Systems versus parts

I’m what you call a “systems” guy. I was a software architect, that not only engineered many parts of things, but figured out how they interacted which each other and the whole. It’s the difference between being a macroeconomist versus micro-economist. This effects the way I look at the world. You can’t stress enough the differences between big picture, long term people… and details focused, local focused, now kinda people. Our perceptions alter out view of the world and even universe. 

For example, let’s look at something simple; say public transportation. A now person says “how can we make things better NOW”. They think local, they think in details. Cities are congested, and light rail is cleaner and less polluting than cars, rail can carry more people, and so on. Thus light rail is good, and they become advocates.  They see a way to make the world a better place, and they often push for it. 

A systems person thinks about a lot more. Light rail, if running at max capacity is cleaner than cars and carries more people that the lane of traffic they displace, but none (in the U.S.) come close; in the U.S. they often run at about 10% capacity or is about 1/10th as effective as people think. Where you factor in the source of the power (where and what type), this changes the efficiency as well. (Frankly I don’t want 10 times the population total or density that would make them viable. But fortunately, we don’t have the birth rates or immigration rates to have to worry about that). Now factor in that the light-rail runs through traffic, and slows that traffic down; those other cars have to stop and wait for the trains, which does what? It CAUSES pollution. Far more than the cleaner trains helps. Factor any of those in, and light rail is more polluting and congestion causing than not having it. Add them all in, and it isn’t even close. Then figure out opportunity costs of capital; for each lane of rail, you could afford 4 or 8 lanes of freeway (which means a lot less lanes of cars idling and wasting gas). Or what would have happened if you spent the billions of dollars on that light rail on something else, or just left it in the economy. How much less pollution would be caused if you spent that same money greening up public buildings, or incentivizing work-from-home (telecommuting options), and so on. What about the ethics of forcing people in poor rural regions of the state or nation to subsidize rich cities? And so on. Nothing is as clear as it seems, or politicians and advocates pretend it is. 

So as a single solution light-rail sounds nifty. If you think you know what you’re talking about, or maybe if you do and you’re a specialist in rail or the local government. Then you’re frustrated by the resistance. It is obvious, why can’t the others see it? The extreme ones believe that their opponents are just bad or selfish people, puppets of special interests or oil companies, and so on, because it is so clear from their narrow little views. This view isn’t necessarily bad or good. But if it only looks at their one side, they are not being wise or enlightened, and are becoming the puppets and tools that they accuse the other side of being. They become the tools of bigger government (less efficiency and less freedom, more taxes), of big business (the companies that are going to put in the rail or the unions that control the town), of the businesses and homeowners that will get the rewards (are close to the rail). They create a lot of local benefits for a lot of state/regional costs and losses. So while they aren’t bad, they are gullible and blinded by their own ambitions to make things better; to the point of ignoring all the ways and all the people they impact by making some things worse.

Usually you can’t argue logic with people on the extremes. They are so convinced of their righteousness, that they are victims of their own emotions. Humans can rationalize any behavior because it is easier than reflection or introspection.

Well, light rail may not be good for now, but someday it will be needed and we’ll be glad we spent the money. Which is the chant of people that don’t understand business. Businessmen think about what else could you do with the money (tradeoffs) instead. What if in 10 years we make a breakthrough on flying cars, tele-porters, or just teleconferencing gets to the point that everyone has a video-office in their home and work from there? (Thus far less pressure on downtown). What if we had put that money into building up an area with less traffic; how much less pollution would there be by getting those people/cars over to a more efficient area? Suddenly that light rail was an expensive waste. Heck, you could have used the money to do something useful for society; like leave it in the hands of the businesses and people; which would have helped their kids, the economy, the poor, probably a lot more than the rail does. It is a victory if you compare it to nothing, but a failure if you compare it to alternatives.

