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The Three Things this Week are the concepts of Meliorism, Wicked Problems, and Confidence Intervals. I really like the ramifications of thinking through conservation issues as a Wicked Problem. And I realized that I am a complete and total Meliorist. Meliorism In studying the philosophy of deviance in leisure this word kept appearing: meliorism. I’d never heard of it before. Meliorism: the belief that the world can be made better by human effort I guess I never thought about Meliorism. I’ve had the Hobbesian discussions with people about whether people are inherently good or bad but I suppose I’ve always assumed that focused and directed human effort toward making the world better can, in fact, make the world better. I’ve never thought anything different. My assumption has always been that most people aren’t striving to actively make the world a better place but are instead just trying to survive (e.g. make money, feed their family, provide for basic needs) or trying to build their life in accordance to the values they believe in (e.g. being a member of their family, of their community, of their church, etc). I’ve always assumed that our problems of pollution, overpopulation, overexploitation, and habitat destruction (let alone all social ills of crime, homelessness, etc) are repercussions of poor management of the commons and our basic desires for survival and maintaining the status quo. Additionally, I’ve always believed that there are people who try to meet those two basic desires while simultaneously choosing to direct their efforts toward betterment of the group. This can manifest itself as police officers, politicians, and priests or revolutionaries, social workers, and conservationists. Whether you feel you are helping the world or not is subjective and whether you actually are or not is difficult to quantify and dependent on your rubric. I’ve thought this way and apparently that is Meliorism. The opposite belief is that we can’t make the world better. Existentialism, nihilism, apathy, anomie and cultural subjectivity all play into this idea a little bit but the belief that you cannot objectively make the world a better place is so odd to me. Existentialism and nihilism as philosophies just say that you are choosing your moral structure and defining your own meaning and purpose. Apathy and anomie intuit that you just don’t care. Even Zen or Taoist acceptance are exercises in accepting the world as it is but make no reference to an inability at betterment. The conscious belief that the world cannot be made better ignores these personal choices and extends beyond the idea of checking out. It is an idea that presupposes an objective standard of what better is that will never be met. The best I can wrap my head around this is as a cultural entropy. All cultural expression is loss. I don’t think this a great analogy but I can’t imagine a belief system that actively believes that something, anything anywhere is getting better. I guess I am a meliorist. Wicked problems This is a concept that I believe contains the environmental issues we have. A Wicked Problem is vastly more complex than a normal problem. A normal problem, even a difficult problem, has at least one solution, a set of standards and examples in which to compare it to, and can be clearly identified before attempting to solve it. How to get to the moon and finding the Higgs Boson are difficult problems. How do you protect wildlife and rare habitats is an especially difficult problem. How do you feed and provide basic and above-basic needs for 7 billion problem with limited resources is, I think, a very very difficult problem. But, how do you feed and provide for the human population while simultaneously protecting non-human nature and ensuring a habitable global climate with the ability to still explore off-planet and sub-atomic levels? This is a wicked problem. Here are the characteristics of a wicked problem:
I’m reminded of the Kardashev Scale and Robert Wright’s Non-Zero in thinking about wicked problems. Kardashev says that we have three types of civilizations (type 1 uses the energy of the sun that hits the earth, 2 uses the actual energy of the sun, and 3 uses the energy of the galaxy) and that we are currently a Type .85. He says that transcending from a .99 to a 1.01 will the most difficult of all the transitions ever because it requires a change in every level of existence (how we think, how we consume, what we value, etc). Other theorists have said that this means this transition has the greatest opportunity for collapse. And this is what Wright says in Non-Zero. The more complex our society gets the better we become because we develop more and more answers that are Non-Zero, as in not a zero sum conclusion where one party wins and one party loses. When you have a non-zero sum conclusion both parties gain something. This is the idea of trade versus war. When you war, one party comes out ahead and the other does not but the whole population stays the same. When you trade, both parties get something and the whole population is that much further ahead. But, maintaining these non-zero sum relationships requires a lot of resources and as you grow larger and more successful the greater the opportunity for collapse. This is where I believe we are. Globally, I think we are very near developing the necessary thought processes and technologies to transcend to a Type 1 Civilization through more and more Non-Zero sum solutions. But! Pushing us past that last hurdle is a Wicked Problem. This is the best I’ve been able to state the problem but I have left out so many aspects of humanity (i.e. cultural expression and the utilitarian values of non-consumption species) that I don’t think we fully understand our problem. Also, we wont be able to recognize what is right or wrong but only trajectories of appropriateness. Further, if we fail and sea levels rise 10 ft or 30-60% of the planet’s biodiversity is lost, then we cannot reverse that. That makes it a ‘one shot operation’ with no alternative solutions. We have figure this out as we go and every temporary solution we develop has novel problems that have to also be solved timely. Developing the statistical probability that an alternative hypothesis is within the Confidence Interval you determine.  I learned this however I am angry at it because I have a test coming up and it is taking me too long to apply what I’ve learned. So, my revenge is to not dignify this concept with any more page space.
