Sketchplanations - A weekly explanation in a sketch

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Explaining the world one sketch at a time

Proportionality bias

We have a natural tendency to think that big events must have big causes. For instance, in one study, participants who were told that a plane had crashed and everyone died were more likely to believe it was a terrorist incident than one in which they were told a plane had crashed but people survived. It might also help explain why, when we want to roll that big lucky number to win, we might find ourselves giving the dice an extra shake before rolling, as if the extra effort might lead to the better outcome. Normally, proportionality bias makes a lot of sense, but sometimes it leads us astray. Working with software, for example, might help train this out of us as a mere misplaced comma can bring entire systems grinding to a halt. And small changes to ecosystems, or, say, a small temperature rise on a planet, can lead to massive consequences. Proportionality bias is considered one of the drivers of conspiracy theories. For example, we might be inclined to think that someone like Lady Diana couldn’t possibly have just died in a driving accident — there must be more to it. Or JFK couldn’t have been killed just by a lone gunman — there must be a larger plot at work.…We have a natural tendency to think that big events must have big causes. For instance, in one study, participants who were told that a plane had crashed and everyone died were more likely to believe it was a terrorist incident than one in which they were told a plane had crashed but people survived. It might also help explain why, when we want to roll that big lucky number to win, we might find ourselves giving the dice an extra shake before rolling, as if the extra effort might lead to the better outcome. Normally, proportionality bias makes a lot of sense, but sometimes it leads us astray. Working with software, for example, might help train this out of us as a mere misplaced comma can bring entire systems grinding to a halt. And small changes to ecosystems, or, say, a small temperature rise on a planet, can lead to massive consequences. Proportionality bias is considered one of the drivers of conspiracy theories. For example, we might be inclined to think that someone like Lady Diana couldn’t possibly have just died in a driving accident — there must be more to it. Or JFK couldn’t have been killed just by a lone gunman — there must be a larger plot at work.

30 Mar 2019

Tsundoku

Tsundoku is a beautiful Japanese word for acquiring and piling up books without reading them. It is constructed from two words that loosely mean "piling up" and "reading." It's easy to fall prey to tsundoku. Immediately upon entering a bookstore, I'm filled with the promise of knowledge and entertainment that exudes from the books. Each book calls out to share its wisdom and the draw of quiet hours spent reading it. Given that it takes hours to read most books and only moments to buy them, practising tsundoku is a common pastime. The sketch is loosely based on my parents’ bedroom while I grew up, both of whom are experienced and talented tsundoku-ers/tsundokists. This sketch and many other word-related sketches appear in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures. I won't be offended if the book makes it into a beautiful pile—just please pop it at the top. Also see: 3,500 Lifetime Reads—the number of books you might read in a lifetime…Tsundoku is a beautiful Japanese word for acquiring and piling up books without reading them. It is constructed from two words that loosely mean "piling up" and "reading." It's easy to fall prey to tsundoku. Immediately upon entering a bookstore, I'm filled with the promise of knowledge and entertainment that exudes from the books. Each book calls out to share its wisdom and the draw of quiet hours spent reading it. Given that it takes hours to read most books and only moments to buy them, practising tsundoku is a common pastime. The sketch is loosely based on my parents’ bedroom while I grew up, both of whom are experienced and talented tsundoku-ers/tsundokists. This sketch and many other word-related sketches appear in my book Big Ideas Little Pictures. I won't be offended if the book makes it into a beautiful pile—just please pop it at the top. Also see: 3,500 Lifetime Reads—the number of books you might read in a lifetime

23 Mar 2019

The Abilene paradox

The Abiliene paradox is the paradox of how groups of people can take actions that no one in the group actually thinks is a good idea. Though individually, we each may think that an idea is a bad one, we may go along with the group decision thinking that it’s just us that disagree when, in fact, no one thinks it’s a good idea. It was coined by Jerry Harvey, a management professor, who illustrated the phenomenon with a fictional story of a family who ended up on a rubbish day out to Abilene that no one wanted to do. On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene (53 miles north) for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.” The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted. One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored. The group sits back, perplexed that they decided to take a trip that none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon. More paradoxes: The coastline paradox Jevon’s paradox the liar paradox the transparency paradox the paradox of choice Also see: groupthink the bandwagon effect Harvey, J. B. (1974). “The Abilene paradox: the management of agreement”. Organizational Dynamics. 3: 63–80. Excerpt as quoted from Wikipedia :) This is not to diss Abilene. I’m sure it’s a neat place.…The Abiliene paradox is the paradox of how groups of people can take actions that no one in the group actually thinks is a good idea. Though individually, we each may think that an idea is a bad one, we may go along with the group decision thinking that it’s just us that disagree when, in fact, no one thinks it’s a good idea. It was coined by Jerry Harvey, a management professor, who illustrated the phenomenon with a fictional story of a family who ended up on a rubbish day out to Abilene that no one wanted to do. On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene (53 miles north) for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.” The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted. One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored. The group sits back, perplexed that they decided to take a trip that none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon. More paradoxes: The coastline paradox Jevon’s paradox the liar paradox the transparency paradox the paradox of choice Also see: groupthink the bandwagon effect Harvey, J. B. (1974). “The Abilene paradox: the management of agreement”. Organizational Dynamics. 3: 63–80. Excerpt as quoted from Wikipedia :) This is not to diss Abilene. I’m sure it’s a neat place.

