Jonathan: The Yellow Light,
Jonathan: Episode 2:
Jonathan: Chaos Theory.
Jonathan: Recently in the news, there was this talk
Jonathan: of bringing back a form of wolf that
Jonathan: had gone extinct, the dire wolf.
Jonathan: Well, it turned out to be a whole
Jonathan: lot of nothing.
Jonathan: As with many stories, the mainstream media tends
Jonathan: to inflate advances in science.
Jonathan: I've seen them my whole life, with life
Jonathan: on Mars or life on this other planet,
Jonathan: bio-signatures, blah, blah, blah -- whatever.
Jonathan: The point of the story is, eh, well,
Jonathan: some people brought back some DNA.
Jonathan: They haven't really made the dire wolf go not
Jonathan: extinct. They've just created some gray wolf–dire wolf
Jonathan: hybrids.
Jonathan: But this reminds me of a story, a
Jonathan: story that was in a book and later
Jonathan: got adapted to a movie, “Jurassic Park”.
Jonathan: In “Jurassic Park”, the ethics of cloning extinct
Jonathan: animals came up, of course.
Jonathan: We all know Jeff Goldblum's character and his
Jonathan: talk of chaos theory and "life finds a
Jonathan: way" -- and it's been the source of many
Jonathan: memes.
Jonathan: But we should really go back and think
Jonathan: about the questions in that movie and what
Jonathan: it means to approach these problems, not in
Jonathan: terms of "Oh, does nature give a species
Jonathan: a chance to exist" and "We have to
Jonathan: let nature take its course -- they went extinct,
Jonathan: blah, blah, blah."
Jonathan: No.
Jonathan: It's really more, what I find interesting is
Jonathan: the disaster that unfolds on the island.
Jonathan: The T. rex gets out of its enclosure
Jonathan: and goes on a killing spree.
Jonathan: Basically, it's like a horror movie.
Jonathan: Kind of an action movie, kind of a
Jonathan: horror movie.
Jonathan: And that's the theme of the story.
Jonathan: The interesting thing was not that the Dennis
Jonathan: Nedry character, the one who automated and computerized
Jonathan: so many of the systems, the problem wasn't
Jonathan: that he computerized everything, that everybody was too
Jonathan: reliant on one person, that they didn't deal
Jonathan: with enough problems and surprises as they came
Jonathan: up.
Jonathan: One of the characters, it was actually Laura
Jonathan: Dern's character in the movie adaptation, has that
Jonathan: talk with the idealistic John Hammond.
Jonathan: He says, you know, I've learned, like, we
Jonathan: rely too much on automation and one person
Jonathan: who disappeared, Dennis Nedry.
Jonathan: When we get control again, and then Laura
Jonathan: Dern interrupts him and says, "You never had
Jonathan: control --
Jonathan: That's the illusion."
Jonathan: And I think that's an important thing.
Jonathan: This was explored more in the book actually,
Jonathan: is that the way systems can fail is
Jonathan: very unpredictable.
Jonathan: Sometimes chaos theory gets reduced to a few
Jonathan: memes or images or the expression of a
Jonathan: butterfly flaps its wings in New York City
Jonathan: and it causes a storm in Beijing -- or
Jonathan: however that goes.
Jonathan: It doesn't matter.
Jonathan: My point is that the systems in Jurassic
Jonathan: Park failed in ways that nobody could predict.
Jonathan: And taking the approach of solving problems as
Jonathan: they came up and looking at them, okay,
Jonathan: now we know how to do this.
Jonathan: Now we know not to do that.
Jonathan: Now we know to do this.
Jonathan: You know, you can see it.
Jonathan: The best thing, one of the smartest people
Jonathan: was actually the Muldoon character, the game warden
Jonathan: character.
Jonathan: He says about the raptors, they just didn't
Jonathan: exist.
Jonathan: We never have them in the park.
Jonathan: They're just too dangerous, too smart, too blah,
Jonathan: blah, blah.
Jonathan: It set aside the fact that in real
Jonathan: life, velociraptors were not much bigger than chickens.