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As always, there is some incredible news and absolutely devestating news. Such is the life in conservation.
This week I read some pretty heavy conservation theory. I want to share that but haven’t fully processed it yet so I don’t feel like I can share it fully. I did learn a few plants though. Beautiful flowers. Those, Constraint Theory, and Keystone Threats. Plants This week I learned new plants. I actually learned about 50 but I remember about 7 and am only sharing these three crazy looking, yet extremely common flowers to this area. These three plants are native and so common that they are found all through the Americas and even into Europe and Africa. I have never even heard of the Families though! The California Floristic Province contains one of the most biodiverse floral regions and I grew up 10 miles from the most biodiverse spots of that area as it is where the CFP, the Sonoran Desert Province, the Colorado Desert subregion, and the Mojave Desert Province all meet. And plants are my thing – more than birds or reptiles or whatever. Sometimes I let my hubris get a hold of me and am surprised when I am surprised about things I should know. I should know common plants in North America. I should at the very least know common families in North America. I suppose the journey of the naturalist is never-ending and I am grateful for that. The three that I learned are beautiful and infinitely strange. Below are their common and latin names as well as a couple photos I pulled from the internet:
Keystone Threats Instead of Keystone Species, which are species in an ecosystem that have a disproportionate effect on the system, one of my advisors edited a book and in it he identifies the Keystone Threats idea in one of his chapters. This idea is similar to EO Wilson’s biodiversity threats of HIPPO (human development, invasive species, human population, pollution, and overharvesting); guns, nets, and bulldozers from the new Nature article(https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/biggest-threats-biodiversity-guns-nets-bulldozers); and somewhat related to the Stockholm Resilience Center’s 9 Planetary Boundaries. Focusing on the threats to a particular habitat, Dr. Baldwin shows that there are particular threats that when removed assuage disproportionately the impact on the habitat. It’s like the Keystone Species Theory in reverse: when you add wolves back to the Yellowstone habitat you get elk moving which gets trees growing again and rivers changing course. I suppose that a corollary to this could be two impacts related to Keystone Species: Trophic Cascades and Mesopredator Release. Trophic Cascades are basically top-down (like the wolf example above) or bottom-up as in when you remove the primary producer (plants, algae, etc) that herbivores feed on. Mesopredator release is when mid-level predators are allowed to run rampant because they have nothing keeping them in check (i.e. a wolf outcompeting and predating upon coyotes or foxes). Mesopredator release has been theorized as one of the drivers for an inordinate impact upon bird, rodent, and small mammal populations. The idea is that while wolves don’t eat bird eggs, raccoons do and if wolves keep their populations in check then birds can have a more robust population. Keystone threats might work indirectly in such a way. The biggest threat is development. Once you build a strip mall that land is gone forever and the open space adjacent to it is now affected by the human presence. I would imagine that removing the development (or threat of such) reclaims the land, reduces edge effects, allows species that are less reclusive to pioneer away from the Core, and thereby reducing pressure on other species. In essence, it’s a pressure release valve allowing all species more space and agency. This inordinate removal of pressure is greater and has more indirect impacts than say noise pollution from a nearby airport or snowmobile access. The latter are both legitimate threats that require attention but far less a priority than a Keystone Threat. Constraints Theory Discussing what motivates people to conduct recreation (of any kind - adventure backpacking to table tennis), my professor discussed Constraint Theory. This theory identifies three basic constraints to participation:
