The Answer is Thermodynamics?

The Mechanical Engineering department at Duke has been doing some fascinating work that bleeds over into the built endeavor. Based on the physics principle that:

For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to survive) its configuration must evolve (morph) in time in such a way that it provides easier flow access.

They’ve developed a field of “Constructal Theory” that studies the development of natural paths of least resistance to flow in a resisting substance. Which is to say that: the channel in which heat (the archetype) will flow most efficiently has a predictable shape in a certain environment. The breakthrough is when you realize that almost everything else that flows follows the same principles: Rivers, sap throughout trees, gasses, goods, traffic. The most natural flow for a dynamic system can then be worked out as a series of paths of least resistance. No mystery.

All things that flow follow certain principles, whether it is the constructal design for maximum flow access from the center to the edge of a circle, or the delta of the River Lena in northern Siberia. The flow goes from high to low, with hierarchy and multiple scales. –Adrian Bejan, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Duke University

Add in the social scientists and you get a book: Constructal Theory of Social Dymanics Which is now on the reading list.

Fluid engineering explaining human dynamics. It’s like being back in the optimistic industrial revolution again.

Compare: Yours Truly as Heat Particle

Travelogue: Kingfisher County, Oklahoma

Welcome to the end of the nineteenth century. The breadbasket of the most powerful economy in the world; the grain-export market that disrupted the whole European status quo; the spiritual home of mechanized agriculture; this it what’s left of the land of milk and honey for countless immigrants both internal and external. Activists that complain about American agriculture subsidies have never been here. This was truly the land of the American dream. Hard work and feeding a hungry hegemon in exchange for free land and real independence. Quite possibly the last place on planet Earth where a man of limited means could be his own master. Thus it was for a while.

The last fifty years(one could say 100) have not been kind to the family farm in wheat country. As economies of scale increase, both commodity prices and profit margins decrease. These days one must have a thousand acres under the plow just to make ends meet. As margins reduce, the small freeholder is squeezed out little by little. This is a life that has been dying throughout the twentieth century, and continues to die still. The average age of the Kingfisher County farmer (so I am told by reliable sources,) is 65. That’s right, the mean age is Sixty-Five years old. The young no longer see the world of their fathers as a life that can be led. Industrialization, it seems, is a piper that must be paid.

These, the folk that fed the draft through wars great and small, the grist of the Norman Rockwell world of self-identification, the George Baileys, the Sargent Yorks, the stable world against which Truman Capote and Andy Warhol felt secure enough to react, is almost gone. Ironically destroyed by their own success – the sweat of these men’s brows made food almost free, and thus food was no longer important. Produce comes from California and Mexico (as opposed to the self-sufficient gardens of generations of women,) staple crops come from anywhere – the corporate Dakotas, Arizona fields irrigated by their taxes in the New Deal, or the steppes of Asia liberated by the threat of the steadfastness shown by these very men when they carried M-1 carbines across Europe and Asia. The world has become free and no longer needs the American farmer – just the protection of the Navy manned by his costal brethren fed for generations on his produce.

Whither from here? The tentacles of urbanization have spread even this far from the cities – that and there is always energy. Food gives way to fuel as the lifeblood of the Southern (North) American steppes. It’s not the same, though: Oil and gas are dirty, hierarchical, and exploitative. Food was such a pure and beautiful product.

Enjoy that next hamburger – men paid for it with their lives.

Blinded by Trusts: Critiquing the Reich proposal

Former-Secretary-of-Labor (that seems to be his title) Robert Reich has proposed instituting a blind trust fund for political contributions to all (I’m assuming Federal,) political candidates. This, on the face of it, seems like a reasonable idea to combat corruption. No one knows who contributed to them, so they’re free to say what they believe and not worry about being beholden to contributors. But I wonder, exactly how would you go about enforcing the proposal? Per the Federal Election Commission now:

If you are running for the U.S. House, Senate or the Presidency, you must register with the FEC once you (or persons acting on your behalf) receive contributions or make expenditures in excess of $5,000. Within 15 days of reaching that $5,000 threshold, you must file a Statement of Candidacy (FEC Form 2 [PDF]) authorizing a principal campaign committee to raise and spend funds on your behalf. Within 10 days of that filing, your principal campaign committee must submit a Statement of Organization (FEC Form 1 [PDF]). Your campaign will thereafter report its receipts and disbursements on a regular basis. Campaigns should download the Campaign Guide for Congressional Candidates [PDF] for more information on the laws that apply to them.

Federal election law is already pretty complicated. While most of the penalties for failure to file the appropriate contribution forms / committee designations / list updates, etc, etc, seem to take the form of fines (usually up to a certain percentage of collected monies,) or revocation of tax exempt status, I wonder how the enforcement would change under the Reich proposal. Would there be fines assessed for violations of blindness? If a zealous contributor walks up and hands a (duly registered, etc, etc) candidate a check, does he have to tear it up? What kind of enforcement regime would police the level of ignorance? Would the timing of deposits (i.e. the amount in trust at a given point in time,) be hidden? If not, how would one prevent simply saying, “I gave you this much at this time, check the numbers?”

