Complexity

As a society, we have created many complex systems. Think medicine, education, and finance as prime examples. In parallel to these collectives, we also create perhaps a false belief that each individual in these systems should focus on their selfish selves and, by doing just that, these collectives will prosper and make progress.

Atul Gawande talked about these issues eloquently using an example in medicine.

He said "The truth is that the volume and complexity of the knowledge that we need to master has grown exponentially beyond our capacity as individuals. Worse, the fear is that the knowledge has grown beyond our capacity as a society. When we talk about the uncontrollable explosion in the costs of health care in America, for instance—about the reality that we in medicine are gradually bankrupting the country—we’re not talking about a problem rooted in economics. We’re talking about a problem rooted in scientific complexity."

He further added "That’s why we as doctors and scientists have become ever more finely specialized. If I can’t handle 13,600 diagnoses, well, maybe there are fifty that I can handle—or just one that I might focus on in my research. The result, however, is that we find ourselves to be specialists, worried almost exclusively about our particular niche, and not the larger question of whether we as a group are making the whole system of care better for people."

Overall, Gawande raised very fundamental questions for society to seriously consider and take some actions NOW before it is too late. Also, how do we make sure that the new generations are raised to ask important questions about collectives and their roles in them?

Sensemaking through comparison

There was an OpEd article in the New York Times a while ago. It portrays the contrasts in decision making, attitudes, and actions between the treatment of military and schools in the U.S. Here is the link to the article.

I found the comparison to be a powerful reminder for all of us especially why we blame teachers on school failures.

Here is an interesting quote from the story:

WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.

And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.

Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

Who am I?

One of the highlights from Kung Fu Panda 2 is the pondering from Po, the panda, on the question "Who am I?"

I think all of us, at one point or another, may have a similar question popped up in our head. We often let some past experiences define who we are.

According to Kung Fu Panda 2, we cannot go back and change the past regardless of how much we may want to. Of course, the past may leave scars. But scars do fade.

Responsibility and character: Active sculpting of reckless mindset

Here is a quote from Gretchen Morgenson, a New York Times reporter on her recent NPR interview regarding the reckless behaviors of Fannie Mae that provide a template for reckless behaviors later on Wall Street.

"If you had had regulators doing their job, and if you had had a tough overseer of Fannie Mae who made it increase its capital, who made the company take greater care with some of its loans that it - that it guaranteed or bought, then you wouldn't have had this problem. So you can't lay it simply at the feet of Fannie Mae, but you have to throw in all of these other characters that were acting in their own interests.

It wasn't about the homeowner. It wasn't about expanding home ownership so that immigrants could, you know, build a nest egg for their children, because the kinds of loans these immigrants were given had absolutely no ability to build a nest egg. They were so punishing in their terms, that there was no way the immigrant could possibly pay them off.

So it was an idea, but the execution - the idea was OK. The execution was disastrous. And it was because there were so many self-interested people at the trough."

Imagining university

Here is one perspective to understand universities in today's world. Imagine a spatial unit that stands on three legs. The three legs are financial viability, student learning, and knowledge boundary.

Lately, research universities have increasingly focused on the first leg (financial viability) and, to some extent, the third leg on a push for new knowledge through funded research. This is because funded research serve both purposes. However, this leads universities to become unbalanced and perhaps unsustainable in the long run. The fact that many universities do not offer "meaningful learning experiences" is very disturbing.

So, the daunting question is how to maintain all these three goals in a more balanced way in order to obtain sustainable progress? Not easy indeed.

Increasing concerns about the consequences of excessive technology use

In recent years, some people have become skeptical about the role of technology like Facebook orTwitter and in some cases, the role of private companies and their influence on our lives and our digital identity.

• Here is a TEDtalk on the concern of "overcustomization" of information that we see, not under our control though, but from the decisions of some companies (e.g., Google, Facebook) to select only the information that they think we like to see. For example, people who have affinity for travel are more likely to receive results related to resorts, travel destinations when type in a country name in Google. On the other hand, people whseems o are more politically inclined may see results related to a recent unrest in that country. Essentially, the overcustomization makes us become narrower and narrower to just a bubble that is full of ourselves. This does not sound like a good thing and to defeat the original purpose of the Internet.
  
  
• Here is an article in the New York Times on the concern of an overuse of social media like Facebook and Twitter. The obvious drawback is "distractions". However, there are more grave concerns when it comes to young adults' over-reliance of Tweets (140 characters) for news. The concern is "We may raise a generation that has information but no context ... Craving but no longing." Indeed, this is a very serious concern.
  

Just imagine ...

I found the analogy that Atul Gawande uses in this illustration of the consequences of errors made in medicine with errors made in the game of baseball to be intriguing and may worth reflecting. Here how it goes:

"Imagine, though, that if every time Mike Lowell threw and missed, the error cost or damaged the life of someone you cared about. One error leaves an old man with a tracheostomy; another puts a young woman in a wheelchair; another leaves a child brain-damaged for the rest of her days. ... Someone would want to rush to the field howling for Lowell's blood. Others would see all the saves he's made and forgive him his failures. Nobody, though, would see him in quite the same light again. And nobody would be happy to have the game go on as if nothing had happened. We'd want him to show sorrow, to take responsibility. We'd want the people he injured to be helped in a meaningful way." From Better by Atul Gawande.

I want to add a few sentences to this story. Yet, in the end, nothing happens. The world goes on as if none of these happened. The bottom line is, sometimes, we don't use these failures to be better.