Basically, this is a strategy to organize barriers and identify specifically what discourages engagement. I am a big believer in “what gets measured can be managed” and this is the measurement part of that. Once you identify the Constraints you then apply the appropriate methods for removing those restraints. Where this gets fun is when one constraint is masked as another or so heavily dependent linearly on one constraint that the other constraints fall away. An example would be someone not feeling confident in their abilities to swim but really they just don’t have the money to get to the pool enough to practice. Once you remove that constraint by providing free swim class afterschool or a free bus route to the beach, the perceived intrapersonal fear can fall away and the challenge looks exciting. Technically, as it relates to leisure, this is called the Hierarchical Model of Leisure Constraints. When I was trying to do my own research I looked up Constraints Theory and it, apparently, is its own legitimate theory in Industrial Management. I found this equally as interesting as it provides a terrific framework to not just expect constraints (in commercial production) but also a very useful strategy to then adaptively manage a complex situation to still achieve successful metrics.
This week was the first where I got into my schedule fully. 55 hours of classwork, research, and studying. I'm in it fully. The three this week are Standard Deviation, Ecosystem People and Biosphere People, and the intertwined concepts of Community, Social Capital, and Social Value. Standard Deviation A friend’s family member asked me earlier this summer what I would be, what I would do, if I wasn’t in conservation and if there were no limitations keeping me from that career. I was stumped. I choose conservation for specific reasons: it’s one of the only things that keeps my interest, I see conservation as having global importance and meaning, not very many answers are known in the field, it has the ability to be adventurous and exciting. Nothing much else meets these criteria for me (plus, I’m not really good at anything else). After a couple weeks of thought on that whole “no limitations” thing however, it occurred to me that I would be a Theoretical Physicist. Oh my goodness, how amazing would that be?! I’m fascinated by simple ideas like velocity, gravity, and light let alone dark matter, black holes, and subatomic physics. But then there is the math, the arcane and obscure markings on the wall, the incantations that explain the natural world. I’ve never been inclined towards numbers. I’m more of a colors and shapes and shiny objects person. The scrawl upon the blackboard in those old Einstein photos are a terrifying bouncer at the physicist club. The concept of a Standard Deviation is basic for anyone past high school math. However, to someone who studied art but has been fascinated by the wizards who can manipulate numbers this is an idea that has confused me. In working with the environment you hear it occasionally: well, this population is within one standard deviation. Well, why is it standard? What are you deviating from? How does deviating standardly from anything tell you anything meaningful? In statistics we’ve been moving at a breakneck speed (for me). We covered standard deviation around day 4 and have moved on and are approaching week 5 quickly. But wait a second, I’m still staring at this equation trying to figure out how the magician pulled the doves out of his sleeves.  I’ve asked questions in class and stared meaninglessly at the textbook but it just didn’t make sense. I put some YouTube videos on and found the exercises at the end of the chapter. Four hours later a sense of enlightenment that had gradually enmeshed my brain peaked into understanding and transcended into a larger connection: the language the wizards use is … knowable. I think the larger connection was not much more than a dissolving of my preconceived assumptions that math is unknowable but still it was huge for me (although, now that I figured it out it looks easy – so it goes).
