complexity

1 Comment Posted on by haley_beard2 Uncategorized

Man vs. Machine

For many years there has been a debate regarding being on “Team Human” or being on “Team Machine”. It is an issue that questions whether we need to stick to doing things the way humans have been acting or have an unfair advantage over others by using and inventing new technology. An article that helped me gain more information over this subject is “Business Does Not Need the Humanities – But Humans Do” by Gianpiero Petriglieri.

The article talks about how a few years ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost a game of Scrabble to a friend’s teenage daughter. Zuckerberg decided to write a computer program that would look up his letters in the dictionary so that he could see and choose from all the letter combinations before he played a second game with her. After the game, the teenage daughter of Zuckerberg’s friend talked about how“during the game in which [she] was play[ed] the program, everyone around [them] was taking sides: Team Human and Team Machine” (Petriglieri). This brings in the main topic of discussion within the article which is whether the machines are doing more good than harm and if it is really the machines people are rallying against.

Image result for man vs machine

image from sysomos.com

An unintended consequence of this assumption of there being teams for humanity and machine is that people believe we are up against the physical machine itself. In actuality, we are up against the people who create them. Petriglieri claims that the truth is there is no “Team Machine.” The contest is always between humans. Some humans havemachines, but those machines are not always a gift. The concerns about what technology will do to humanity cover up the problem of what powerful humans will do to the rest. If there is a “Team Machine,” it is not on the side of machines, instead it is just humans who have machines on their side. The main issue is what the machines do for leaders and to leaders, because soon enough they will be doing it for and to the rest of the population.

The complexity of the fight between people who are against machines and those who are for it, makes people wonder if any solution could be met. A solution proposed to help settle the score in the Scrabble match against the algorithm is to counter the corruption of “consciousness, community, and cosmopolitanism by a blind faith in instrumentality” (Petriglieri). By establishing the case that consciousness is more than a state of mindful composure in the present, there is consideration of the consequences of a person’s work whether that be in a private setting or in a broad space. Countering the belief of some people that a community is not just a tribe that reinforces our performances, it can be said that it is a group of people who are committed to our well-being and learning. Lastly, laying down the groundwork that cosmopolitanism is not an elite identity, introduces an attitude of curiosity regarding what lies beyond the boundaries of our territories, cultures, and faiths.

What is feared in regards to fearing the machines is that the fight might become uneven. We fear the loss of emotions humans have whether that be doubt or the feeling that there is more to humans than being productive, rational, objective, and effective. People fear losing the paradox that comprises humanity. Humans want to live and try to control the future, yet to feel alive they must be free to imagine it. By siding with machines, that paradox and all emotions associated with humans are thrown out the window. People need to keep in mind all of the gains and losses that goes with team machine, rather than think being progressive is always good.

1 Comment Posted on by katie_shore1 Uncategorized

Silverware and Sharing Spouses

Katie Shore

(Image of Julliard Flatware from Oneida)

The silverware pictured above is the exact set of silverware my parents received as a wedding gift nearly twenty years ago, and it is sitting in a drawer in my kitchen. Before listening to an episode of NPR’s “Planet Money” podcast, I had no idea what Oneida was, let alone that my family’s silverware was manufactured by the company.

Oneida silverware has an interesting and complex history. Before Oneida became a successful flatware company, it was just a “free love” commune. How did a group of people in a spouse-swapping commune become owners of a multimillion dollar company?

During the Industrial Revolution and the Second Great Awakening in the 1840s, a man named John Humphrey Noyes decided that he and some of his companions were going to start a commune in upstate New York. This community was composed of Christian Perfectionists. Perfectionists sought to perfect themselves by eliminating fear, sin, and other impure things from their lives.

Initially, the commune began producing animal traps since fur was in high demand. They mechanized this process and built nearly 200,000 fur traps per year. The commune also worked in other industries to see which would bring them the most income, and this eventually led them to the flatware industry.

Clearly, the Perfectionists had capitalist tendencies. Ellen Wayland-Smith, the great-great-great-grandniece of Noyes, describes his views about capitalism and Perfectionism in the podcast: “He thought capitalism was going to be a way of uniting humans into one sort of global market and that this can only bring good.” Contrastingly, the author of Major Problems in American Business History, Philip B. Scranton, defines capitalism as “a relentless drive for improvement, expansion, and control, defined and channeled through economic institutions (usually firms) and their interactions, and involving technological change” (9). The Oneida commune was a fusion of both of these ideas: the commune desired expansion and was innovative for the sake of profits, but capitalism also united the people to work together for the success of the company.

