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Narrative Capture

Before we talk about narrative capture, let’s look at capture of another type.

Regulatory capture

Regulatory capture involves situations where a regulator ends up serving the interests of an industry, specific company, or other group. The people who are supposed to be making the rules end up following the lead of the very groups that they are supposed to be regulating.

Sometimes this is intentionally planned and financially supported and sometimes it just happens because of system design.

For a glimpse of thinking about regulatory capture during the late 1800s attempt to regulate railroads in the US, we have this attorney’s letter to a railroad president:

“My impressions would be that, looking at the matter from a railroad point of view exclusively, [repeal of the Interstate Commerce Act] would not be a wise thing to undertake…. The attempt would not be likely to succeed; if it did not succeed, and were made on the ground of the inefficiency and uselessness of the Commission, the result would very probably be giving it the power it now lacks. The Commission, as its functions have now been limited by the courts, is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal. Further, the older such a Commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things…. The part of wisdom is not to destroy the Commission, but to utilize it.” — Richard Olney, letter to Charles E. Perkins, 1892

Or, as I’ve heard someone say, “I like having a big board to report to because they never get anything done.” Continue reading “Narrative Capture”

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Decision Making (Startups and Patients)

With decisions come opportunities for unintended consequences, especially when when success and failure are radically different. How do we make a decision in a high-risk environment? What advice do we take in, how do our desires affect us, and what happens if this is a one-time game versus a multi-time game?

Here I’m going to look at two very different decisions that people make: how to run a startup and how to choose between options for a serious health issues. Continue reading “Decision Making (Startups and Patients)”

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A Second Step (to Systems Thinking)

When we want to change, build, or improve something we often only look one step in. That is, if we take action A we will get result B. End of story.

That’s only the end of the story because we stop looking.

Sometimes we only look that far because of a lack of imagination. Other times incentives are misaligned. Or when change comes at us too quickly. We also often only look one step in because considering more steps is difficult or impossible. The attempt to go beyond those problems is sometimes called “second-order thinking.”

Here are some recent events and proposal that clearly involve more than a single step when it comes to outcomes. Let’s look at ways the first step can result in unintended second steps and ways to change how we assess outcomes. Continue reading “A Second Step (to Systems Thinking)”

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Scaling a Scam (The Twitter Hack)

Today I was reminded of the first post I ever wrote on this blog (Voice AI, Telecom, Scams, and Co-evolution), back in 2018. My first article was focused on second-order effects of emerging voice AI capabilities and projected a number of scams that the technology would enable.

While this tech also has many positives, I always try to get a fuller picture by looking at the system.

The world is full of trade offs. In the case of voice AI in the article, we have the ability to scale up scams that historically worked, but only in small does. The “hey grandma” scam was one example. As I wrote back then:

“An older scam that this tech will scale is what’s known as the “Hey, Grandma” scam, where a grandparent gets a call from a “grandchild” in distress. There are different flavors of this. For US grandparents the story is often that the grandchild got into legal trouble and needs money wired. In China and Taiwan, it’s often that the grandchild has been kidnapped and is being beaten up. Again, wire the money.”

Continue reading “Scaling a Scam (The Twitter Hack)”

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Pandemic Protests

As with other sudden, widespread changes, there are many second-order effects from coronavirus. I’ve been slowly chronicling them on this blog. Today, let’s look at the impact on protest movements and tactics.

Over the past few months people around the world lost their ability to protest. Or, they lost the type of protest that had worked for them — the mass gatherings to show dissatisfaction and force government response.

In locations including Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Haiti, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Russia, Spain, Netherlands, Peru, Syria, and the US, protests have declined or have taken a different turn — due to COVID-19. What systems are changing and what is likely to remain changed after a vaccine?

Continue reading “Pandemic Protests”

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Changing Minds on Coronavirus

Long-time readers of this blog know that I wrote about how disease spreads several times well before the recent coronavirus news. And then I wrote three posts on that. I’m hardly alone in my interest on this topic.

But apart from what we’re going through now, infectious diseases generally don’t get as much attention as I think they deserve. In terms of unintended consequences, I’m interested in the impact of disease on human decision making and where things went wrong, or well, in the past. As for the potential impact of COVID-19 in the near-term, some minds are changing in the midst of political, business, social, and educational impact.

And then there is the look back in history. When I recently learned the story of a European plague year’s impact on Dutch “tulipmania,” the modern and historical protective images intrigued me as well.

Left: a protective white suit used when dealing with extreme infectious environments. Right: European plague doctor “Doctor Schnabel” (Dr. Beak). Doctors stuffed sweet smelling flowers and herbs into the mask’s beak to protect against noxious fumes believed to transmit disease. Also note the waxed coat, hat, and gloves.

Continue reading “Changing Minds on Coronavirus”

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Coronavirus Consequences

As a rule, I don’t cover breaking news on this site. Plenty of other sources do that. Instead, when I do write about current events I focus on looking at the effects that systems have generating unintended consequences. That’s why I’m only writing about the Wuhan novel coronavirus now, almost at the end of the declared 14-day lockdown period.

And what a story of systems.

While the novel coronavirus fatality rate is estimated at 2.2% versus 9.6% for SARS, some other qualities of this outbreak may make the illness more difficult to contain, namely the long period of incubation (14 day estimate) and the increased amount of travel, including international and domestic Lunar New Year travel shortly before the lockdown period.

If you want an example of how times have changed since earlier epidemics, watch this video from the English publication of China’s People’s Daily. Continue reading “Coronavirus Consequences”

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Should We Reevaluate the Precautionary Principle?

In March 2011 a 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami which led to the automatic shutdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan. While the reactor’s shutdown sequence started well, waves from the tsunami breached the nuclear plant’s seawall to flood and disable backup generators. Without the generators cooling the reactor’s nuclear core there was a meltdown and radioactive leakage. In this extreme series of events, what was the best way forward?

The Japanese government took action and required approximately 154,000 people to evacuate, the seemingly safe choice.

But was seemingly safe the right choice? Continue reading “Should We Reevaluate the Precautionary Principle?”

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The Owl’s Right Eye (Protest Symbols)



Let’s come back, more directly, to a theme in my writing — what happens when something small becomes a tipping point for change. When the seemingly innocuous becomes unpredictable.

If you’ve only casually followed the Hong Kong protests and reaction from the Chinese mainland and overseas Chinese communities, you might wonder about the importance and meaning of the covered eye. Specifically, the right eye.

Hong Kong protesters found one of their many symbols (and there are many) when police shot and injured the right eye of a protesting woman in August. The injured eye is a more powerful symbol than even that of the man police shot on October 1 (Chinese National Day) in the chest (that is, the heart).

But since the now famous protester’s eye injury we’ve seen company ad campaign apologies and even an individual arrest all because of missing eyes.

But the eye I was reminded of was none of these. It was a different eye — also a right eye and in China — that over 40 years ago had results reminiscent to those eyes of today.

Continue reading “The Owl’s Right Eye (Protest Symbols)”