I figured out how to calculate a Standard Deviation. While the stats professor went over it I still feel I taught it to myself. The idea that I could do that caught me off-guard – I didn’t know I could teach myself this stuff. I’m still struggling with probability, null hypothesis equations, and Z tables but after conquering this concept I feel empowered to undertake these other ideas. Maybe Theoretical Physics isn’t as far off as I had believed (or didn’t even know I believed)… Ecosystem People and Biosphere People This is a simple concept and almost not even worth elaborating on but it is both new vocabulary to me and vocabulary that frames the narrative new. Ecosystem people are those who are dependent on their local environment for basic needs (e.g. burning gathered wood for your food, trekking to the local water hole and carrying it back, etc). Biosphere people are “urban dwellers of the industrialized societies and people engaged in high-input agriculture and animal husbandry…They do not depend on local ecosystems for their basic needs; the catchment area for their resource needs is the whole biosphere.” I like this binary better than first-world/third-world or developed/underdeveloped. It speaks to the usage and the material engagement better. I’m going to continue to under this paradigm when looking at conservation issues. Social Capital, Social Value, and Community In my philosophy course we’re reading about Community, Social Capital, and Social Value and how people respond to these ideas through everyday life and through their leisure. As someone on the introverted end of the scale but also as someone who deeply appreciates quality relationships and a community that is stronger than the sum of its parts, I resonated with these readings. The researcher Troy Glover comments that “community is ironically one of the most palpable comforts and anxieties of our time.” He distinguishes between the various terms stating that “community and social capital are different, albeit complementary. Community is a source of social capital, and social capital represents the value of community.” Basically, “social capital is premised upon the notion that an investment (in social relations) will result in a return (some benefit or profit) to the individual…” We have this belief that the more you put in to a community (be it your neighborhood, church, colleagues, etc) it will give you something tangible. But that return of profit is rarely tangible. The result you get from “investing” in a community is seen through emotions, through a sense of safety, or a sense of purpose. A type of neurosis occurs when normal concepts of “capital” are conflated with social capital. You can’t withdraw your investment at any point because “social capital is not embodied in any particular person, but rather is embedded in social relationships, even though it is realized by individuals. If the relationship fails to endure, social capital, presumably, diminishes, perhaps even disappearing altogether.” When you withdraw your investment, you demolish the investment, the currency, and potentially future earnings. In trying to relate them to conservation I am reminded that conservation is a social study, a values-based field, and dependent upon human decisions and interactions. Conservation, in the end, isn’t about how conservationists view the world; it’s about developing positive relationships between humans and nature that benefit both individually and mutually. This manifests itself through working to benefit humans through increased market and labor opportunities, benefitting nature through increased ecological structure and function, and benefitting them both mutually through an intersection of creative solutions to develop both. Once you withdraw the investment you collapse the relationship. I’m wondering if we can reverse the paradigm from exploitation of nature to one of “additionality” (another concept I learned that will be shared later) for humans and nature? I’m wondering if we can do that through a social capital framework?  This is just a Gorilla made by one of my favorite design groups (Peppermint Narwhal - click the photo to go to their site) to grab your attention. An interdisciplinary study requires engaging in sometimes contrasting studies. For example, statistics and qualitative research. Also, who knew that grad school would bring some enlightenment on my own life. Bring it on. 1. A "Life in Balance" versus "Moderation" in life In our philosophy class this week the professor said she values the idea of balance in life. I immediately shrugged away and made a face like I sucked on a lemon. She caught that and during one of our breaks she and another student asked me why I responded the way I did to a life in balance. My response was that it sounds horrible and that every meaningful and life affirming thing I’ve done has been at the expense of something else in my life (attention to health, friends, family, rest, finances, etc). For example, one of the most life-affirming things I’ve done was create and build the company I had. To do this, I had no significant relationship, I was fairly unhealthy, and spent almost all of my time on my company and things related to my company. The satisfaction I received in life was related to that effort. With a little reflection, most other things in my life run that way: giving up that company to travel and explore, relationships, and then moving from everything familiar to get over to South Carolina for graduate school. But then I also search out activities that are more intense than a moderate life too: fighting, backcountry explorations, and even studying and reading. Maybe that’s just how I’m wired (needing higher ‘doses’ of a weird cocktail of serotonin/dopamine/adrenaline/epinephrine to stay motivated). But then the professor drew some line on the whiteboard and said that I am talking about a disgust of ‘moderation’ not a ‘life in balance.’ Moderation is the even keel, the steady line. Life in Balance is equaling out the intensity with the downtime. Here is my interpretation of her graphic:  She went on to explain that Life Balance can be either line (the wavy or the zig zag) but Moderation can only be the wavy one. I like this dichotomy. I like how it distinguishes between two motivations. My only addition to it would be that everyone’s need for a peak or a trough, people’s respective need for rest or excitement, is subjective and independent to each person’s neurochemical needs. My serotonin baseline is obviously way higher than someone who can live a life in moderation contently.