Despite his capitalist views, Noyes also avidly supported “Bible communism,” meaning that the business’s profits were shared, and everything was owned by everyone. Essentially, it was a form of religious socialism. This idea of “Bible commune-ism” was implemented because Perfectionists had to be unselfish; sharing was caring. Members of the commune even shared spouses!

The idea of “free love” made people uncomfortable. The podcast discusses America becoming more religiously conservative around this time too. In the late 1800s, the government became more suspicious of so-called unconventional religious groups, including the Mormons and Perfectionists. Rumors also got out that Noyes was having sex with and raping underage girls. Before any charges could be brought against him, he fled to Canada in 1879.

Without their fearless leader, the Perfectionists decided to close the commune and stop sharing spouses beginning in 1880. Since everyone owned part of the business, they decided to establish a joint stock company called Oneida Company Limited in which the adult members had stock.

Not only did these men and women have to adjust to a new way of life, but this new company had to succeed as many changes took place in the United States economy because of the Gilded Age. Luckily, Noyes’s son Pierrepont emerged and decided that Oneida needed to specialize. With the growth of the middle class, he thought that producing silver-plated flatware was the best option; it looked nicer than steel utensils and wasn’t as expensive as those made of sterling silver. Additionally, he engraved many of the pieces to increase their perceived value. Pierrepont also heavily emphasized marketing and advertising, selling his flatware using innovative new ads that included artwork and images.

A silverware advertisement from Oneida, New York. (Photo/The Oneida Community House)

(Image of a 1924 Oneida Advertisement from The Oneida Community House)

As time went on, Oneida struggled as tastes altered and cheaper imports began to emerge. The company even went public in the 1960s, despite its history of being family-operated. About ten years ago, Oneida filed for bankruptcy, but today, you can still buy Oneida silverware. The brand now exists within a group known as The Oneida Group.

Throughout Oneida’s history, we can see the interactions between business, state, and society. Oneida went from being just a spiritual-based commune to forming a very lucrative business within this community. The state and society significantly affected Oneida’s behavior from causing them to abandon their practices of “free love” due to governmental suspicions to causing the company to respond and adapt to consumer demand. In particular, Oneida Company Limited’s success came from understanding society’s desire – especially the middle class’s desire – for attractive, yet affordable, silverware and their ability to market their products to the masses.

It’s fascinating to think that one man’s desire for spiritual perfection led to the creation of a socialist commune and a brand of flatware. The next time I eat using our Oneida silverware, you can bet I’ll be thinking about Oneida’s intriguing past…

 

1 Comment Posted on by katie_shore1 20th century

Let There Be Light!

Katie Shore

Light bulb

(Image of a Light Bulb from BBC News)

Since the beginning of time, light has been a human necessity. While natural light is nice and all, it wasn’t always available when humans needed it. When the sun went down, the day was over, but new and efficient forms of light fixed this problem. Now, I can study in my well-lit room as late into the night as I want rather than sleeping as I should.

It took a long time to develop the accessible electricity that I use today for my late night studying. NPR’s “Planet Money” podcast titled “The History of Light” goes as far back as four thousand years ago to the time of the Babylonians to analyze the difficulties of creating and using light. Bill Nordhaus, an Economics professor at Yale, conducted his own experiments to emulate how the ancient Babylonians produced light. He determined that to generate a mere ten minutes of light during this time, a person would need to spend an entire day’s worth of wages.

One would expect that as the years went on, innovations would allow people to spend less money on light and get more of it. On the contrary, Nordhaus explains that improvements generally didn’t do much: “From Babylonian times to around 1800, there were – even though there were improvements as best we can tell, they were very modest.”

Creating light was a process involving a great deal of complexity. For example, some people made candles out of beef fat. This process involved raising, feeding, and then killing a cow to extract and melt its fat. Wicks then needed to be dipped in the fat and dried. Only after lots of work would you have some candles that would produce a minimal amount of light. One of the narrators of the podcast tried this technique and spent several hours making candles, which are pictured below.

