear delineations from one group to the next delivering on big programs. OK — maybe that area should be setup in a ‘divisional’ way.

Essentially, we want to make sure we put the square pegs in the square holes inside of squares and that we put the circular pegs in the circular holes inside of the circles.

The Key to Making Good Decisions

vladislav-babienko-KTpSVEcU0XU-unsplashSorry for the clickbait-y post title. To be honest, I toyed with the idea of having a 15-20 word headline and then decided against it. Of course, there are lots of important factors that go into making good decisions and there’s been plenty of that written about online (including here on this very website). There is one thing, there is one piece of advice, though, that I don’t often come across when it comes to how to make good decisions. In a word — Fermi-ize. Huh? Yeah — Fermi-ize.

A few weeks ago, the superforecasters on the Nonprophets podcast were talking about the possibility that the current POTUS will be impeached. Part of this is because it’s “in the news” and partly because this is one of the forecasting questions that’s currently up on the platform. The framing of the question is important (as is the case with any decision!). The question asks when will POTUS cease to be POTUS (before inauguration day 2021, on inauguration day 2021, or after inauguration day 2021). We’ve got all the important components of a good forecasting question (i.e. falsifiability, etc.).

If you think about the different buckets to that question, you’ll notice that different things would have to happen for the question to resolve in a different bucket. For instance, some sort of untimely death would mean the answer is before inauguration day. So, would impeachment/removal. On inauguration day could mean that POTUS loses his bid for re-election. After inauguration day could mean he’s re-elected. It could also mean that there’s some sort of power struggle with the 2020 election whereby the vote is so close, that we find ourselves with some sort redux on Bush v. Gore (2000).

Circling back to the superforecasters podcast, listening to them (disclosure: I’m a superforecaster) discuss the prospect for impeachment was fascinating. And the main reason is because of how they were fermi-izing the problem. Right, I didn’t explain that earlier. Fermi is one of the scientists responsible for bringing us the nuclear reactor. You may have come across a question like, “How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?” This kind of a question is sometimes referred to as a Fermi problem, whereby you’ll need to breakdown the question into component parts. What’s the population of Chicago. How many people live in each house (on average). How many households have a piano (on average). How often is a piano tuned (on average). Etc. Etc. That’s Fermi-izing.

So, on the episode, listening the superforecasters Fermi-ize the prospect of impeachment — it reminded me of how decisions in the C-Suite unfold. Often times, there are a lot if inbuilt assumptions in a question that might be unbeknownst to all the people sitting around the table. In fact, it’s possible that the question might even be completely wrong. Maybe the question (if we put it back in the political terms of POTUS above) being asked is, will the House vote to impeach POTUS. Many folks think that this is a “slam dunk” that the House will do that. But, what if you’re interested in whether or not POTUS will remain as POTUS. Well, then, you’re probably more interested in whether the Senate will vote to remove POTUS from office. However, even that question might be wrong. For instance, what if the House votes to impeach, and before the trial can be had in the Senate, what if POTUS resigns (!). If you’re focused on the prospects of a Senate trial, you’ll miss the possibility of a resignation. If you’re focused on the trees, you’ll miss the forest.

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The key to making good decisions is asking good questions. And when it comes to answering good questions, you’ve got to breakdown the question into its component parts.

Whose Thinking Is It, Anyway?

juan-rumimpunu-nLXOatvTaLo-unsplashConsciousness has always been a topic that’s fascinated me. How do we know that we’re aware? How do we know that other people are aware? Where is consciousness? Who’s voice is that in my head? Do other people have voices in their heads? Fascinating.

There are a couple of things I’ve come across recently that, if this area is of interest to you, too, I suspect you’ll find compelling. The first comes from Seth Godin’s podcast, Akimbo. In particular, the episode from a couple of weeks ago. At the end of this episode, a listener asked Seth a question about consciousness. That is, “what do you think consciousness actually is.” Seth’s answered reminded me of some of the stuff I’ve come across, but the example he cites is on-point. In the context, he’s talking about the idea that the voice in our head might be a vestige of history:

Let’s think about a football game. Let’s think about the idea that there’s instant replay and there’s play-by-play and there’s the colour commentator. Now, let’s imagine that a play has just unfolded before our eyes. What happens is, the QB drops back to pass, he fakes a hand-off, he throws a long bomb, it’s going, it’s going, it’s a TD. Now, you just heard what the play-by-play announcer was saying.

