TIPPED OVER: Thus far, I haven’t spoken much about the “tipping point” concept, which has recently become a fashionable blue-state cliché. Such a progressive, new age idea reminds me too much of Al Gore – especially since his wife is named Tipper. Had Al been elected in 2000, the world probably would be in better shape right now. But some people might have lost their stomachs listening to Tipper Gore as First Lady giving speeches about environmental tipping points. (Still, too bad that Al met a political tipping point in Florida and Washington that year).

Admittedly I didn’t read the book (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell), but given my background in engineering and economics, I believe that I understand the basic ideas well enough. The tipping point concept is one of those modern, cross-curricular “meta-theories” that some super-bright oddballs stumbled across while playing around with a computer program (much like chaos theory and emergence). In sum, it says that in both physical and social systems, there occur specific times and places where some very small, seemingly random event casts the die and has a very large impact on the system that surrounds it (which could be as small as a dish of water being frozen, or as large as the world economy). If the same event happens just a short while before or after that tipping point, it has relatively little impact and is soon forgotten.

These non-tipping point situations describe most of the things that we do during our nasty, brutish and short lives. Oh sure, we get plenty of come-ons from fundraisers from PBS and other (hopefully) worthy causes that remind us of the “butterfly over Beijing that causes a hurricane”. That idea was popularized by the Chaos Theory promoters, and says that because the world is such a sensitive thing, even the smallest actions can have effects that build up over time into huge proportions.

The thing to notice, while you wonder whether to get out your checkbook or credit card, is the word “can” – which here implies possibility but no guarantee. Chaos Theory did legitimately point out that our atmosphere and plenty of other things in the world are subject to “recursive” processes, whereby a particular event effects a system over and over again, and those effects get bigger and bigger over time. (E.g., this may be relevant in understanding the physical processes that lead to a heart attack or a stock market collapse). BUT, Chaos Theory admits that there are also plenty of “negative feedback” and “equilibrium return” mechanisms out there that usually keep stuff like this from happening. (If there weren’t, there’d be so many stock market crashes and heart attacks that you couldn’t have a stock market, or any investors to fool around with it). This all leads us to the TIPPING POINT idea – that although most effects are just dampened out and are soon forgotten, once in a very blue moon, a little thing (like that butterfly over Beijing or that gullible PBS donator) truly does change the world.

So, it that good or bad? Well, for most of us schmucks living lives of quiet desperation, it’s a glass half-full. Or not even half-full, really. I suspect that tipping points are pretty rare. And when you’re at one, you may not even know! After all, it’s hard to suspect the paths by which small acts of kindness or meanness could influence the world. Next, throw in the law of unintended consequences – perhaps a small anonymous act of kindness in the 20s or 30s triggered Stalin’s or Hitler’s rise to power! (I can imagine some old, rich matron marveling over a young political activist, so full of energy, surely he will help to make the mother / father-land great once more.) So, don’t look to Beijing Butterflies and Tipping Points to give your life its missing meaning. It might be a long, long wait.

Just what should you turn to in order to find your life’s hidden meaning? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!