On Billionaires and Butterflies

 

 Jeff Bezos went to space, and I was watching Princess Weiyoung again, and had some thoughts I wasn't sure how to put down.

I think I want to start with Hope for the Flowers, actually. I've talked about it before, but for anyone who stumbles across this and doesn't want to dig for it, I'll summarize.

Hope for the Flowers is a story about a caterpillar. He's born and eats and wonders about what his purpose in life is, and one day he sees something that draws his attention. As he gets closer he sees that it's a pillar of caterpillars, and they're all desperately trying to get to the top. He soon joins the crowd, wondering what's there... but it's tough and frustrating and you have to climb over the other caterpillars to get anywhere. 

And one day he makes eye contact with another caterpillar, and feels a connection. Together the leave the pillar, and they're happy for a time. 

But it's not enough.

They argue, and he decides to go back to the pillar. Whereas the other caterpillar wanders for a bit, and runs into a caterpillar creating a cocoon. She's not really sure what she's doing, but she tries to follow her instincts... and soon starts creating her own.

Our main character, though, is determined to get to the top. After all, he gave up a lot for it. So this time he refuses to let anything get in his way. He climbs over the other caterpillars, keeps pushing, and eventually gets reeeeaaaaaallllyyyy close. Then he hears someone say "We can't go any further, they are blocking the way". The pillar shakes, and he sees caterpillars fall. When things finally settle, he hears someone above him say "There's nothing here!" 

"Don't tell anybody! We can't let them know"

(He then sees a butterfly, one that seems strangely familiar, and that reminds him of the caterpillar he left behind. So he turns around and heads back down, but this time he sees the potential for a butterfly in every caterpillar he passes by.)

I bring this up a lot... well. The symbolism seems pretty obvious. And the caterpillar pillar is a great representation of all those things we hate. The rat race. The feeling that you have to play the game to get ahead, and even step on others. 

I also really liked that potential butterfly, because yes... every single person has the potential to be a butterfly.

And I like the struggle to learn how to build a cocoon, how you don't really know what you're doing or where it will lead to, you just know that there's some internal instinct you have to follow. (I just wish... Well. I want to be a butterfly, not another caterpillar in the struggle. But I don't think I've reached butterfly status yet, and I'm not really sure how to make that happen. It's hard to follow those instincts when you've got  bills to pay, you know?)

The reason I brought that up was for something different this time. Mainly about what happens with the ones who make it to the top of the pillar.

Because in order to reach that, they have to become just like everyone else... Have to be willing to step on others. Have to harden their hearts. Have to stop seeing their fellow caterpillars and their potential butterfly inside.

There are some who can be transformative... that's the appeal, for example, of my book on enlightened capitalists. Ones who see the potential butterfly and learn how to build systems that help people form their cocoons, and grow.

So I'm not saying every single person who makes it to the top has done so by hardening their hearts... but it seems like far too many do.

Which makes it very difficult for them to change the system. How can you envision something new, envision a world of butterflies, when you've succeeded by becoming the toughest caterpillar around?

These billionaires... the Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk... they're not without some considerable talent.

I was talking with my Little about electric cars, and how a decade or so ago they seemed impractical. Sure, you could have an electric car to get around town... but where would you charge it if you went on a road trip?

But Elon Musk worked hard, not just to create Tesla, but also to create charging stations and give Tesla drivers a way to find them.

Systemic change.

So that now electric cars are less unthinkable.

I also remember hearing some tech guy who sold his invention to Windows, who commented that Windows had a much better organization for developing it further and putting it into use.

And as for Jeff Bezos - well, I've been learning AWS (Amazon Web Services) for work, and I do have to give him credit for all of that. The cloud is quite an operation. As is the convenience of Amazon, and the many ways it's almost impossible to avoid using them. (Not so happy about how he treats the workers that ship his stuff. My previous job was in shipping, and I know how exhausting it is to pick parts and ship them. It's no wonder so many of our employees wind up with bad knees and bad backs, no matter how often you teach them about ergonomics. And I remember how we saw clips of Amazon's distribution centers... the automation, the cleanliness. They apparently automated so much of the picking that many workers now just have to wait and pack what gets brought to them. And then I heard that this is actually causing more workplace injuries... which makes sense when I think about it. Most of our pickers would walk a few feet, lean down or reach up to pick parts and count them, put them in the bin, walk a bit more to the next place... and sometimes then switch over to packing. If all you do is pack, you're doing a lot more repetitive motion in the same location. It's less reaching up, walking, reaching down, walking, etc. So it probably shouldn't have been a surprise that more of them get injured.)

They do have talent, and I do think they deserve to be paid more. In general. But more as in 'hundreds of times more than their lowest paid employee',  not thousands. Especially because any good leader knows that the entire system works because of their whole team. It's not just one person (and as Jim Collins points out, it's kind of a warning sign when someone says "I alone" can fix something. No... you, with the team you build, can accomplish great things. It's never you alone.)