“2nd and 13, Pickett under pressure, puts it up deep, and oh, what a play by Brandon Llyod. An incredible catch. A one-handed leaping catch by Brandon Lloyd.”

“This is one of the best catches you’ll ever see. Ever.”

You heard it after you saw the play on the field. Of course you did. Because the announcer also saw the play as you saw the play and after the fact, the announcer made up all of this story about what you just saw. For a moment, imagine what it would be like if it was in the reverse order. Imagine what it would be like if when you were watching a football game, the announcer, sped up by 10 seconds on the track, said what was about to happen and moments later, it did happen. How weird would that be?

Well, we have come to be comfortable with the idea that we say stuff in our narrative brain, in our conscious brain, and then we do it. But it’s probably true that it’s the opposite case. That at a base chemical level, much quicker than we come up with a narrative, we’ve already decided to do something. We’re already doing something. And then, only then, only after that fact do we come up with a narrative. It’s possible using fMRI and some thoughtful mind experiments to prove that this happens all the time. That really what we’ve got in our head is a play-by-play announcer. It’s possible that this evolved over time. That human beings talked to themselves. And that that was the version we had first of what we now call consciousness. But then, our brains evolved to the point where we could talk to ourselves without talking out loud. That language leads to this notion that we have a little man or a little woman in our head who’s telling us what to do. But, we don’t.

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Another example that comes to mind comes from another love of mine — baseball. When a pitcher throws the ball, it reaches home plate really fast. It’s so fast, in fact, that the batter doesn’t have time to think about the pitch and then decide to swing. There technically isn’t time to make a decision to swing (or not swing). So what’s happening there:

(With pitch velocities ranging between 80 to over 100 miles per hour, it takes approximately 380 to 460 milliseconds for the ball to reach the plate. Minimum reaction time between the image of the ball reaching the batter’s retina and the initiation of the swing is approximately 200 milliseconds; the swing takes another 160 to 190 milliseconds.) And yet, from the batter’s perspective, it feels as though he sees the ball approach the plate and then he decides to swing. (This discrepancy in the timing of our perceptions, though ill-understood, is referred to as the subjective backward projection of time.) One of the all-time great hitters, Ted Williams, once said that he looked for one pitch in one area about the size of a silver dollar. Not to be outdone, Barry Bonds has said that he reduced the strike zone to a tiny hitting area the size of a quarter.

Even though players know that their experience of waiting until they see the pitch approach the plate before making a decision is physiologically impossible, they do not experience their swing as a robotic gesture beyond their control or as purely accidental. Further, their explanations for why they swung/didn’t swing will incorporate perceptions that occurred after they had already initiated the swing.

We spectators are equally affected by the discrepancy between what we see and what we know. Take a group of diehard anti-free-will determinists to the deciding World Series game and have them watch their home team’s batter lose the Series by not swinging at a pitch that, to the onlookers, was clearly in the strike zone. How many do you think would be able to shrug off any sense of blame or disappointment in the batter? Indeed, how many would bother to attend the game if they accepted that the decision whether or not to swing occurred entirely at a subliminal level?

Worse, we think that we see what the batter sees, but we don’t. Not needing to make a split-second decision, we can watch the entire pitch and have a much better idea of its trajectory and whether it is a fastball, curveball, or knuckleball. And we judge accordingly. How could he have been a sucker for a change-up, we collectively moan and boo, unable to viscerally reconcile the difference in our perceptions. (Keep this discrepancy in mind the next time you watch a presidential debate from the comfort of your armchair. What the candidates experience isn’t what we onlookers see and hear when not pressured for a quick response.)

 

Quick Thoughts: Making a Difference and Honouring Future Ancestors

luis-alvoeiro-quaresma-VOaIhSvoCXU-unsplash.jpgIt’s kind of amazing how quickly things start to pile up and one’s good intentions, the proverbial “best laid plans,” are thrown to the wayside. When I first came back to writing here, my intention, my plan, was to write every workday. Slowly, I relaxed my goal to three days a week (as a way of going easier on myself with the fall returning — which meant things were picking up in my role as a public servant and as a professor). Then, things became so hectic that I was having a hard time carving out any time to write. Before I knew it, almost a month has passed since the last time I hit publish. Sigh.

