Taming Chaos

On January 27th Steve Jobs announced iPad. Reactions have been various, but a dominant sound is that iPad is overhyped and underwhelming. Three years ago Steve Jobs announced iPhone, by that time reactions have been that iPhone was overhyped and underwhelming. Since then it not only sold like crazy, it transformed the cellphone industry. There seems to be a pattern, the introduction of earlier Apple products has not been much different. How is it possible these products get such a cold initial reception among a broad audience and then appear to be groundbreaking nonetheless?

My thesis is that Apple products are misfits, when seen from the perspective of a currently widely accepted worldview. They are not bad, they are actually pretty good. And they are good exactly because they ignore one of the most important paradigms of our culture.

The one-truth paradigm

What we believe is that reality around us can be brought together in one single truth and that this truth can be obtained by logical reasoning. This seems so logical you might ask: how can one ever doubt that?

The alternative view is: reality is too big to be contained in one single truth. Sure there is one reality, consisting of trillions and trillions of atoms that are constantly changing position. There’s no way we would be able to see, follow and understand each one of them. Fortunately we don’t have to. What we do – and quite effectively so – is make a model of the reality that’s surrounding us. We don’t see every single atom, we see trillions at a time which we conceptualize into abstract objects. This model is what allows us to interact with reality around us.

See:

• Brilliant truth
• Infinite reality

Social behavior

But here we go. If the reality we perceive is not the ‘real’ reality but only a model of reality, then every single person might have his own model of reality and see his own ‘truth’, his own version of what’s going on. That’s confusing: if everybody has his own perception of what’s going on, his own ‘truth’, how can people ever work together?

Well, it appears we are pretty good at that. Scientists, studying social behavior, are amazed how effective groups can be, both with hominids like chimpanzees and with humans. We have natural behavior, based upon intuition, emotion, social communication, that allow us to operate in a group and very effectively so. There are tons of reasons why operating in a group wouldn’t be that easy at all, in the course of evolution we have been able to overcome that. And that is really a huge achievement.

There is one thing however this kind of social behavior cannot do: managing large groups. As long as every member of the group knows every other member, all goes well. But when a group is larger the natural, informal, networked kind of behavior is no longer enough. A formal hierarchy is needed.

Jared Diamond describes in Guns, germs and steel the transition from tribes (with 100’s of people) to chiefdoms (with 1000’s):

In contrast to a tribe’s big-man, a chief held a recognized office, filled by hereditary right. Instead of the decentralized anarchy of a village meeting, the chief was a permanent centralized authority, made all significant decisions, and had a monopoly on critical information.

Keeping a hierarchy together

As soon as you have a hierarchy this amazing human ability to operate in self organizing networks is no longer only a benefit, it has become a threat as well. Any social organization, especially when combined with discontent on the bottom of the organization, may result in uproar against the leader. So throughout history hierarchical organizations have always searched for ways to discipline their members, a goal that could be achieved with violence, belief or education. Rationalism and the belief in one truth are very well suited for this purpose.

On the other hand close personal bonds, emotions, intuition and other forms of decentralized interaction have to mistrusted as they can be an entry for undermining the hierarchy. Members of a hierarchy are encouraged to reject their own primary instincts as ’selfish’ or ‘primitive’ and follow abstract external rules instead. Of course it wouldn’t be possible to eliminate emotion and social cohesion altogether so instead it is scaled down to innocent proportions.

One way of scaling down is to limit emotions to the inner family circle. Showing emotions is OK between parents and children but is considered inappropriate in larger groups. Close to that is branding emotions as ‘female’ while excluding women from the formal hierarchy at the same time. So as a man, either you are part of the formal hierarchy and tightly subject to its rules, or you can let go within the boundaries of a small circle where you cannot develop real power. Finally, a third way to limit the risk, is creating a separate class for artists. Like women artists are allowed to show emotions, to a certain extent they are even allowed to criticize the regime, however, the way to real power is strictly prohibited.

So in fact two very separate lines of organization arose: a hard vertical line along which power was exercised, where no emotion or intuition were allowed, and, on the other hand, a more soft and smaller scale horizontal line that allowed for art and emotion, not power.