Jonathan: They would be a nuisance, but they aren't
Jonathan: going to hunt you down.
Jonathan: Whatever, it's a little bit of artistic liberty,
Jonathan: we'll say.
Jonathan: But the interesting point is that they were
Jonathan: the deadliest thing.
Jonathan: The T. rex was just a big dumb
Jonathan: animal that wants to eat sometimes.
Jonathan: Whereas the raptors would hunt, they were more
Jonathan: evil, almost more like a horror villain.
Jonathan: You think about them stalking the two kids
Jonathan: when they were in the kitchen and that's
Jonathan: it.
Jonathan: It felt very much like that, like they
Jonathan: were villains.
Jonathan: And they never were, but it felt as
Jonathan: if they were.
Jonathan: The Muldoon character insisted that this danger shouldn't
Jonathan: exist.
Jonathan: And we know that from studying industrial safety,
Jonathan: production safety, what have you.
Jonathan: The safest thing to do is to remove
Jonathan: the danger.
Jonathan: It's not to get you a better and
Jonathan: more protective glove.
Jonathan: It's to have the on button for the
Jonathan: trash compactor be 10 feet away from the
Jonathan: entrance, from the opening of the trash compactor.
Jonathan: So that way it's impossible for you to
Jonathan: have your hand in the machine while the
Jonathan: machine's running, because you have to put the
Jonathan: garbage in the trash compactor, then walk over
Jonathan: to the on button and then press the
Jonathan: on button.
Jonathan: It's basically impossible for you to accidentally capture
Jonathan: your hand in there.
Jonathan: The best thing you could do would be
Jonathan: to not even have a trash compactor.
Jonathan: If you go to a convenience shop, there's
Jonathan: no trash compactor where the customers go.
Jonathan: So there's no danger of a customer losing
Jonathan: a hand at a convenience store.
Jonathan: It's just impossible to happen.
Jonathan: That's what Muldoon was saying with the raptors
Jonathan: in a way.
Jonathan: They were so dangerous.
Jonathan: They just shouldn't exist, period.
Jonathan: Not they should exist with more safety guards.
Jonathan: They just shouldn't exist at all because things
Jonathan: can go wrong.
Jonathan: And Spielberg, as a great director, establishes that
Jonathan: early on with his character where he oversees
Jonathan: an accident.
Jonathan: And that's what it was.
Jonathan: It was an accident.
Jonathan: Nobody intended for it to happen, but it
Jonathan: was actually, you know, these things happen.
Jonathan: It was a very emotional moment for him
Jonathan: when one of the workers he supervised died --
Jonathan: died from a raptor attack because things just
Jonathan: go wrong.
Jonathan: You know, you're moving the raptor from one
Jonathan: cage to another.
Jonathan: Something nobody anticipated was that the raptor would
Jonathan: wait at the back of the cage and
Jonathan: then make a running start and then slam
Jonathan: the door at the very moment that the
Jonathan: cage is starting to open to reconnect or
Jonathan: couple with the other cage or place we're
Jonathan: putting it.
Jonathan: It doesn't matter what it was exactly.
Jonathan: The point was that they hadn't predicted, oh,
Jonathan: the raptor might try to suddenly move at
Jonathan: the weakest, most critical moment, which is right
Jonathan: before we had the cage fully coupled with
Jonathan: the next one and we opened the door.
Jonathan: That's the moment when it chooses to strike.
Jonathan: It didn't matter if that was because the
Jonathan: raptor was very smart or it was just
Jonathan: blind luck.
Jonathan: The fact is these kinds of things can
Jonathan: happen and somebody lost his life.
Jonathan: It didn't need to happen.
Jonathan: The character also had a few other things
Jonathan: that he said when the ride is going
Jonathan: on and then the characters get out of
Jonathan: the moving trucks on the track.
Jonathan: They get out and they want to look
Jonathan: at some stuff.
Jonathan: And John was like, "Oh, no,"
Jonathan: and Muldoon is saying, "I told you. You
Jonathan: should have put locking mechanisms in the vehicles."