As I said when I returned a couple of months ago, one of the reasons for writing is to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the page to make room for new thoughts. Even though it’s been about a month, that doesn’t mean the ideas haven’t stopped flowing. I’ve got a number of drafts in progress, so I thought that I’d go ahead and flush them out into a “Quick Thoughts” post.

Make a difference where you can. On Duhigg’s podcast a couple of months ago, there was a guest that had gone through severe trauma. All he can really do is focus on what’s in front of him. Listening, it made me wonder if it’s incumbent upon the rest of us to make a difference in bigger ways. I’m worried that I’m not expressing myself clearly here and part of me really wants to flesh this out into a longer article to nuance what I’m saying (i.e. anyone can make a big impact no matter their station in life), but I’m thinking about those among us who might be relatively lucky to be where they are. Are we obliged — should we feel obliged — to try to make the biggest impact we can?

Visualize and make it so. The “Meditative Story” from a few weeks back was also a good one. I struggle with stuff like this because it’s native to me. I grew up with influences like this (i.e. visualization, see it and believe it, etc.), but I recognize that it’s often written off as self-help hokum. Does that mean we should all dismiss it out of hand? Were all methods used today seen as the pantheon when they began? Am I using false equivalence? [Maybe.]

Oprah and Eckhart Tollle. Another good podcast episode (surprise!). This one is with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle. It really reminded me of that Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert interview from a few weeks ago. In the Oprah/Eckhart interview, Eckhart is talking about bumper stickers and how some folks will have something like, “I’d rather be fishin’,” or something like that. Then, he mentions how Ram Dass has a bumper sticker, too, that says, “I’d rather be here now.” For those unfamiliar, Dass wrote a book called Be Here Now almost 50 years ago.

Honour one’s future ancestors. I don’t remember exactly where I heard this, but I believe the context had to do with our responsibility to take care of the planet (which I’ll quibble with monetarily). The idea of us doing well by our planet as a way of honouring our future ancestors sounds lovely. Now, to quibble — there’s something about the messaging for climate change, environmentalism, etc. that just doesn’t resonate with some segments of the population. I’m not an expert here, but that part seems clear. I know that some folks try to personalize it as a way of hoping that it gets more people involved, but I don’t know that it does. Greta has certainly inspired quite a few people. I really hope that this momentum carries forward and we — as a species — are able to honour our future ancestors.

Dumb Luck, Predestined Fate, or Neither

austin-chan-ukzHlkoz1IE-unsplash.jpgThere’s lots that could be said on today’s anniversary, but the one piece that stood out to me is in The Atlantic — On 9/11, Luck Meant Everything: When the terrorist attacks happened, trivial decisions spared people’s lives—or sealed their fate. I don’t want to copy/paste the whole article here, so I’ll just include the paragraphs that hammer the point home:

In researching my new book, The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, I’ve spent the past three years reading and listening to thousands of personal stories from that Tuesday—stories from Americans all across the country and people far beyond our shores. In all those published accounts and audio clips, and in the interviews I conducted, one theme never ceases to amaze me: the sheer randomness of how the day unfolded, who lived, who died, who was touched, and who escaped. One thousand times a day, we all make arbitrary decisions—which flight to book, which elevator to board, whether to run an errand or stop for coffee before work—never realizing the possibilities that an alternate choice might have meant. In the 18 years since 9/11, each of us must have made literally 1 million such decisions, creating a multitude of alternate outcomes we’ll never know.

Randomness giveth and randomness taketh away. Some folks have a hard time believing in fate, believing that life is predestined. And to their credit, what fun would that be, if every decision you were going to make were already made for you. That you were just following some preordained plan. To others, this brings comfort. They like the idea that there’s someone or something watching over them and the rest of the world. I remember being asked the question many years ago, “Do you believe in free will or fate?” With a wry grin, I responded something to the effect of, “Hmmm, I believe that we have free will to choose to believe in fate.”