The point then is this - for all their accomplishments, they succeeded in this system. Which makes it very difficult for them to be the ones changing it. 

After all, it worked for them. And worked very nicely. The things they did to succeed, to get to the top, may just be perpetuating itself...

And for many, I would say that ignoring that quiet inner voice and 'playing the game' may get you to the top of the pillar, but it won't turn you into a butterfly.

Update, Covid Style

 I'd been mulling over something about Jeff Bezos and his recent trip to space, and other things... but first I guess I'll write about Covid.

I've mostly stopped talking about it because minds seem to be made up. People either are taking it seriously and getting vaccinated, or they aren't. At this point the people holding out seem to be either children under 12 (and thus ineligible for the vaccine), minorities who have reasons to distrust the state, people who have a hard time getting to a vaccine location, and MAGA folks. I've seen some discussions trying to say that it's more than just MAGA, but honestly I'd like to see a breakdown of how many fit each category. It's still worth trying to do outreach, but the hardcore holdouts seem to be MAGA.

The big issue is Delta, of course. (And people were predicting mutations over a year ago, so it's not exactly a surprise, but still).

I had heard of 'breakthrough' cases, and was seeing enough examples and attention to it to believe that it's more common than we had hoped, but as Israel shows... it does appear that the correlation between new case rates and the death rates a week or two later has been broken (decoupled) in fully vaccinated populations. Israel is seeing an increase in new cases, but they haven't yet seen the equivalent bump in death rates.

Of course, the US hasn't done such a great job at vaccinating everyone... so I imagine we'll still see some correlation. I'm just not sure how much (i.e. there are states with low vaccination rates that have seen a rather scary increase in cases, but it still should take a week or two to see how badly that affects the death rate.)

From all accounts it does appear as though Delta is more contagious, and hits harder. I keep hearing that younger people are catching it and winding up in the hospital. So...  That's not good.

What's also scary is that even if someone sees the increase and decides to get vaccinated now, it'll still take a month or so before they're considered fully vaccinated. And Delta is moving fast, which means they might not have that month.

By fast, I'm referring to how Florida (and other states) have seen their new cases spike to rates almost as bad as our winter peak, and at least to their summer peak last year. Except that it took months to reach that state before, and now we're seeing it within a couple of weeks? Yeah, it's moving fast, and there's not a lot of time.

While on the personal level I am sorry for anyone suffering, and I hope as many people can be persuaded to get vaccinated as possible, it does seem pretty obvious that this is hitting the Republican base the worst.

Which is, again, something that was predictable. It seem strange that they didn't realize that earlier, but then I guess short-sightedness is pretty common these days.

Anyways, not much to do except mitigate my own risks (we had been returning to the office, but then someone tested positive and I pretty much said I was going to keep working from home unless they insist. And I've decided to mask up when going anywhere public again, mostly because vaccinated people can still be carriers.)

We'll see what the rates are in the next month or so. 

The Myth of Panic

This was an interesting read, especially because it offers an explanation for something I've been puzzled by.

Mostly just why, over and over again, people in positions of power utterly fumble their handling of a disaster. They get too focused on 'perception management', hiding the problem, and controlling information instead of, you know... Actually leading and taking care of their people.

Its the sort of behavior that seems so cliche in movies.  The kind of thing you think wouldn't really happen. At least, not in an open society like ours. Because ofc fumbling the response to a disaster is going to make you lose politically, and you can't truly hide a death toll.

And yet...

I have clearly had to reevaluate how likely it is for duly elected leaders to think like this. The arguments about preventing panic, the comments about treating the disaster as a public relations problem instead of actually handling the disaster. It's all pretty much on the nose for Trump's attempt to handle the coronavirus, at least as far as I can tell from various articles and posts.

At least this article offers some sort of (mistaken) logic for what seemed, to me at least, to be an obviously dumb and grossly negligent response. 

On the Trump Post-mortems

I am doing my best to ignore the previous president. I think letting him fade into irrelevance is honestly the best thing (other than keeping tabs on their continued efforts to stir up trouble, and I really wish we'd gotten a bipartisan investigation into Jan 6th), so I wasn't sure I really wanted to read about the latest books on his administration.

But there's a quote here I wanted to address -

“(W)e have a base like no other. They’re very angry. That’s what happened in Washington on the sixth… I’ll bet you it was over a million people… Many, many people have told me that was a loving crowd. It was too bad, it was too bad that they did that.”

—Harry Siegel.

Because I'll tell you, his base is not the only one that's angry. And while I don't want to escalate anything (and lead to the domestic conflict some people seem hellbent on creating) I, and many others, are feeling exactly what Barr told him.

I'm tired of this shit. 

Biden won, and is in office, so it doesn't seem too relevant right now. But they'd better not start anything serious. 

Food for Thought

My brother shared this, and I think I'll ruminate on it a bit.

Kind of busy this weekend, so I can't dig into it now, but it's an angle I hadn't considered before. 