Jonathan: Muldoon was thinking not just in terms of
Jonathan: safety for safety's sake.
Jonathan: And I'll be like, oh, all this is
Jonathan: all too dangerous.
Jonathan: He didn't say that they should get rid
Jonathan: of the T. rex.
Jonathan: It was really the raptor that he said
Jonathan: to get rid of because they were just
Jonathan: too unpredictable.
Jonathan: For the sake of the story, they were
Jonathan: made a lot bigger than they are in
Jonathan: real life.
Jonathan: Not as big as the T. rex, but
Jonathan: much bigger than they were in real life.
Jonathan: He also talked about the mechanisms on the
Jonathan: doors because he was thinking with a preventive
Jonathan: mindset.
Jonathan: And we really need to have more of
Jonathan: that in society.
Jonathan: A lot of times we go whole hog,
Jonathan: we go all in on something and then
Jonathan: we figure out the problems later.
Jonathan: And I'm not saying we shouldn't take any
Jonathan: new steps or adopt anything, but we shouldn't
Jonathan: just deal with problems as they come up.
Jonathan: We should anticipate possible problems and design ways
Jonathan: for the problems to not kill anybody.
Jonathan: We need to do that from the outset.
Jonathan: A lot of safety, we talk about Vision
Jonathan: Zero, this and that.
Jonathan: It's always reactive.
Jonathan: It's always, oh, well, we found out that
Jonathan: this intersection is bad.
Jonathan: So maybe at this traffic intersection, we can
Jonathan: do XYZ.
Jonathan: Or, hmm, people aren't driving the way we
Jonathan: wanted them to.
Jonathan: Let's try this.
Jonathan: No, you should have designed from the
Jonathan: get-go.
Jonathan: Before you put in the traffic intersection, before
Jonathan: you do any construction, before you rebuild any
Jonathan: intersection.
Jonathan: And remember, the way car roadways are built
Jonathan: and made, the heaviness of cars, you have
Jonathan: to rebuild these every 15 years.
Jonathan: You don't just pave them over.
Jonathan: You have to rip up everything and redo
Jonathan: them.
Jonathan: That's a chance to do it a different
Jonathan: way.
Jonathan: And before you redo it the way it
Jonathan: was, people who oversee safety should be in
Jonathan: there beforehand, not after the fact and then
Jonathan: have recommendations.
Jonathan: By then, it's too late.
Jonathan: Somebody's died.
Jonathan: That's when people invoke the safety.
Jonathan: No, the safety mindset should be there from
Jonathan: the get-go.
Jonathan: If you wanted people to stay in the
Jonathan: cars on the Jurassic Park ride, they need
Jonathan: to have locking mechanisms so that people can
Jonathan: just leave.
Jonathan: If you want people to not die on
Jonathan: your roads, you need to not design intersections
Jonathan: in a way that will induce people to
Jonathan: drive too fast.
Jonathan: And they will.
Jonathan: We know that.
Jonathan: We have enough decades of research around the
Jonathan: world.
Jonathan: We have the research.
Jonathan: It doesn't matter how we got it.
Jonathan: We have it now.
Jonathan: Let's put it to use.
Jonathan: Let's not rebuild dangerous intersections.
Jonathan: And if we find that we did build
Jonathan: one, we need to think about how to
Jonathan: fundamentally change it or redesign it and not
Jonathan: be the mindset like, we need some more
Jonathan: flashing lights.
Jonathan: That's not going to make a difference.
Jonathan: If people are driving too fast and plowing
Jonathan: and killing people, it's not because they choose
Jonathan: to.
Jonathan: So saying something is an accident is really
Jonathan: irrelevant.
Jonathan: And making people more, besides making them more
Jonathan: visible, if you "daylight" an intersection and you
Jonathan: make people more visible, that can help.
Jonathan: You remove visual obstacles.
Jonathan: You don't let people park on the street
Jonathan: too close to an intersection because it might
Jonathan: hide people in the crosswalk.
Jonathan: Getting rid of those visual obstacles is good.