In both the Pentagon and New York, fate played a key role in the escapes. Army Lieutenant Colonel Rob Grunewald was sitting in a conference room with his colleagues when American Airlines Flight 77 hit. “The plane came into the building and went underneath our feet, literally, by a floor,” he said later. “Where everybody went and how they get out of the room is very unique, because those are where decisions are made that are fatal, or cause injury, or cause mental fatigue, or great consternation. A bunch of my officemates that were in that meeting went in one direction and unfortunately didn’t make it. The person that sat to my right, the person that sat to my left apparently went out the door and took a right, and they went into the E-Ring, where they apparently perished. A decision to go in one direction or another was very important.” For his part, Grunewald paused for a minute to rescue a colleague, Martha Cardin, and thus was just a few steps behind the others leaving the damaged conference room. In the smoke, he and Cardin turned left instead of right—a decision that saved their lives.

It is darn near impossible to know when things like this will happen and more importantly, to know when a seemingly innocuous decision to return to your hotel room to change your shirt can save your life (and change the course of your fated history or keep you on the path of your fated history). So, how can we live in a world like this? How do we reconcile? How do we make peace with making decisions in our day-to-day? How do we know when to go left and when to go right?

There are any number of ways to answer that question. The answer that’s most congruent for me — and the answer that I wish more of us chose — requires an internal alignment with ourselves. It requires knowing ourselves and trusting ourselves.

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There’s a new podcast that’s come out recently called, “Meditative Story.” It shares compelling first-person stories from people talking about a time in their life when everything changed for them. There’s one episode in particular I want to highlight here and it comes from Arianna Huffington (yes, that Arianna Huffington).

In it, she’s talking about growing up in Greece. She was thumbing through a magazine and she saw a picture of Cambridge. The moment she saw it, she knew — that was where she was meant to go. There was something inside of her, something that knew, that’s where she was supposed to be next. This, from a young woman who didn’t speak a lick of English, knowing that she’s supposed to go to a university on the other side of Europe. Details, small details.

Of course, she would go on to do the work to get herself there, but the part I want to focus on here is the alignment. When she saw the picture, something inside of her recognized a part of what her future could be — Cambridge. There was something about seeing that picture that sparked something inside of her. While it’s probably a bit much to ask for us to operate on this level on a day-to-day basis all the time (but maybe not?), part of me wishes that we could, at a minimum, increase the frequency with which we all tap into this part of ourselves to make decisions.

Science is Awesome: Humans Can Breathe Liquid

Depending upon one’s teachers at school when they were younger (or older), there can be an affinity for or a strong aversion from science. I remember fondly some of the teachers I had in science (and then in physics and chemistry, when I was able to pick different topics in science). Heck, I even remember the analogy my biology professor used to explain diffusion at university.

I recognize that not everyone feels this way about science and talks of “randomized controlled trials” (RCTs), experiments, studies, or anything with language like that can be intimidating. This is certainly frustrating. There is so much good that comes from science (of course, there are some not so nice externalities sometimes), but we’ll just say that science has certainly been a net positive for society through time. If you need a clear example, the life expectancy of a person born in the US at the turn of the last last century (1900), was mid-to-late-40’s. Nowadays, some people’s true career doesn’t start until they’ve turned 50!

Anyway, so yes, the subheadline of today’s post — humans can breathe liquid. Just as a brief aside, can you imagine how cool that would be if this were true? Can you imagine plumbing the depths of the Marianas trench (uh, a really deep part of the ocean) without needing to be in a vessel (OK, OK, easy before some of you write me to say that the human body couldn’t withstand that kind of pressure — let’s just imagine for a moment that that wouldn’t happen).

Right — breathing liquid. A few weeks ago, I came across an article that I thought was some sort of science fiction or at least theoretical (i.e. humans used to breathe liquid, but we don’t anymore). Turns out, it’s not. Turns out, doctors have newborns (!) breathe liquid to help stabilize their lungs (WTF!?). OK, so here’s an excerpt:

Seven years later [1995], another team using refined liquid breathing techniques tried PFC liquid ventilation on 13 premature babies suffering from severe respiratory distress who were not expected to survive. Liquid breathing resulted in an improvement for a majority of the infants, potentially by stabilizing alveoli and reducing surface tension within the nascent lungs. Put more simply, the premies’ lungs weren’t ready for a gas environment, and PFC provided a nurturing bridge been amniotic fluid in the womb and outside air. Incredibly, eight of the infants survived at four-month follow-up.

The human body is pretty cool, eh? Science is awesome.