The whole thing, or the whole campaign reporting scheme in general, strikes me as a relatively Rube Goldberg construction. Once again, the advocates for “democracy” seem to be making the entire procedure further and further remote from the average person. (Compare: what I was trying to say here.) Every compliance statement, every filing requirement, every long and labyrinthine statute, and every threat of administrative penalty drives the average man a little further away from representing his fellows.

Inspired top-down solutions may well work. But they must be enforced by someone; and the consequences of the enforcement need to be considered.

Collage: The Quick and Dead

Happy Birthday Sooner State

Friday, November 16 the great State of Oklahoma turns 100 years old. This is a good time to reflect on the only state to have its own Rogers & Hammerstein musical. It sometimes seems like absolutely no one who’s never lived there understands the first thing about the place. The most important thing to internalize (especially on our occasion) is how incredibly young it is historically. Oklahoma is basically a Twentieth-Century place. The only analogue in the non-US developed world might (might) be Australia. All of the great struggles of western history were resolved by the time it was settled. Slavery was long gone (although due to the activity of the resident Indians, and its location, it’s considered aligned with the Old South,) the US Federal government was ascendant, railroads and infrastructure had already linked the entire North American continent, and as the last piece of the Manifest Destiny puzzle there was already an assumption of the overall union as a whole rather than parts. This somewhat colors the identity.

It’s worth remembering that the state started as a Federal protectorate. When Andy Jackson evicted the Indians (n.b. in OK that’s what they call themselves. Native American is apparently a term only used by guilty white people,) they needed some place to store them, and this leftover part of the Louisiana Purchase no one wanted anyway. Contrary to some misconceptions, Indian Territory was not “stolen” from the Indians. Georgia and Alabama were – I.T. is just where they were warehoused against their will. This federally-administered origin gave a permanent outward focus to the place. While certain American places (Virginia, New England, and especially Texas,) thought of themselves as organic, self-contained entities, the settlers of Indian Territory harbored no such illusions. They were vassals of the great American project, and eventually hoped to someday attach themselves to the Mother State.

So, summarizing our story, Oklahoma started out late in the game and dependant on the already-developed United States. This inherent outward focus (not to mention lots of bad press during the Depression,) makes for a psyche of definition-by-comparison. Couple this with the fierce independence of a people that would settle the last outpost of the frontier (where else did you think Huck Finn was going?) and you get the distinctive character of the place to this day. “We know we’re not highly thought of,” (rightly or wrongly,) “but nobody’s going to push us around,” (although, if we wanted to copy, say, Ohio, that’d be all right.)

However, this odd origin is not without its silver lining. Starting post-railroad certainly makes for a more efficient communication / distribution across the board. A sparse population of independent stakeholders none of whom have many years of security to lean on makes for the most respectful people on the continent. Think Texas with none of the swagger (and a great deal more apology.) Culturally, geographically, and historically it’s a place that’s really neither fish nor fowl, and still trying to define itself in context of its neighbors that got a head start.

Home.

The Shopping Cart Question

Several months ago, I was reading an economist asking “why are shopping carts larger?” Apparently, it’s been empirically noted that shopping carts (I think just in the U.S. – my data on international shopping carts is not so good) have grown progressively larger in the last twenty years, and no one’s established a good reason why. Here’s one idea:

Americans, as we know, suffer from a severe affluence problem. (After, isn’t it said that in America even the poor have color TV?) As goods become cheaper and cheaper, more and more of them feed the vast consumer society. Specifically, the single-family houses of the average American have grown steadily larger and larger, and their larger and larger cars have more and more space. As I understand it, the retail pattern used to be that one went to the market (supermarket, what have you) at least once a week for necessities, many if not most of which would spoil if kept to long. In the dense railroad cities, (or traditional European ones, for that matter,) this was even more frequent as carrying capacities were severely limited by what one person could carry back to where they lived. In contrast, the average American today has a really big house (by standards of necessity,) a really big car, and is buying goods that may or not be necessary for the immediate week, and will almost certainly keep for a good long while combining the magic of preservatives and refrigeration. Thus, following the Marxian dictum that what you do is determined by what you can do, you get the phenomenon of hoarding.

Economies of scale usually dictate that larger purchases have lower unit costs, and this is only exacerbated by the likes of CostCo and Sam’s Club. Add that to the desire to maximize leisure time by spending as little time as possible in the market, and you get very large, yet very infrequent purchases. Instead of the daily baguette and produce, the technology-rich American buys vast quantities of long-shelf-life items once in a comparatively rare while. They carry this voluminous plunder in their huge car back to their huge house and store it somewhere out of the way until they consume it or entirely forget about it. The average purchase becomes larger, the transport becomes larger, the storage becomes larger – ergo the shopping cart becomes larger.

I even see this in my own (ostensibly enlightened) behavior: I shop completely differently walking down to the local supermarket than when driving the seven miles to the kosher superstore in North Dallas. (Please, don’t ask.) Quantities become larger, space is at less of a premium – in short the whole strategy is different.

And I use a larger shopping cart.


Compare: The Sam's Club Effect