Jonathan: But lighting up an intersection by having a
Jonathan: flashing sign, not on the person, but off
Jonathan: to the side, so you have to divert
Jonathan: your attention --
Jonathan: you have to redirect your attention elsewhere.
Jonathan: There's this flashing warning:
Jonathan: "There are pedestrians here."
Jonathan: Well, that's not really going to do much.
Jonathan: It's just like -- what is is doing, telling
Jonathan: people "Like, hey, reminder, there are humans on
Jonathan: the planet Earth,
Jonathan: and you know, if you hit one of
Jonathan: them at a high speed, you might kill
Jonathan: that person.
Jonathan: And that would make us sad"?
Jonathan: Well, you're not telling anybody anything that they
Jonathan: don't already know.
Jonathan: That's not fixing any problems.
Jonathan: The thing to do is say, "Look, this
Jonathan: is a highway off-ramp.
Jonathan: The cars are going to be moving very
Jonathan: fast because they were coming off a road
Jonathan: where they were doing at least 65 miles
Jonathan: per hour.
Jonathan: You can't have a bike lane --
Jonathan: you can't have a children's sidewalk to school go
Jonathan: through that area.
Jonathan: It just shouldn't be there."
Jonathan: Maybe you do an underpass, an overpass -- something.
Jonathan: You cannot have those two pathways intersect with
Jonathan: two very, very different types of roadway users
Jonathan: moving at very, very different speeds.
Jonathan: You just can't do that.
Jonathan: I feel that's one of the unspoken things.
Jonathan: Well, it's kind of spoken, but it's more
Jonathan: hinted at.
Jonathan: You have to pay attention to the “Jurassic
Jonathan: Park” story carefully.
Jonathan: It works as an action/horror story
Jonathan: that keeps people entertained.
Jonathan: That's probably why most people have seen it.
Jonathan: That's why I saw it as a kid.
Jonathan: But there is so much more to that.
Jonathan: There's so much more to how we think
Jonathan: about safety.
Jonathan: Too many of us, we fall into the
Jonathan: trap of John Hammond that, oh, this is
Jonathan: bad.
Jonathan: We're not denying that things are really bad
Jonathan: with the T. rex getting out and the
Jonathan: grandkids having their lives under threat and can't
Jonathan: find them.
Jonathan: He knew about the danger, but he was
Jonathan: still in this reactive mindset of "Okay, well,
Jonathan: okay, now that this has happened, we'll do
Jonathan: this.
Jonathan: We'll paper over these problems."
Jonathan: He maybe could have made the idea work
Jonathan: if there was a fundamentally different understanding of
Jonathan: how to approach safety, how to be preventive.
Jonathan: I hope that we can learn from the
Jonathan: past and not repeat the mistakes in the
Jonathan: future.
Jonathan: I would like us to not go all-in
Jonathan: on certain things and say, "Oh, okay,
Jonathan: well, we've had this, and now that we
Jonathan: have some data, some dead bodies, we can
Jonathan: figure out what Band-Aids we can add
Jonathan: to this."
Jonathan: No, no, we need to look at this
Jonathan: from a safety mindset from the get-go
Jonathan: or before the get-go.
Jonathan: Before we lay down the first brick, pound
Jonathan: in the first nail, we need to think
Jonathan: about what threats exist and how we could
Jonathan: make certain tragedies impossible because we can't predict
Jonathan: behavior.
Jonathan: That's a big takeaway from chaos theory -- it's
Jonathan: that you cannot easily account for all the
Jonathan: ways in which different factors interact with each
Jonathan: other.
Jonathan: The point is not that everything's connected.
Jonathan: Of course, everything is, and things can't exist
Jonathan: in a perfectly sealed vacuum, but things also
Jonathan: interact in ways that we couldn't have predicted,
Jonathan: and we need to have a systems approach
Jonathan: that says we don't exactly know how people
Jonathan: will behave.
Jonathan: Will they obey all the directions?
Jonathan: Well, ideally, yes, but kids exist.
Jonathan: Kids might open up cars.