2. Qualitative Research and specifically Pragmatism I have an Independent Research course and right now we are focusing on Qualitative Research and what it is. The moment I was sold on it was when my advisor said “I think you’ll like this; I think you will be a Pragmatist Researcher.” After looking into the different types of Qualitative research methods and frameworks, she is 100% correct. Pragmatism research is defined as doing whatever necessary to answer the question. If you have to use Qualitative Research, use that. If you have to use interpretative and subjective reflections, use that. That’s what I’m interested in: I don’t care what method I’m using as long as I can effectively answer my questions of how and why humans and non-human wildlife and habitats should exist appropriately. If I need to learn a Marxist-Feminist approach because that answers the question/s best, bring it on. A quick summary of what I understand to be Qualitative vs Quantitative research and simple definitions of various Quantitative methods: Quantitative Research: Quantitative Research: emphasize objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numerical analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, and surveys, or by manipulating pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques. Qualitative Research: (textbook definition) a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. … They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and memos to the self… Qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. PostPositivism: A single reality exists beyond ourselves, “out there” Interpretitivism/Constructivism: Multiple realities are constructed through our lived experiences and interactions with others Critical Theory: Reality is based on power and identity struggles Deconstruction: Changing ways of thinking and bringing to the surface concealed hierarchies as well as dominations, oppositions, inconsistencies, and contradictions. Pragmatism isn’t necessarily a type of research but rather more of a type of approach – use any of the above research type and more to help answer your question. Yes, I’m definitely a Pragmatist. 3. Critical Periphery – Top-Secret Design Strategies for Increasing Effectiveness of Presentations (How to give a good Powerpoint presentation) Over 12 years, I’ve given about 50 public presentations. Like, proper presentations with audiences of 4 to 150 people, a projector, a whole slideshow, and the nice(ish) clothes that go with it. As an informal science and arts educator at museums, nature centers, and out in the wetlands I’ve lead, taught, or facilitated at least 700 talks. I have gone through trainings, orientations, and lectures about how to educate but most of what I have learned about proper presentations has come from failing miserably and from my ex-business partner. His art form is Microsoft Powerpoint and he is good at it. Yesterday, I got my first actual lesson in how to develop a proper and professional slideshow talk. Dr. Bixler went through a highly entertaining “meta-presentation” (a presentation about how to give a presentation). Emphasizing an “emotional affectation test” Bixler highlighted that an audience is going to automatically and unconsciously rank and value the information you propose as “is this worth putting into my long-term memory?” Basically, if you haven’t got into people’s heads with your talk than you have failed. How do you get into people’s heads then? You don’t get into people’s heads by telling them how smart you are and how great your information is. You don’t get into people’s heads by giving them a lecture about all the stuff you know and they would be better for if they knew it too. You get in there through narrative devices: building anticipation, speaking to Universals (things we all share in common -birth, death, life, food, family, etc), circling back to constant themes in the talk (emphasizing the points regularly), and surprises of humor and/or wordplay. You get in their heads through non-verbal communication of physically moving on stage, giving pauses at appropriate times, and acting out what you’re saying. You get into people’s heads by treating the presentation as theater and like good theater you have the ability improve someone’s life during the activity and into their lived existence afterwards. Bixler ended with something so poignant from a responsibility standpoint, something I hadn’t really considered in my own talks. He mentioned that there were 57 people in the class and he spoke for one hour. That means that he just used 57 productive hours of time in sharing his message. Imagine what can be accomplished in 57 hours. I had always thought about the size of my audience in regards to how many people I was getting my message across to. But now, speaking to the Pragmatist in me, this responsibility of utilizing our potentially productive hours well I will think of my audience and my message differently. |
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