Behind the Power Curve
The title term comes to us from aviation. It is a condition when our aircraft is descending toward a crash landing, but one in which it is too late to apply more power and raise the nose so that we might pull up and away from the impending disaster; but we also cannot put the aircraft into a dive, increase speed, and then pull up because our altitude is too low for all of that to take place. You and I and all of our passengers are screwed, especially if we don’t have parachutes, plus enough altitude for them to be able to save us—and we have neither. All seasoned pilots know about the power curve, and that is why we put only veteran aviators in the cockpits of war and commercial aircraft.
Life also has many other examples of this phenomenon at play. Whenever our circumstances require planning and foresight, it applies. The “lead time” when action is required in order to avert a disaster can vary from very long to very short depending in the issue at hand. But unlike the case where we insist on having seasoned, knowledgeable people in charge in order to prevent a disaster, we often have utter simpletons in charge who virtually assure a disaster will happen. The lead time to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change is one example. The lead time to avoid an economic collapse is another. Putting an ignoramus in the White House with the nuclear code is a third.
If you are thinking that I am referring only to putting politicians and political appointees in charge of operations that they do not have a clue about, you would be incorrect. This condition also applies to every position of responsibility when people’s lives and resources are at risk. It is ubiquitous; it is rampant; and it is now. It is also why we are all on a collision course with a destiny of our own making. That destiny is extinction.
A catastrophic nuclear war is among those conditions at the top of the list. I shudder to think of the consequences of putting the “red” telephone at the bedside of 99 percent of all political candidates for the top job. I want to vomit at nearly all the actions and inactions of the US Congress, particularly from the obstructionists. I have met so many incompetent boobs in government, industry, and in the academic community that I marvel at why we have not already self-destructed on a massive scale.
Our circumstances would be funny if they were not so serious. We have known for a very long time that large scale burning of trees in the Amazon region of South America is the number one cause of global warming, yet virtually nothing has been done to stop it. We know that 40 residents in America are killed every day with hand guns, yet the count goes on and on. We know that wealth and income inequality is the source of nearly all the conditions of poverty in the world, yet it gets worse with each passing day. We know that an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” yet we do not follow our own advice. We know that scientific study after study has shown us the way out of most of our looming disasters, yet we do nothing.
We know that some one or some thing gave us brains to use, but even when we use them, we ignore our own wisdom. We have met the enemy, and it is us.
By the same token, an 11-year-old Hispanic was stabbed to death on the street last week in Houston and eyewitness observers immediately identified the man, a black man detained for being belligerent on a bus as the terrible one who did it.
Three days later, the police chief announced (after the poor man had been lynched by the press and the Hispanic neighborhood) that the guy had been spotted by store surveillance cameras in three places about 40 miles away at the very same time the stabbing occurred.
Our world is being run by snap decisions on the fly while texting while driving. The one minute manager is in charge.
Counter to your article, two of the smartest man on the planet that I've recently heard from, are claiming that this century we are on the verge of reversing all those maladies by the collective intelligence of cloud decision-making and many ways of making ourselves much more intelligent via implants, cell-sized robots and gene manipulation.
Twentieth century ways of obstruction, conflict, war and unintelligent debate will be swept away with powerful global thinking that surpasses even the wildest dreams of science fiction writers.
Ron
Love ya!
Jane