Jonathan: I opened up a car going on the
Jonathan: highway when I was a kid because I
Jonathan: thought it'd be funny.
Jonathan: That's what kids do.
Jonathan: They do stuff that's maybe a little stupid.
Jonathan: Having the doors on the cars in Jurassic
Jonathan: Park be locked while the vehicle is in
Jonathan: motion would just make it impossible for people
Jonathan: to ever go off the path.
Jonathan: It would be impossible,
Jonathan: not a matter of "Oh, we need to
Jonathan: do a better job of vetting people" or
Jonathan: "We need to instruct them better how to
Jonathan: behave."
Jonathan: All the research on safety in industrial worksites
Jonathan: says that that's the least effective.
Jonathan: "Tell people to be careful" -- that's not that
Jonathan: effective.
Jonathan: It helps a bit to have hard hats
Jonathan: and safety gloves, but it's even better to
Jonathan: remove the dangers, and it's even better to
Jonathan: not have the dangers around.
Jonathan: There's no reason why a construction site should
Jonathan: have a nuclear reactor.
Jonathan: You can put the nuclear reactor somewhere far
Jonathan: away and run electricity through power lines to
Jonathan: the city.
Jonathan: You don't have to have a mini nuclear
Jonathan: reactor on every construction site, on every block,
Jonathan: in every city.
Jonathan: Why even have the danger there?
Jonathan: It's not about having the permits and having
Jonathan: the good training or everybody wearing the special
Jonathan: radiation suits.
Jonathan: No, the point is that there just shouldn't
Jonathan: be a nuclear reactor within the downtown core
Jonathan: in the first place -- period.
Jonathan: That's what safety should be.
Jonathan: It's not just about being dorky and wearing --
Jonathan: "Ha, ha, you're wearing a hat" or you
Jonathan: don't want anything fun or anything that can
Jonathan: have any sort of excitement to it.
Jonathan: No.
Jonathan: With chaos theory, you don't try to come
Jonathan: up with a solution for every possible scenario.
Jonathan: You realize that situations are complex.
Jonathan: You make certain things safe.
Jonathan: You can't predict how every single person, every
Jonathan: single child will behave in front of crosswalks
Jonathan: near a school.
Jonathan: You just won't.
Jonathan: You just know it's going to be a
Jonathan: danger to have traffic go through there at
Jonathan: high speeds.
Jonathan: You don't train the kids.
Jonathan: That's the only way you expect them to
Jonathan: behave normally.
Jonathan: You don't train adult drivers to behave a
Jonathan: certain way and expect them to do that.
Jonathan: You can engineer things in a certain way,
Jonathan: and that doesn't mean you put the school
Jonathan: in a place where it's only accessible by
Jonathan: cars on a highway.
Jonathan: That makes it even more dangerous if you're
Jonathan: not in a car.
Jonathan: No.
Jonathan: The thing to do is to think about
Jonathan: how to design things.
Jonathan: The chicane.
Jonathan: That is something that more places in America
Jonathan: need.
Jonathan: The chicane is something as simple as a
Jonathan: potted plant or tree, some boulders, something that
Jonathan: makes you have to not go perfectly straight.
Jonathan: You have to snake around a bit.
Jonathan: Maybe you have the road have a little
Jonathan: bit of a curve or it's going to
Jonathan: just left right there in the middle there.
Jonathan: Yes, it's less efficient, but that's what you
Jonathan: want.
Jonathan: If you have a long straightaway, you're going
Jonathan: to have people driving too fast.
Jonathan: That's just going to happen.
Jonathan: Maybe people are tired.
Jonathan: Maybe they're reckless.
Jonathan: Maybe they're not paying attention.
Jonathan: Maybe they're in a rush.
Jonathan: Whatever it is, maybe they don't realize what's
Jonathan: happening and they're usually good.
Jonathan: It's going to happen, and it doesn't require
Jonathan: everyone to be a bad driver.
Jonathan: If only 1% of people driving are
Jonathan: going to go too fast on a certain
Jonathan: road, and you have a hundred cars going
Jonathan: on that road or on that street, you're
Jonathan: going to have somebody piloting a one and
Jonathan: a half ton or two ton or three
Jonathan: ton or four ton that's a box that
Jonathan: is going way too fast.
