Society is not a curve but a bubble

By Jasso Lamberg | Published: February 18, 2010

Photo by pausimausi @ sxc.hu

Today I stumbled on one of those tiny ideas which can make big a big difference. In many ways, the world is not the (in)famous Gaussian curve but a bubble.

Now this will probably be self-evident for statisticians and similar scientists. But hey, we all have something to discover that’s old news to other people. I came this idea when a friend of mine asked me a question: “If the society is a Gaussian curve, most people being in the middle, were are we? At the head or the tail?”

Throughout my life I’ve been hearing how the world, society, students, and basically almost anything can be described with the Gaussian curve, or normal distribution. For example in classrooms this means that most of the students are more or less average in their perfomance, while a minority do worse and some do better. And the grades reflect this. Teachers are sometimes instructed to adjust their grading so that the marks fall nicely on a Gaussian bell curve.

And you can also imagine most of new technologies, hypes, fashion or cultural trends going through the curve. In the beginning only a small group of people will try it out. Then it becomes a larger phenomenon until it reaches its saturation point where it cannot lure any more people. And when it is dying out, some people still cling to it while most have abandoned it.1

The curve can be a useful tool. It works best when you use it on very simple things like grades or absolute number of users. But you need to be very careful if you try to apply it as an analogy or metaphor to society at large or some individual social development.

The human mind is an inveterate analogizer. We are compulsively drawn to see meaning in slight similarities between very different processes. […] Sometimes such analogies can be immensely fruitful, but it is easy to push analogies too far, and get overexcited by analogies that are so tenuous as to be unhelpful or even downright harmful.

[…] The trick is to strike a balance between too much indiscriminate analogizing on the one hand, and a sterile blindness to fruitful analogies on the other. The successful scientist and the raving crank are separated by the quality of their inspirations. But I suspect that this amounts, in practice, to a difference, not so much in ability to notice analogies as in ability to reject foolish analogies and pursue helpful ones. (Dawkins 1986, pp. 195–1962)

When the Gaussian curve is seen directly as a metaphor of society the result is something very similar to Social Darwinism. It can easily give you an impression that society has “the top” and “the bottom”. And this is just as wrong as was flattening the beauty of Darwins ideas into “kill or be killed”. And just as dangerous. You cannot create such a one dimensional variable for measuring people’s worth. Well, human mind is capable of creating such a thing but the end result is seriously sick and warped.

Categorizing people is always hard and often somewhat arbitrary. If you really want some metaphor like the Gaussian curve you should at least make it a three dimensional one. Make it a bubble on a surface.

You still have your average people3 forming the mass of society. But you no longer have a “top” and a “bottom” or heads and tails. Instead the metaphor makes you to see that you just have people who are different from the average. They slide onto all sides of the bubble.

The basic Gaussian curve is just a two dimensional slice, which has been arbitrarily cut out of the bubble. By using it you are forcing yourself to a narrow perspective where you see just one tiny variable about people. It often makes no sense in the larger scheme of things. Like grades. They are a lousy way of measuring people, especially children.

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  1. There are some technologies or hypes which never come down from the peak. Think about clothing or electricity. [↩]
  2. Dawkins, R. (1986) The Blind Watchmaker. Penguin, London. [↩]
  3. Today I’m not going to start ranting about what’s wrong with the whole concept of “average”… [↩]
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Do they really love you?

By Jasso Lamberg | Published: February 14, 2010

It’s Valentine’s day! So today it is all about love. But not the boy-meets-girl type but capitalist love.

Have you felt used lately? Have you felt that the companies you work for treat you as a problem solver which can be discarded after the project is over? Are the companies having you just for “good sex” without offering any long term commitments?

Well, here’s a little sing-a-long for all of you problem solvers (and me). Based on Do You Love Me by Kiss.

You really like my reports
You like the way that the profits roll
You like my seven page excel sheets
And goin’ to all of the meets, but

Do you love me? Do you love me?
Do you love me? Really love me?