(Images of Beef Fat Candles from Jacob Goldstein of NPR)

If you didn’t want to make candles out of beef fat, then you had a few other options. Some killed whales for their fat and burned whale oil to generate light. This tactic created about an hour of light for a day’s worth of wages. Likewise, the Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest would catch salmon and turn them into candles. The petrel, an oily seabird, was turned into a candle by putting a wick down its throat and lighting it. Still, there had to be an easier way to get light that didn’t involve killing animals…

Finally, in the 1800s, scientists began experimenting to try to produce better, more efficient forms of light. In 1850, a man named Abraham Gesner developed kerosene, which provided more light and was cheaper than other light sources at the time. It also didn’t require any animals to be killed and produced five hours of light for a day’s worth of wages.

The most significant breakthrough was Edison’s invention of the light bulb and cheaper electricity. Banker J.P. Morgan funded Edison, which allowed him to build a power plant that would illuminate his lightbulbs. In 1882, the plant was completed in Lower Manhattan, and it was able to power part of the area. Edison’s power plant involved a great deal of complexity as well. He had patents to protect his innovative ideas, and investors gave him a lot of money to support his efforts. Ultimately, Edison created a safe, inexpensive, and efficient source of light that was revolutionary at the time.

Now, one day’s worth of wages can purchase 20,000 hours of light. We have sure come a long way from the ten minutes of light a day’s wages could buy in the Babylonian times.

The creation of a new source of light created some unintended consequences. Edison’s power plant burnt a great deal of coal, which caused a lot of pollution. Additionally, this new technology provided humans with opportunities far beyond just light, as the podcast’s host notes: “This one little story, it explains why we are where we are today, why billions of people don’t have to worry about starving today, why we aren’t all subsistence farmers, why we can afford to have artists and massage therapists and plumbers and, yes, radio reporters doing stories about the history of light.” Who would have thought at the time that more accessible lighting solutions would have such a significant impact on humanity? Now, almost everything that we do somehow involves electricity or a source of light.

Today, we have lots and lots of light, and the quest for even better light sources continues. Companies such as John Edmond’s Cree continue to create better, more efficient lighting solutions such as LED light bulbs. From street lights to desk lamps to car headlights, we live in a well-lit world.

The future is bright for humanity, and it’s because of light.

 

 

2 Comments Posted on by matt_pouchain1 Uncategorized

Narconomics: Corporations VS Cartels

The book Freakonomics wrote by the economists Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, has a definition as “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”. Such definition coincided with an in-class discussion which a student questioned: “if a smuggler would classify as a businessman and/or entrepreneur”. Based on that inquiry,  I recollected the chapter three of Freakonomics in which the authors compare a street gang organization with corporate monopolies. Thus, it was a direct match with my in-class discussions.

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(Picture from Netflix “Narcos”)

In short, the book describes the organization of the Black Disciples street gang mirrored the structure of most corporate monopolies. To further my understanding, I read Susan Chandler’s article, Gangs Built on Corporate Mentality from the Chicago Tribune. Both sources agree when comparing the structural organization of the Black Disciple to Mcdonals and Walmart. Their system was incredibly efficient, and the gang was adept at putting the right people in the right jobs, including identifying legitimate business opportunities to launder cash. A lot of these people could have been business leaders if they had chosen to run a legitimate firm instead of a drug cartel. Nevertheless, the similarities go beyond this point. As Tom Wainwright claims, one theory behind the similarities is that the cartels in the area have what economists call a “monopsony.” A monopsony is a monopoly on buying in the area and is often associated with Walmart. In addition, like many large franchises, including McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Walmart itself, the gang members pay fees and “taxes” for the right to sell drugs and for “protection”, while the employee to boss hierarchy in the gang resembles a pyramid. 

At the bottom of the pyramid are the basic jobs; cashiers, burger flippers, and in the case of the Black Disciples, foot soldiers or those who actually sell crack on street corners. Then there is the second base tier. These people are the department managers, who manage specialized jobs. In a corporation, they make sure all the shelves are stocked, and storage rooms organized. They put all the cash from the registers into a safe at night. In the case of the Black Disciples, those employees are known as officers. A officers duty is to make sure that the drug supply and money are delivered to the appropriate people at the appropriate location. They keep the ledgers and books up to date, and they make sure lower level employees stay in line. At the third level of the pyramid is the manager himself or the gang leader. However, even store managers and drug gang leaders have to report to a higher authority. This is the top tier of the pyramid: The directors- or as the Black Disciples call them, the board of directors. These are the ‘hot shots” that truly receive the capital return. Their duty is to run and assist all branches of their franchise and make sure everyone is pulling their own weight and delivering money into the board’s pockets. 