Well some argue, it is effective in Europe it should be here too! They aren’t looking at the system. Europe has a different dynamic and has far less problems with stepping on the freedoms of their people. They have artificially high population densities because of many reasons; artificially high land costs, artificially high fuel costs, twice our taxes, half our per capita incomes, far more land pressure, double our unemployment and half our opportunity, far less mobility, and so on. Do you really want to adopt that entire system? It isn’t easy to pick just one part of it, because other parts tend to come with it.
Rail sounds fun as a solution, and I have a rail pass and use it occasionally, but if you look at the entire system, things aren’t so pretty. The U.S. economies often thrive because a lot of businesses and individuals didn’t fight for the centers of cities (where land costs are the highest), instead many moved out to cheaper and more efficient areas and made new towns or helped them thrive. Americans are more willing to move to where a job is. Europeans think old-school and centralize and increased costs and decrease efficiency, whereas we decentralized many of our cities, and across more cities, which is part of why we have a much more thriving and diverse economy than they do. It is why our poor (bottom 20%) have higher real wealth and opportunity than Europe’s middle class, and why so many of them fight to come here (and so few of us, go the other way). Do you really want to make that go away and be more like them?

Even the people you can convince of the facts, will rarely question their own underlying thought-process or philosophy. “Maybe light rail isn’t a good implementation, but surely, if we drove less, things would be greener and more environmentally friendly?” So they think, lets encourage people to walk more instead, and start working on a solution that forces that on people. They don’t get that their meddling and know-it-all nature and quick fixes / causes are the problem, they just substitute which solution will lead to utopia.

Personally, for their hearts and exercise, walking more is probably a good idea. But pollution wise? A guy the other day showed that the calories required to walk somewhere, required more land, pollution and CO2 to produce that fuel/food than it does to pump and refine the oil for the car, for the same distance. Did you catch that? It is cleaner to drive than to walk. So the narrow thinkers think backwards; they see the problem as the car because that’s what they’ve been told or want to believe, then they see things as justifying it. Cars pollute, we should reduce cars. They never factor in that their alternatives may be worse, and walking pollutes more than driving does. They failed because they didn’t look at systems, because they weren’t looking at what is, but are trying to find what they want to see. They also failed to learn that they were the problem to begin with, because they thought they knew more than the entire collection of humanity and culture that created the systems we have in place today (for many very good reasons, even if it was beyond their ability to comprehend).

It is like this for most issues. If you think the issue is clear-cut, and easy, then you are probably uninformed and not looking at the entire system. Parts interact. Heck, Systems interact. People react to changes in unexpected ways, or even expected ways that are counter to the desired outcome. Those that think they know better, usually do it from a position of ignorant youthful exuberance. When you become older, you usually become wiser, more jaded, more cynical, skeptical and systems focused and conservative. You have experience showing you that what you thought would make things better, didn’t always. Or that solutions to little problems, often made other bigger ones.

It isn’t that people who are advocating NOT changing don’t care. It just might be that we’re more informed. Change has costs. Change has risks. Change has to have a good purpose and use the good methods to actually be good; not just look at some utopian fantasy as the claimed result.

I was just using this one issue, light rail, as a simplistic example. But it happens with every issue. The ignorant decide on a cause they care about. Like they love the environment, or so on. Then they do something like fight Nuclear power because they think it is greener or unsafe — without realizing that it is far cleaner and far safer than the alternatives that we’ll use instead. So more people die in coal mines, more pollution is made (by far), power has to be pumped further (which means more loss), and so on. It doesn’t matter that they don’t mean to be hypocrites, it matters what the costs of their actions are. And the more activist they are, the more extreme they are, usually the more ignorant of SYSTEMS they are. It’s a lot harder to get out with pickets and for rallies if you’re arguing about all the trade-offs that come with your solutions.

This is why self-righteous know-it-all teens (of many ages) are usually the ones leading the charge. Have a conversation with most of them, and they are highly informed, from a completely biased and myopic point of view, on their one issue; with a complete lack of understanding about the other solutions and systems. This is also why as some people mature, become wiser, and more balanced, they become more conservative, less radical, and less crusading. Not because they don’t care. But because they learned the humility to realize that they just don’t know as much as they think they used to, or because they realize their changes come with costs that they aren’t sure they want to pay.

Just something to think about next time you see someone with a cause, or an issue that you think is obvious…