16 Mar 2019

Choose the fast line

You’re at the supermarket. There are 8 self-checkouts and 15 people in line, there are 3 servers scanning baskets only with 5 people in line and 4 checkouts for trolleys each with 2 trolleys at each. Or you’re at immigration after getting off a plane, and you can see 3 lines each of different lengths, but it looks like they’ve just opened up another agent who’s only accessible from the right-hand line, but it already looks longer. Or there’s a jam on the highway but it looks like one lane splits into two up ahead. Or they’re checking passports at the gate and it looks like there are two people checking at one line and only one at the other. OK, chances are we probably won’t get it right, and most of all it’s worth just making peace with that and not stressing about it. But, there are times when a little counting, checking ahead and some mental arithmetic can save you a little time and give you a little glow of satisfaction. Good luck.…You’re at the supermarket. There are 8 self-checkouts and 15 people in line, there are 3 servers scanning baskets only with 5 people in line and 4 checkouts for trolleys each with 2 trolleys at each. Or you’re at immigration after getting off a plane, and you can see 3 lines each of different lengths, but it looks like they’ve just opened up another agent who’s only accessible from the right-hand line, but it already looks longer. Or there’s a jam on the highway but it looks like one lane splits into two up ahead. Or they’re checking passports at the gate and it looks like there are two people checking at one line and only one at the other. OK, chances are we probably won’t get it right, and most of all it’s worth just making peace with that and not stressing about it. But, there are times when a little counting, checking ahead and some mental arithmetic can save you a little time and give you a little glow of satisfaction. Good luck.

10 Mar 2019

The coastline paradox

The coastline paradox is the fascinating observation that it’s not straightforward to say how long a coastline is. If you were to measure the coastline of a country by using a ruler on a globe, you would come out with a vastly different number than if you were to pace around the edge. The closer you look, the more wiggles and squiggliness you come across, and instead of converging to a more accurate length, the coastline just keeps getting longer. The smaller your ruler, the longer it gets. This was originally spotted, incredibly, in the 1950s by an Englishman, Lewis Richardson, when trying to check a theory he had that the likelihood of war between countries depended on the length of their shared borders. Remarkably, he found that the quoted lengths of borders varied significantly. While measuring on maps at different scales, he saw that the smaller scale map he used, or the smaller the width of his callipers he measured with, the length systematically increased. When looking at coastlines, instead of borders, some countries had wigglier coasts, and so the length increased at a faster rate with the scale — for instance, Norway’s coastline, with it’s crinkly fjords, increases faster than Britain’s, which in turn increases faster than South Africa’s, as he zoomed in. The rate of this increase later became known as its fractal dimension. Long after Richardson’s research, Benoit Mandelbrot published a paper How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension that discussed how the wiggliness of something like a coastline at one scale can be repeated at smaller and smaller scales. The work led to the later term fractals. Many other things exhibit fractal-like behaviour, such as river networks, borders, brains, frequencies, lightning, and even the stock market. There’s a super section on this in Scale, by Geoffrey West. Also see: The Mercator Projection The difference between Great Britain, the UK and the British Isles…The coastline paradox is the fascinating observation that it’s not straightforward to say how long a coastline is. If you were to measure the coastline of a country by using a ruler on a globe, you would come out with a vastly different number than if you were to pace around the edge. The closer you look, the more wiggles and squiggliness you come across, and instead of converging to a more accurate length, the coastline just keeps getting longer. The smaller your ruler, the longer it gets. This was originally spotted, incredibly, in the 1950s by an Englishman, Lewis Richardson, when trying to check a theory he had that the likelihood of war between countries depended on the length of their shared borders. Remarkably, he found that the quoted lengths of borders varied significantly. While measuring on maps at different scales, he saw that the smaller scale map he used, or the smaller the width of his callipers he measured with, the length systematically increased. When looking at coastlines, instead of borders, some countries had wigglier coasts, and so the length increased at a faster rate with the scale — for instance, Norway’s coastline, with it’s crinkly fjords, increases faster than Britain’s, which in turn increases faster than South Africa’s, as he zoomed in. The rate of this increase later became known as its fractal dimension. Long after Richardson’s research, Benoit Mandelbrot published a paper How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension that discussed how the wiggliness of something like a coastline at one scale can be repeated at smaller and smaller scales. The work led to the later term fractals. Many other things exhibit fractal-like behaviour, such as river networks, borders, brains, frequencies, lightning, and even the stock market. There’s a super section on this in Scale, by Geoffrey West. Also see: The Mercator Projection The difference between Great Britain, the UK and the British Isles

2 Mar 2019

Imposter syndrome

Ever had that feeling when people said "well done" or "thank you" for what you did, that you didn’t deserve it? It’s called imposter syndrome. It’s a pernicious and pervasive feeling of doubting your accomplishments and fear of being exposed as a fraud — at any moment, everyone will wake up and realise you aren’t so great after all. My thoughts: Hang in there, keep trying your best, stay humble, and don’t take things too seriously. And accept compliments.…Ever had that feeling when people said "well done" or "thank you" for what you did, that you didn’t deserve it? It’s called imposter syndrome. It’s a pernicious and pervasive feeling of doubting your accomplishments and fear of being exposed as a fraud — at any moment, everyone will wake up and realise you aren’t so great after all. My thoughts: Hang in there, keep trying your best, stay humble, and don’t take things too seriously. And accept compliments.

23 Feb 2019

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