Life is a Gift — and so is Suffering

lina-trochez-ktPKyUs3Qjs-unsplash.jpgA few weeks ago, there was a rather poignant interview that aired between Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper. I didn’t see or read much of the coverage of it, but the thing that kept coming across my feed was the first thirty seconds of the clip below. And, in seeing the views on this video, it looks like a lot of people were touched by the moment:

 

Here’s the first thirty seconds:

Cooper: You told an interviewer that you have learned to, in your words, ‘love the thing that I most wish had not happened.’ You went on to say, ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ Do you really believe that?

Colbert: Yes… it’s a gift to exist and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that.

Lots of folks are keying in on these thirty seconds and, naturally, there’s a lot in there to chew on. Colbert’s sadness is evident and Cooper’s empathy is very apparent as he asks the question, while choking back tears. To my eyes, it’s the 120 seconds that follows.

I don’t have the time to transcribe that bit at the moment, so I’ll just briefly summarize — Colbert talks about how important gratitude is for the things that have happened in your life, whether they are positive or negative. He’s focusing on the negative here because of the question from Cooper. He talks about how he realized the lesson of having gratitude for things that have caused him suffering, rather than learning the lesson. This is important to him and in watching it, you can feel that this is something that he feels deep in his bones. It’s not some intellectual exercise that he’s worked through to come to the conclusion that he must accept the bad with the good — it’s part of him.

With human existence, comes suffering, and Colbert believes that this suffering has allowed him to have deeper relationships with the people in his life who have also suffered. He feels like he can better understand where they’re coming from because he has had this very traumatic experience early on in his life.

The best part is his philosophy on life — wanting to be the most human — not the best human, but the most human. And since suffering is part of the human experience, he welcomes (maybe not welcomes), but he’s grateful for those experiences, too.

Uncertainty: Accounting for Known and Unknown Outcomes

jayakody-anthanas-m1wFkw-Iyt8-unsplash.jpgNote: for the last few posts, I’ve been exhausting the store-house of prewritten pieces from other websites that I hadn’t yet transferred to this website. I believe all have been posted here now, so let’s return to our regularly scheduled programming.

I’ve had an article saved on Pocket for a few months now with a section highlighted. I don’t often highlight sections of articles because I don’t often keep articles on Pocket — once I’ve read it, I delete it (so the highlighting is superfluous). However, there was an article I came across a few months ago with a passage that stopped me in my tracks. It was in a rather weeds-y article about the Twitter war strongly worded discussion (?) between Nate Silver and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I won’t get into the details of it, because it’s not really necessary for the passage that popped, though I did want to set the context, in case anyone clicked through to the link and was confused.

About halfway through the article, the author begins a discussion on uncertainty. In particular, he’s talking about two kinds of uncertainty — aleatory and epistemic. [NOTE: You’re not alone if you had to look up aleatory — I don’t recall every coming across that word.] Anyway, here’s the key bit:

Aleatory uncertainty is concerned with the fundamental system (probability of rolling a six on a standard die). Epistemic uncertainty is concerned with the uncertainty of the system (how many sides does a die have? And what is the probability of rolling a six?).

How many times have you come across a model that purports to be able to predict the outcome of something — without there being a way to “look under the hood” of the model and see how it came to its conclusions? OK, maybe looking under the hood doesn’t suit your fancy, but I bet you partake in the cultural phenomenon that is following who’s “up or down” in the election forecast for 2020? Will POTUS be re-elected? Will the other party win? Or what about our friends on the other side of the pond — Brexit!? Will there be a hard Brexit, a soft Brexit, are they going to hold another election?!

All things, all events where the author of the piece or the creator of the model might not be adequately representing (or disclosing) the amount of epistemic risk inherent in answering the underlying question.

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So let’s bring this closer to home for something that might be more applicable. You make decisions — everyday. Some of you might make decisions that have an impact on a larger number of people, but regardless of the people impacted, the decisions you make have effects. When you take in information to make that decision, when you run it through your internal circuitry, the internal model you have for how your decision will have an effect, are you accounting for the right kind of uncertainty? Do you think that you know all possible outcomes (aleatory) and so the probabilities are “elementary, my dear Watson,” or is it possible that the answer to whether you should have cereal for breakfast is actually, “elephants in the sky,” (epistemic). OK, maybe a bit dramatic and off-beat in the example there, but you never know when you’re going to see elephants in the sky when you ponder what kind of breakfast cereal to pull down off the top of the fridge.