Category: Meanderings

Playing Through

Quotes on Humility #4

Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

—JOHN SELDEN, Table Talk

From The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Quotations. (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1992). 207.

Despite Global Conflict, Statistics Show Violence In Steady Decline

The world may be becoming a less violent place according to recent studies. While the numbers of persons affected by violence may be large, as a percentage of population a decline is noticeable. For instance, battlefield deaths in the 20th century occurred at a rate of 60 persons for every 100,000 people (with two World Wars and its genocides). The current rate is 0.3 persons dying in battle per 100,000 people. Stepping back far enough to pay attention to the trend is difficult when the daily news brings us real stories with real blood and real violence … may this trend continue.

It seems as if violence is everywhere, but it’s really on the run.

Yes, thousands of people have died in bloody unrest from Africa to Pakistan, while terrorists plot bombings and kidnappings. Wars drag on in Iraq and Afghanistan. In peaceful Norway, a man massacred 69 youths in July. In Mexico, headless bodies turn up, victims of drug cartels. This month eight people died in a shooting in a California hair salon.

Yet, historically, we’ve never had it this peaceful.That’s the thesis of three new books, including one by prominent Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. Statistics reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, murder and all sorts of mayhem.

In his book, Pinker writes: “The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.”

via World Becoming Less Violent: Despite Global Conflict, Statistics Show Violence In Steady Decline.

Women Making Slow, Sure Strides In STEM

I remember my dad’s reaction to the birth of our daughter followed a year later by the birth of a niece. This engineering professor suggested “its about time we learned how to celebrate daughters!” I agree and I give thanks for the Elizabeth Harbron’s of academia who create the space for women to not just survive, but thrive in the sciences … my home away from the home of my everyday work.

Rebecca Allred has fond memories of that lab at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. She and her peers spent hours there. They worked into the night for their professor, Elizabeth Harbron, because they wanted to, blowing off steam by dancing to the soundtrack of “Mamma Mia” or taking a break on Fridays to play Putt-Putt golf together.

Harbron was not only their mentor, but often a confidante. They shared their frustrations. They celebrated their successes. Several published their findings with Harbron’s guidance, a rarity for undergraduates.

“That lab was a refuge between classes. I loved being there,” says Allred, now a second-year doctoral student in the Yale University chemistry department and one of a new generation of young women who are helping change the face of the so-called STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math.

via Women Making Slow, Sure Strides In Science, Math.

Ecosystems Outlast Organisms

Stowe Boyd adds depth to Seth Godin’s observations about cities and corporations by adding a word about the difference between ecosystems (the city) and organisms (corporations).

Cities do die, actually, but very slowly. Usually cities decline when there is a cultural collapse, or when the cost of rebuilding aged infrastructure is more expensive than migrating.

However, Seth’s real point is that cities are more resilient than companies. And this is true because companies select people that fit in and reject those that don’t. Cities work the opposite way: people elect to live in specific cities, and they do so for their own reasons. They make the city fit their needs, and they become part of a myriad of semi-independent social scenes.

Cities are connectives, with people headed in many directions, loosely cooperating — obeying the traffic rules, and paying taxes — while companies are collectives, where people must subordinate themselves to a strategy and the strong ties of an organization. Cities are more resilient, flexible, and cheaper to operate than companies. Cities are superlinear and companies are sublinear.

And, as a result, the larger cities get, the more productive they become, the more responsive and adaptable they become: which is the opposite of companies, which become slower, less adaptable, and less productive (per capita) as they become larger.

via Ecosystems outlast organisms. | Stowe Boyd.

Seth’s post follows:

Cities don’t die (but corporations do)

In modern times, it’s almost unheard of for a city to run out of steam, to disappear or to become obsolete. It happens to companies all the time. They go out of business, fail, merge, get bought and disappear.

What’s the difference?

It’s about control and the fringes.

Corporations have CEOs, investors and a disdain for failure. Because they fear failure, they legislate behavior that they believe will avoid it.

Cities, on the other hand, don’t regulate what their citizens do all day (they might prohibit certain activities, but generally, market economies permit their citizens to fail all they like).

This failure at the fringes, this deviant behavior, almost always leads to failure. Except when it doesn’t.

Ecosystems outlast organisms.

via Cities Don’t Die (but corporations do) | Seth Godin