Jonathan: It just is going to happen at some
Jonathan: point.
Jonathan: After it happens and somebody dies, you can't
Jonathan: say -- well, no.
Jonathan: You need to think about this stuff beforehand.
Jonathan: If you're building a road or street that's
Jonathan: perfectly straight, you should expect that people are
Jonathan: going to be going very fast.
Jonathan: Maybe if you can't put it in a
Jonathan: chicane everywhere, you put the chicanes where you
Jonathan: need the most.
Jonathan: Maybe you want people to slow down around
Jonathan: schools.
Jonathan: And yes, not everybody will obey a chicane,
Jonathan: but guess what?
Jonathan: If somebody tries to be too reckless, let's
Jonathan: say the person's drunk, well, a drunk driver
Jonathan: is going to go too fast and not
Jonathan: slow around the chicane.
Jonathan: And guess what?
Jonathan: Instead of killing the child, the drunk driver
Jonathan: is going to crash into the potted plant
Jonathan: or the boulder or what-have-you.
Jonathan: That's going to stop that person.
Jonathan: But if somebody has to be hurt, I'd
Jonathan: rather it be the person who's driving drunk
Jonathan: and not the child in front of the
Jonathan: school.
Jonathan: It will be a dramatic crash to smash
Jonathan: into a boulder, but it's better than crashing
Jonathan: into a child and having the drunk person
say, "Oh, I'm so sorry --
Jonathan: it was an accident."
Jonathan: Well, saying it was an accident doesn't really
Jonathan: fix anything, or does it?
Jonathan: I would hope it's an accident.
Jonathan: I would hope you're not going around trying
Jonathan: to murder children.
Jonathan: Saying that it was an accident doesn't really
Jonathan: fix anything.
Jonathan: It doesn't prevent this from happening again.
Jonathan: But if you really want to save lives,
Jonathan: that's also possible.
Jonathan: Maybe with a chicane, instead of a big
Jonathan: boulder, you just build up a lot of
Jonathan: dirt.
Jonathan: And maybe the car that crashes into the
Jonathan: barrier doesn't come to a complete stop as
Jonathan: quickly as if it were a boulder there.
Jonathan: You get the best of both worlds.
Jonathan: But in the meantime, just having a potted
Jonathan: plant can be enough because it will snap
Jonathan: awake a lot of otherwise good drivers because
Jonathan: nobody can be perfect all the time.
Jonathan: A sign that says, "Warning, children, blah, blah,
Jonathan: blah."
Jonathan: This time -- you're spending too much time reading.
Jonathan: Nobody's going to read all of it.
Jonathan: And if you were to read all of
Jonathan: it, your eyes are off the road for
Jonathan: too long.
Jonathan: But if you see an obstacle ahead, you
Jonathan: just instinctively say, oh, better slow down.
Jonathan: And that does so much more because you
Jonathan: want to slow down people before they reach
Jonathan: the school zone.
Jonathan: You don't want them to see children 10
Jonathan: feet in front of their car and say,
Jonathan: oh, I better slow down.
Jonathan: But then it's too late.
Jonathan: And much like the disasters in the movie
Jonathan: “Jurassic Park,” once you realize the problems with
Jonathan: not just faith in technology, not just faith
Jonathan: in automation, but a faith that people, the
Jonathan: visitors will behave themselves.
Jonathan: And these are people with PhDs who are--
Jonathan: they're adults with PhDs.
Jonathan: Imagine a five-year-old on that first
Jonathan: tour of Jurassic Park.
Jonathan: They would be breaking all the rules too.
Jonathan: Design systems that are safe before the tragedy
Jonathan: happens.
Jonathan: That's what chaos theory should be.
Jonathan: So think about it.
Jonathan: If you can track down a copy of
Jonathan: “Jurassic Park,” go ahead and watch it again.
Jonathan: That's all for this episode.
Jonathan: See you next time.