The Butterfly Effect

[The Backlash Cometh]

The issue I have with this concept is that it uses an example that is too farfetched to reach the people who need to understand it the most. Once you start talking about butterfly wings in Brazil and how it affects the heartland of America, you already know their eyes will be rolling back into their heads.

There is a better example. Here, locally, I can see how small town politics is doping up members of the public. I can actually see people growing fleece and turning into sheeple. I can see how the pillars of the community, even when they got caught with their pants down, were able to convince an entire town, that their problem was the town's problem. So now the local town people do their dirty work and destroy anyone who even tries to bring up facts that question past indiscretions.

That's the butterfly batting its wings. It's this way of doing business at a local level that has everyone trained to accept the same destructive patterns at a national level.

Now, how do you break that training? How do you give everyone a "Born on the Fourth of July" revelation at the same time?

[csziggy]

1. Find an inconsequential issue that everybody gets pissed about

That is what will do it around here. Developer wants to clear cut acres of trees, nothing. But if someone wants to cut one diseased tree with sentimental meaning to people, the shit hits the fan. Sometimes I think the history and sentimental meaning are invented just to fire the sheeple up. It is particularly effective if the offending party is not a local entity.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Sometimes I too can feel that manipulation.

[Breeze54]

2. The man who developed this concept, passed away last week.

It's like the stone in the pond, ripple effect.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. That works too.

[HereSince1628]

3. Sorry I duped that

[HereSince1628]

4. The butterfly effect came about via modelling with numerical methods

Please..bear with me.

I want to explain what I think the butterfly effect is so that you understand why I don't think what you are describing is a butterfly effect. Then I'm open to you telling me how I am wrong and what you are presenting really is a butterfly effect.

What was obvious before the "butterfly effect" became obvious was that parameter estimates (the numbers used in the model) effect the model's output. What was sort of surprising was that very small changes (tiny differences--like what would be caused by a butterfly flapping its wings--way out on the right beyond the decimal point) could change the computer model's solutions to equations in rather unexpected ways.

The theoretical problem is that very very little 'errors' in estimates of parameters cause different solutions (sometimes completely unpredictable solutions depending on the nature of the equations).

The empirical problem (the problem for observers monitoring the effect of butterflies on weather-rather than the problem for weather modelers) is that it is very very very very very hard, which is to say impossible, to get real world estimates of driving forces (i.e. the influence of butterfly flapping on weather) that are perfect. Consequently projections of computer programs of real world dynamics will always drift away from the developing history recorded in empirical observations of the modelled event.

All that means is that, for example, computer projections for weather patterns over Wisconsin for the next 1000 years aren't going to turn out to be very highly accurate. One way for computer modellers get around this problem is to periodically update and rerun the model with real world data. This is what's done with models for hurricane forecasting. The models make projections, those turn out to be imprecise to some extent, and the model is rerun from new starting conditions that reflect reality. In the short run, 12-24 hours, the models are pretty good for projecting where a hurricane will be and what it will be doing, over 48-96 hours not so very good. Over 2000 hours they are worthless for weather forecasts (although probably still quite useful for various other theoretical uses such as anticipating how global warming may influence hurricane intensity).


I don't see how what you are saying is actually a butterfly effect.


Rather what I hear you saying is that people percieve a problem (I'll call it political corruption) to be transcendent in our society. We see it, touch it, and taste it at the local level. Where we learn to tolerate it in politics as one of those things that just happens. Then we transfer our local understanding to the national level and accept corruption and shoddy government as being just part of politics whether it is local or national level.

So, help me understand what I've got wrong in saying this doesn't seem like the butter-fly effect

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. I'm definitely applying the concept in a behaviorial science manner,

rather than mathematical. The operative word would be "effect," and the idea is that behaviors and customs in small town America are creating and pushing national policies, and thus, having an effect globally.

I could absolutely be wrong in the way I'm applying the original concept of the butterfly effect, but then, I would still say that the BE is the inspiration for my model. Which by the way, is not unique. It's an extended explanation of the old adage, "All politics is local."

It's just that in the 21st Century, we are now saavy enough and have enough information to, perhaps, throw in a ripple effect to dampen the wings a wee bit.

By the way, I really liked your explanation. Thank you for taking the time.

[HereSince1628]

8. I wasn't aware that the term butterfly effect had any other meaning

I completely agree that we are socialized/educated in our families and other small local groups. We are also more concerned about what happens near us than what happens far away (hence the NIMBY effect). Surely that experience affects our perception of all that falls within our view.

I agree that politics is local, both because we learn it locally and because we often judge it on its local effects.

The whole problem with earmarks exists because people want their government's resources spent in their locality. Politicians by creating ear-marks act as gate keepers to those resources. The power they have is the control of that gate.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Don't mind me, I'm making it up as I go along.

:-)

[csziggy]

10. Ah, Yes, you are right - what I posted would not be

The Butterfly Effect.

More of what you are talking about is something that happened here around the time of the 2004 election and following. A member of our Democracy for America group had recently moved to the area. She lamented that there was no Costco in town and touted the better employment and political donation policies of Costco. She had written Costco asking if they had plans to build one in this area and got a nice reply that at that time there were no plans.

So she asked other members to write to Costco. Inertia being what it is, two or three may have but not most people. Someone made a postcard and handed out a few. Then someone else posted that card online to make it easy to print and send out. I have no clue how many people actually mailed in cards, but the new Costco opened a couple of weeks ago.

Is that more of what would be called the Butterfly Effect? One person suggesting and idea, others pick it up and move it forward until it avalanches into enough people to make a difference?

[HereSince1628]

13. Yes,

but maybe with a bit more uncertainty to get the probability way out to the right of the decimal place.

I think good ideas can float up out of DU and into the campaigns like this. A post with little probability of being read by ANYONE even on DU can end up having a major effect.

[HughMoran]

11. Somebody asked while memorializing the inventor of this theory

"How big would the butterfly have to be, in reality" The response - the wingspan would have to be meters across. Anyway, the theory is sound as we still can't predict the weather more than a week in advance. I'm not sure how you are relating this to crooked politics - I'm not familiar with using that metaphor in this way :shrug:

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. I'm surprised. The metaphor seems obvious to me, if in at least a

poetic way.

[Uncle Joe]

14. I see history as an ongoing butterfly effect

Two people; the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife are assassinated which led to World War 1 with the result of millions being killed, I believe over a million troops died just from the battle of Verdun, alone.

World War 1 would bankrupt Russia leading to the overthrow of the CZAR. the rise of communism the Soviet Union and eventually the Cold War.

Adolph Hitler would serve as a corporal and become embittered over his perceptions of Germany being betrayed from the inside, because the Treaty of Versailles put a heavy burden on Germany even though Germany controlled more territory at the end. His insanity would take root in the fertile soil of general hatred from that result. This would enable him to power only to bring about World War 2 and the deaths of hundreds of millions.

Ho Chi Min inspired by Wilson's proclamation of democracy would seek independence for his nation from France after World War 1, only to be rebuffed by the European powers and a weakened Wilson eager for approval of his dream; The League of Nations, which eventually led to the War with Vietnam and that nation becoming communist.

On the positive side the idea of a League of Nations would eventually result, after World War 2 in the United Nations.

Of course even less relevant transgressions led to the assassination of the royal couple, how far back can that be traced? I believe the farther back in history you go the more trivial the cause.

I believe the people that understand this best are students of history and the humanities.

I also believe these subjects should be prime courses required throughout school. I believe if Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy and History were taught more in school at an earlier age, you would have more empathy, less misunderstanding, bullying and the resultant shootings or violence they engender.