On Darfur and The Uncleaned Coffeepot
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. – Abraham Lincoln
Thru the years, as we have come to understand the problems that plague us we’ve learned there are simple underlying cause of things that explode into big things. We call these annoying little beasts: A wrench in the works, the fly in the ointment, the uncleaned Coffee pot.
If i may digress a bit to explain further. It comes from a story about Rudolf Giuliani in New York. Weather you like him or not is not the point to this story. He fixed a city works project that was always overrunning itself by tracing all the problems to two people who refused to talk to each other because they couldn’t agree who should clean the coffee pot. Further more upon finding this out, he didn’t fire anyone, but did make them know it was unacceptable and moved on. [I have a problem with Americans not accepting mistakes now, it its sue happy culture, but, that is another day] In return he gained the reputation as a problem solver, a benevolent person and attentive to detail. But this essay is not about leadership. Not today.
Part of the problem is that we ignore the law of unintended consequences (a simple system cannot effectively control or predict a complex system). Like a virus, a simple problem, that causes a host of complications in the body, complex problems weather social or political or economical all start with simple problems. To fix problems in government we try quick fix laws, which end up complicating the process more. To fix our marriages, we try counseling, which rarely addresses the problems yet seeks to work at each in a timely manner. However, i am not advocating ignoring the complications but in the end use them to diagnose the problem.
Diagnosing the problem is itself a problem. Sometimes hard and exhausting work must be done. Then it has to be checked. And after all that, it may still be a mask to a even worse underlying cause.
But the largest obstacle is US: our feelings, our affiliations, our loyalties or even or anger. Let us examine for instance a vey complicated problem which a known single root cause. Darfur is currently in conflict brought on by drought, desertification, and overpopulation. That Africa is a desert is a not new, but we’ve hand 10,000 years of irrigation, aqueducts, water buffalo walks, air drops and pipelines innovation to solve a desert problem. We can send Darfur all the humanitarian aid, troops and medicines we can find, but until someone get’s water from somewhere it isn’t to somewhere it is, nothing will change in that region.
But we have to watch out for that Law, The one that asks, what happens if you reroute rivers, or change drain them. Desalinization is the answer. We’re not likely to drain the ocean soon (hopefully) and current technology manage the waste of such plants, and how much water do we add to the land? After all, must humans take over everything? A desert IS a naturally occurring spot on Earth. (let’s not turn one environmental mess into another after all). But who’s going to build the plants and warehouse? Commit to running it? Why must someone ask, how much it cost? Suddenly the complications are back, getting in the way of the problem.
The world has the means, the manpower and the ability to add water to the desert. Take a look at Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. We have gotten water to the desert. It’s sad that we don’t have the will because that is not currently our problem.
Darfur needs water; Lots of it.
Now.
OceansOfThought @ March 24, 2008
Perhaps you’ve already broached this in other posts, but someday the World Wars will not be fought over oil supplies, but over fresh water supplies. There are currently laws and treaties in place in our country and internationally to maintain water distribution within it’s own watershed. Piping to another can cause disastrous results, and doesn’t solve the problem; it only shifts it, sometime irreparably.
Is the simple problem Lack of water? or basic needs for living. As i point out in my Justifiable war post, getting and taking resources has been a reason for wars since olden times. This is no different.
Piping water from one country to another would create problems, as i’ve indicated above, moving water around Sudan would also create a problem, but the underlying fact is that they need water, or the people need to move. It is that simple. Where they move to, where you get the water from, etc, all are the other complications that creep in and things get messy.
[…] I realized this fit my own philosophy, as i’ve defined it. “If you bring me a problem without a solution, I will make you the solution.” And that I should look for the uncleaned coffee pot. […]