Extremistan vs. Mediocristan

These are the terms that Nassim Nicolas Taleb uses to describe two very different distributions of wealth. In Mediocristan, everyone has a roughly equal distribution of assets. Statistical observations work because the outliers won't unduly affect the observation. But in Extremistan, the distribution is orders of magnitude higher for a very few. Statistics don't work well as predictors because of the disproportionate influence of the few. It's very hard to predict what will happen in extremistan.

Taleb makes a convincing argument that we live in Extremistan. For instance, as an author, Taleb is familliar with the publishing industry's winner-take-all mentality; most book sales are from the same few books. Harry Potter is an example of a book that hit it big, whose author has profited far more than most. Extremistan is an exciting place to live, because there is more opportunity -- or, as Taleb likes to say, illusion of opportunity, because rocketing to the top is an improbable occurance.

As isolated hunter-gatherers, humans lived in Mediocristan, but with the rise of civilizations and global communication I think that genie is out of the bottle. In any discussion of fairness between people, I think we have to assume that there will be "outliers" who command far more money/power/fame than the rest.

Here's a speech by Taleb explaining some of these ideas in more detail:
A Crazier Future

This is just an introduction of some ideas; applying them to the problem of how to devise "fair" societies is still a puzzle.

A Paradise Built in Hell

This is the title of a new book by Rebecca Solnit, reviewed here by The New York Times:

Delighted by the Joy of Bad Things

The book examines how people can find a sense of joy and purpose in times of disaster -- times when business-as-usual ceases. She makes a case that top-down intervention can dampen this community spirit, purposefulness, and resourcefulness. To me, this suggests that we don't have to be so afraid of disasters; they may bring out the best in us.

Tale of Two Shelters

The folks in San Luis, Arizona, have seemingly pulled off the difficult task of building a refuge for some of the poorest in their city. Their public diner will also double as a place for the homeless to bathe, rest, and learn.

On the other hand, the homeless of Baraboo, Wisconsin, are still waiting for the local shelter to open; the project is struggling with debt and unable to complete construction.

I would guess the Arizonans ability to get the mayor involved with suggesting a location for their shelter (the old firefighters' house) was a reason for its' success. The group was able to appropriate a ready-made structure owned by the city for token rent payments. The Wisconsin group, on the other hand, has spent over $100,000 on land purchase and construction and needs another $60,000 to complete the project. They ran into unexpected delays and city code requirements as well as loss of pledged donors.

I have heard that in Islamic societies, charities were very creative, for instance running a shop at street level and the charity upstairs or in the back, such that the shop could support the charity. Would-be philanthropists should learn to (1) get the right people involved (2) reduce costs as much as possible and (3) come up with a reliable income stream to support their activity.

Homeless shelter struggles to open: Debts, lack of donor support keep the doors closed at Haven

San Luis Compassion Center to help needy

Globalism and Opportunity

I'm a day late posting about prosperity, partly because I'm not sure what to say, how to find the positives in this subject considering the current economic climate and the state of the world. I've been watching some interesting videos lately exploring some theories as to why prosperity is so unequally divided in the world, and so I guess I can share those ideas and some implications.

The video is called Guns, Germs and Steel and it's based on the work of Jared Diamond (who wrote a book of the same name, published in 2005). You can watch it for yourself on YouTube if you like. I didn't actually get through the whole thing because there was too much repetition to hold my interest, but I got the basic idea. Societies are unequal in wealth because they started with unequal resources.

Basically, Europeans started with wheat, barley, and some of the best animals available for domestication: pigs, horses, cows, and sheep. The failure of, for instance, North American societies to reach the level of productivity of European civilizations was not due to any lack of intelligence or ingenuity of the people, but rather because there were no animals suitable to pull a plow.

To me this offers a hope that as the world becomes more globalized, some currently impoverished civilizations will be able to use their skills and local resources to ensure a steady supply of nourishment that will then enable their people to focus their talents on creating abundance and prosperity for themselves and for humanity. They may have started out with a bad hand, but because of the abundant grain production of the United States, there are more opportunities than ever before.

Flies' Eyes

Robotics insights through flies' eyes

Scientists in Munich are researching the creation of intelligent machines that can interact with people directly, effectively, and safely. One current barrier to this interaction is the difficulty of creating robots that can navigate obstacles in their environment. This fascinating article from Cybernetics News roughly describes how flies can navigate obstacles with far greater speed and precision than humans given a brain about the size of the head of a pin. The flies' vision system doesn't work the way ours does, and this simpler system may be possible to implement in robotics applications.

Obama-care

Health care is an amazingly polarizing subject in the US today. Everyone agrees our current system is broken. But many see the ability to purchase care given enough money as more important than the ability of the majority of people to receive care. Also, not everyone agrees that government intervention will fix the problems.

Nearly all of us prefer a system that is responsive and inexpensive and gives the best possible care to the highest number of people. But we value our freedom very highly and generally have very little confidence in our government, which has proven to be untrustworthy time and time again.

So where in all of this can we find the positive? Well, if Obama's plan is implemented, as it looks like it almost certainly will be, the level of health care for millions of the poorest Americans will improve compared to what they have now, and that is something to be glad about.

Hiroshima Piano Playing for Peace

Piano that survived atomic bomb plays on for peace

Inside a 2-mile blast radius where the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, everything was destroyed. Well, almost everything. A piano that survived the blast has been restored by Mitsunori Yagawa, who tours Japan playing it at peace concerts. This September, to commerate 9/11, Yagawa and his piano, which still contains trace amounts of radiation and is peppered with glass shards, are coming to New York.

"I'm planning to bring this piano that was exposed to radiation to New York in the coming year, just in time for 9/11 in hopes to spread awareness about the atomic bomb and the preciousness of peace to the world," Yagawa told Reuters.