Addendum

I need to get some sleep, so I'll try to expand on this tomorrow...

But it's worth asking 'what sorts of environments encourage people to listen to that still, inner voice?'

Because I assure you, people who are stressed out and overworked will not find it easy.

And if Trump deliberately was trying to exhaust people with his nonsense, I assure you that that's a tactic for worldly control and also makes it harder for people to hear it. 

Gentle Whispers

I really liked this thread, and think more people should take the time to really ask themselves this sort of question.

That's probably not a surprise, given some of the other things I've posted. Encouraging people to listen to their 'higher self', perhaps. Or (if you want to go the Biblical route) the 'still small voice' or gentle whisper.

The one thing I'll add is this.

I think only good comes from listening to that inner voice, and that our needs don't conflict when we do.

That is, trying to create space to listen, or help other people to do so, may have surprising results... But those results are ultimately better for everyone.

Seeing someone succeed doesn't harm me, and my success doesn't come at their expense. 

Climate Change

The crazy heat wave in the Pacific Northwest has me thinking about climate change lately.

That's not to say that I didn't think about it before, it's just that people have been talking about it my entire life.

And there's almost always some global agreement to 'do something', though it's pretty much always known that it wasn't enough...

But having that out there for decades makes it seem less immediate, I guess. Or we compartmentalize and don't really think about it.

But it's really here, it's really happening, and yet again there doesn't seem to be any real action to address it.

I've heard people talking about how the pandemic has divided us much like climate change, except it's happening on a faster scale...

And the thing of it is, there does seem widespread support for action. Maybe not among the same people who don't take the pandemic seriously, but almost everyone else accepts the science.

So it feels like the real problem is that there's a group of powerful people who are successful at stonewalling things.

And I couldn't care less if they were the only ones affected, but that's not the case.

It really sucks that there's going to be so much pain and suffering (and already has been) because a group of foolish, selfish, powerful people are basically ruining things for everyone.

Its true... There's only so much I can do by trying to recycle (and I've heard stories about how impossible it is to really recycle plastic, and about how much actually winds up in the garbage exported to poorer nations) and its just...

Really rather maddening.

This sucks, so much of it sucks, and the fools who've convinced themselves it's not real seem determined to force everyone to suffer the consequences of their delusions.

I suppose we can still hope that the 2022 midterms will change the current political situation. Despite my comments here, it seems highly likely that Republicans lose (barring actions some of them seem perfectly willing to take, no matter how destructive and illegal they are). 

Because no amount of 'we told you so' is worth the crap we're all going to be dealing with if these selfish assholes succeed at what they're trying to do. 

Privilege, Externalities, and More

I've been thinking a bit about the concept of a whipping boy.

I don't actually know how common the practice was, my understanding of it is this: a noble can't get paddled (or whipped) when they get their lessons wrong. This also, obviously, took place when corporal punishment was common when teaching.

Anyways, can't punish the young master, so what do you do?

Apparently, it's get some poor boy and give him an education... And also punish him for the young master's mistakes.

It sounded pretty terrible when I first heard about it, and tbh still does. It's got all the things we hate about spoiled, privileged, 'elites' who never suffer the consequences of their own actions.

However, I've been thinking that the callousness, lack of empathy, and willingness to see someone suffer are not actually... Inevitable?

And for most people, for people who do show some concern for their fellows, such a punishment can actual be worse. (still not saying it's acceptable, just thinking about the psychology here).

That's because many people are willing to deal with the consequences of their own actions, but are seriously ashamed/sorry/regretful when they're actions lead to someone else getting hurt.

Its one thing for me to do something stupid when I'm the only one injured... Like falling out of a tree.

Its another thing entirely when other people are affected.

That is, in many ways, the duty entrusted to officers in the military.

You are responsible for the lives of the people under your command, and your decisions can literally mean life or death for them.

Now, if you dwell on that too long you can second guess yourself and waffle so much that you don't do anyone any good, so a certain amount of distancing yourself makes sense. But at the end of the day, you still need to be aware of the trust placed in you...

And do your best to live up to that trust, to make the best decisions for you and your troops.

I know I've complained before about the fools in charge

Their arrogance, the lack of empathy, the way they think they're somehow better and deserving when they're at best ordinary (like the CEOs who fail and yet still get a golden parachute), and I've talked before about who suffers the consequences of their decisions.

And that gets at the heart of the issue, I think.

If you are blessed to be in a position of power and influence, where your decisions impact hundreds of millions of people, you have a sacred obligation to do your best for everyone whose lives and livelihoods are in your hands.

The complete failure of our so-called elites to live up to that trust should be a searing indictment.

600,000+ people needlessly dead in a pandemic?

People freezing to death in Texas?

The heat wave in the pacific northwest, one so drastic any reasonable person can see its related to climate change?

The inability of the people with power and influence to address that effectively?

Collectively, our so-called elites are failing to live up to their obligations.