You like the invites and seminars
My talent can really take you far
You like my slick business clothes
And the sound, honey, of my lectures, but

Do you love me? Do you love me
Do you love me? I mean like do you really love me?

[create your own verse here]

Your admin stats and your big funding
Make you look just like a king
All of our contacts know your name
From the cover of the brochure, but

Do you love me? Do you love me?
Do you love me? Really love me?

I want you to
I need you to
And you know I’m so tired of everybody sayin’ it
I just gotta know if you really really really, really love me
So, come on!

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Catching the conversation

By Jasso Lamberg | Published: February 8, 2010

I love conversations. I love the exchange of ideas. And to me, few moments are as terrible as when I’m throwing out great ideas and concepts and I realise nobody catches them. They just roll to the corner and die. What’s wrong with people?

Three types of interaction

I’ve encountered all kinds of interaction on my lectures. Sometimes the debates rage back and forth until we run out of time. At other times I’m doing all the talking. I’m speaking now about theory classes, not workshops or practical courses. The different kind of lectures can be divided roughly into three categories:

  1. Students actively engage in discussions with me and other students.
  2. Students are silent but they are really interested and sometimes I swear I can hear their synapses snapping!
  3. Students are bored / sleeping / don’t have a clue / just not interested.

The first case is easy. The lectures pretty much build a momentum of their own and I don’t have to worry about them. Sometimes the conversations could go on and on. After one of these I remember again why lecturing is fun. I get so much energy that I can endure bad classes and bureaucracy for at least a week after this.

Lectures in the second category are also delicious. People might not have anything to say on the topic, but they are really interested about it. This often happens when the students know nothing about the subject and they might feel that commenting is difficult. But oh boy, you can really see the interest in their eyes. There’s often a feeling that I’m kind of “revealing secrets” to them. While they might be silent during the lecture, one or two students usually come to ask some details after the lecture.

And then there are the third kind of lectures. It is hard to say what’s exactly wrong with these. Wrong people with the wrong topic maybe? It doesn’t seem to matter how enthusiastic I am. They just stay phlegmatic. Often there are classes where the people start out tired (perhaps hungover) and lifeless. But then I just have to add more stand-up routines and energy and they slowly start waking up. But on the bad ones, nothing helps.

Sometimes it’s just a kind of pack behaviour. If there are a couple of people in the group who couldn’t care less, and the group spends a lot of time together, the apathy spreads. I often say to my classes that the people who are not interested can “get the hell out right now” because I don’t want to have any of these dark holes sucking all the energy out of the class. They can earn their grades just by staying away and returning the essays.

It’s fun! It’s colourful! Here it comes!

Photo by HckySo @ Flickr

Okay, those are the main types of interaction. There are also times when you don’t what type of lecture it’s going to be and that can lead to awkward moments.

The people seem observant and smart. I might be enthusiastic about the topic and I’m just happy to be in front of them. And then I start throwing interesting ideas and concepts to them waiting for them to response. And…

Nothing happens. Null. Nada. Zip. It seems that no matter how great the ideas are, no one gives a damn about them. And that’s truly frustrating.

This happens outside classes too. In media companies you would think that there are intelligent people fascinated by new theories and other such stuff. But no. Try rolling out something more than skin deep at the coffee table and everybody stares at you like a madman. After a short awkward silence they usually return to discussing what happened in Lost or Californication yesterday.

The feeling of throwing a ball that nobody catches is so strong that it’s not really even a metaphor anymore. The ball is colourful, and great! And fun! …and it just rolls quietly to the corner all alone…

You know you’re in a good company when people are really jumping up and down to catch the ball, to get the next point. Then there are no limits where the discussion can go. And with the right people, they can forget their social narrow-mindedness and lose the censorship. They understand that even the “bad” or “tasteless” comments can spark a brilliant idea in someone else’s mind.

It’s just weird how rare these people are. Of course, that makes them even more precious. Remember to hold on to them when you find them!

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