The two “Big Ideas” for this course that emerges through this controversial comparison are complexity and capitalism. The Black Disciples’ operations plan is extremely compound including a pyramid structure for control and even a starting of a genuine business to launder the money. Their pyramid structure has a lot of “do and don’ts” and can be seen everywhere in the business world, as it resembles the organization of governments, schools, big businesses, and drug gangs. When exploring their system to the extreme, Jonathan King said: “I’ve always believed they were run the way IBM should have been run…”  What he said was that their(the gang’s) system would have been beneficial for a multimillion dollar company that had numerous skilled educated professionals working with an experienced board of directors. Why does it work? I understand that it works because it operates on the power of incentivized opportunity and hope. We as citizens or people trying to make the best possible living, see these board members, as the standard goal for how we would like to live. We see their achievements and wealth as our personal end goal. We also have been taught that to get there, you have to start from the bottom.  As children, we are told stories of poor, unfortunate heroes going on quests up in the social ladder until they become princess and kings. How did they get there? Hard, relentless work. A theme that is even echoed in the infamous American dream. The possibility of one day reaching that top tier of the economic pyramid makes us take low paying, 9-5 jobs in the hope that one day, we too will sit on that board of directors.  If you were working at the cashier at Walmart or selling crack on a street corner, your ultimate goal is still the same. It wouldn’t be outrageous to affirm that drug gangs and corporations have great synergy and a high correlation- there was even an annual company picnic for the gang members. In the end, we are just hoping for economic success and a life of comfort.

1 Comment Posted on by trevor_rogers1 20th century, unacknowledged assumptions

The Transformation of Corporate Lobbying

Trevor Rogers

When one envisions corporate lobbyists one might picture a man in an expensive suit and a too white grin wining and dining a shady congressman. This is the image that comes to mind when we think of what a lobbyist truly does. However, lobbying is a relatively recent phenomenon, taking Washington by storm in only the last few decades. In the article, “How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy” Lee Drutman details the history of lobbying and how the practice transformed over time into its current iteration.

The “Big Idea” that is most prevalent within lobbying is its complexity, especially its transformation over time. So let’s go through the history of lobbying and discover how it has transformed. Starting off in the Gilded Age we had a time of extreme influence by business in the government, pushing for certain legislation. This relationship was disrupted by a Great Depression and two World Wars. Now skipping ahead to the 1960’s we had a system where labor unions had significant influence in legislation, not the corporations. At this time it seemed futile for corporations to spend money lobbying for legislation, with one prominent corporate lawyer even commenting about how useless it was to try to influence legislation.

As every business executive knows, few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders. If one doubts this, let him undertake the role of ‘lobbyist’ for the business point of view before Congressional committees.”

     As we can see the attitude of businessmen towards influencing the government was essentially, “Well, we can’t get anything done, so why even try?” That was the case until 1972 when the Business Roundtable was founded by several prominent businessmen. John Harper, CEO of Alcoa, remarked ” I think we all recognize that the time has come when we must stop talking about it, and get busy and do something about it.” His comment reflects the frustration felt by businessmen at their inability to influence the legislation that so directly effected their lives. After a few corporations sent lobbyists to Washington and started actually influencing bills, such as a major labor law reform and lowering corporate taxes, they began seeing just how successful lobbying could be. There was a major shift that occurred during the late 80’s that is perfectly captured by this quotation by a lobbyist, “Twenty-five years ago…it was ‘just keep the government out of our business, we want to do what we want to do,’ and gradually that’s changed to ‘how can we make the government our partners?’ It’s gone from ‘leave us alone’ to ‘let’s work on this together.'”

  With the current state of lobbying we must now focus on another “Big Idea”, and that is the unintended consequences that came with allowing corporations and lawmakers to become such tight partners. We now are faced with a modern lobbying scene with more than the $2 billion spent to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). For every dollar spent on lobbying for labor unions, large corporations spend 34, totally flipping the status quo from the 60’s and 70’s. Corporations are now able to play both offense and defense against government policies, getting some passed and others blocked, whichever ones they deem to have the most benefit to themselves. So how to we get back the balance? How can we reverse this pattern of corporate control? Well, Drutman has a few ideas. First, we must invest more into the Government, especially Congress. This would allow the leading policymakers to have the resources that are necessary so that they can hire and retain experienced staff, so they will not have to rely so much of lobbyists. Second, organizations that advocate for policies that are less well-funded need more financial support.

Overall, we are posed with this simple question. Who do we want creating legislation that affects this country and our own personal lives, our elected representatives or multi-billion dollar corporations?