In case some of my fellow Terrascopers didn’t notice (though I highly doubt this phenomenon could be missed easily), I was 15 minutes late for the bus that was to take us to the airport. I have justifications that I am not going to delve into right now, but would be happy to discuss over email two business days after the trip.
So, I was a couple of minutes late. Big deal. I suppose that if you zoomed out enough from the situation, you would see the vision of me dragging my suitcase frantically down Memorial Drive. Zoom out further, and you would notice how trivial this 15-minute delay is to the large picture of things, to the trip, to the experience. You would notice that 15 minutes is just an arbitrary number that blurs into other, more important variables. We made it to the airport on time. The bus was fairly comfortable. And, though I can’t be entirely sure of this, nobody fainted in anticipation.
Now that I have secured your understanding (and/or your forgiveness) I want to do a double take and say that, even in the larger picture of things, it should not be okay that I was that late for the bus. Not that I don’t appreciate the benefit of the doubt that my fellow Terrascopers granted me—just a general philosophy that I’ve developed over the few hours of this plane journey.
This epiphany came from reading some of the briefings that we were given about one of the more important aspects of our trip- i.e. the work we’re doing in India. So whilst going through these readings, I noticed a reiteration of many of the statistics that we explored through our research last semester into the state of world hung
When you’re a scientist, you have to deal a lot with small percentages. Margins of error, statistics that need to be approximated, clipped off, scoped or ignored. As we snipped away at some numbers last semester, it was difficult to perceive the implications of some of the issues at stake.
You are 1.5x10^-8 % of the world - this is a percentage we would look at, even in the social sciences, as negligible. And yet, your suffering, your struggles and growth are relevant to the average of 150 people (1) in your social network. There are at least 150 people who care about your difficulties with 7.013 or your hatred for the dining plan. The isolation that poverty causes, however, leaves very little room for the development of “community”, especially in urban areas. In the villages, though there is a social support system, neglect by governing bodies leaves a low chance for emancipation.
You’re a farmer in a typical village in central India (2).
The question is, who really cares? You’re starving, your children are malnutritioned, you’re heavily in debt. Your crop yield is at a record low, and your cattle are poor milk producers. Who cares- the government? The media? The other people in your country?
Of course they all care about the plight of the farmers, the 600 million that provide bread for the nation. But this care and this concern has, for no fault of the observer, been very removed from an actual appreciation for individual suffering.
Which is why I believe this trip is important. So far, we’ve been studying very up-to-date facts, perspectives and science characterizing the struggles of every underperforming Indian farmer. However, we have been unable to develop the empathy, the personal connection and full understanding of an actual human being, as opposed to hollowly characterized sketches and statistics.
So I go back to my initial tryst with tardiness. Zooming out of a situation should by no means reduce the individual weight of an occurrence. If it was important that I was late at the small scale, it should be important regardless of which level of magnification I view the event on. Similarly, the 1.5x10^-8 % that an individual is of the world- should inspire the same feelings in the eyes of a scientist that say, 41%, does. Not the same decision making, but the same feeling.
This by no means implies that we should be motivated by emotion whilst making decisions- rather, that we consider impacts individually, and truly empathize with the people that we are affecting.
Here’s to a perspective-changing trip!
Also, the obligatory introduction:
My name is Anvisha Pai, and I'm not always late for things (at least, not most of the time). I'm a freshman in Course 6 or 10, and I was involved with the Terrascope Economics group last semester, and then the Presentation Committee where I presented the "India Case Study" section of the presentation. I'm originally from Mumbai, India, but I can trace back my roots to a town not far from Sirsi, so it's an interesting experience to visit this area for the first time.
(1): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
(2): http://www.voltairenet.org/article159305.html
Of course they all care about the plight of the farmers, the 600 million that provide bread for the nation. But this care and this concern has, for no fault of the observer, been very removed from an actual appreciation for individual suffering.
Which is why I believe this trip is important. So far, we’ve been studying very up-to-date facts, perspectives and science characterizing the struggles of every underperforming Indian farmer. However, we have been unable to develop the empathy, the personal connection and full understanding of an actual human being, as opposed to hollowly characterized sketches and statistics.
So I go back to my initial tryst with tardiness. Zooming out of a situation should by no means reduce the individual weight of an occurrence. If it was important that I was late at the small scale, it should be important regardless of which level of magnification I view the event on. Similarly, the 1.5x10^-8 % that an individual is of the world- should inspire the same feelings in the eyes of a scientist that say, 41%, does. Not the same decision making, but the same feeling.
This by no means implies that we should be motivated by emotion whilst making decisions- rather, that we consider impacts individually, and truly empathize with the people that we are affecting.
Here’s to a perspective-changing trip!
Also, the obligatory introduction:
My name is Anvisha Pai, and I'm not always late for things (at least, not most of the time). I'm a freshman in Course 6 or 10, and I was involved with the Terrascope Economics group last semester, and then the Presentation Committee where I presented the "India Case Study" section of the presentation. I'm originally from Mumbai, India, but I can trace back my roots to a town not far from Sirsi, so it's an interesting experience to visit this area for the first time.
(1): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
(2): http://www.voltairenet.org/article159305.html
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