Personal Computers

Originally computers have developed along the existing lines of hierarchy. Computers were huge machines, needing a complete building to be contained. They were owned either by the state or by large corporations. Mainframe computers had one central processing unit and several terminals attached. The translation of the ubiquitous hierarchy to computer architecture was very literal.

In fact throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s people believed there was a future ahead where the world would be ruled by maybe five or ten computers. Power, information, intelligence came from above, it seemed just obvious computers would follow the same pattern.

Let’s remember this organization not only benefited presidents of large corporations and states but also a whole class of medium level executives and operators of whom the users of a computer were dependent. For instance, booting up a computer is a pretty simple and dumb little task, but when you’re the only one able to do so it gives you power, status and income.

Over time processors became smaller and cheaper and at some point it would be feasible to produce a computer as a consumer product. Technically not a big deal but culturally it would mean a landslide. It would bring power to ordinary people that they never possessed before, power to do their own calculations, manage their own data, increase their own efficiency. A power that, instinctively, would be perceived as very dangerous within the perimeters of the old paradigm.

Probably there was only one place on earth where such a revolution could happen, a place where conventional hierarchy was already challenged while a lot of highly skilled tech brains were walking around: San Francisco Bay Area. In 1975 Woz designed a computer with an automatic booting program in a ROM chip, so the poeha experts who knew how to start up a computer stood no longer in the way of ordinary computer users. His mate Steve thought it would be a great idea to sell it commercially. They founded Apple Computers, et voilà, the revolution was there.

Misfit

The elite never took the hippy movement seriously. They criticized the system, challenged the elite but what they wanted was considered basically impossible. Basically they were artists, as mentioned above, experimenting with love, emotions, decentralized interaction and therefor categorized outside of the line of power. Extravagant but harmless, like: “Too bad for them they don’t understand what the world is like.”

Then Apple took off and started selling like crazy. This caused short-circuit in conventional thinking. As a start up selling personal computers to ordinary people, bypassing gatekeeping computer gurus, they didn’t fit in the conventional power hierarchy. But as a business success they didn’t fit “extravagant but harmless” artists category either. They were misfits.

Programming style

In 1980 IBM surrendered to the inevitable and brought its own PC, which would be a resounding success. The old mainframe computer had died, the dream of ruling the world had died, from now on millions of PC’s would flood the world. However, by no means this meant that hierarchic thinking was over as well.

When writing software, computer programmers like to use the one-truth metaphor as well. This can be showed with the principle of procedural programming. A computer calls routines, routines can call subroutines and finally on the bottom there are datasets that can be manipulated while at the top there is clearly one single point of control. It is an approach that offers control and understandability at the expense of flexibility and maintainability.

A different approach is possible however with Object Oriented Programming (OOP): the programmer defines objects that have a certain amount of autonomy. Objects contain both procedures and data, they can interact with each other. Instead of relying on a single point of truth in the top of the system, objects have to be programmed in such a way that they can resolve their own trouble.

One of the most important assets of Apple is the OS-X operating system. It is completely object oriented. It gives a tremendous flexibility and scalability. It allowed Apple to make unprecedented moves like switching its whole computer line from PowerPC to Intel processors or use the desktop OS for smartphones as well. It allows Apple to keep a relatively small and well maintained code base.

The trick is: objects are intended to operate in an environment that is not well defined so they must have a certain amount of robustness from the very beginning. Later, when the environment changes, there’s a good chance they can continue doing what they always did without too may adaptation. Subroutines on the other hand rely upon a well defined ‘true’ environment. This is much easier to understand in the beginning. But when the building starts growing the chain of interdependencies becomes unmanageable. You try to pull one string out and it ignites unexpected effects all over the building.

But once again: the Apple success is achieved by ignoring conventional wisdom that truth comes from above and by embracing a kind of decentralized interaction that was not supposed to be taken seriously.

Ideology

Apple has been very consistent in embracing those things that were not supposed to be taken seriously. It embraced decentralization in its hardware and software approach. It embraced arts and emotions in its ideology.

In the 1970’s, when monospaced characters on monochrome screens emphasized the formal character of computers, Apple brought color screens. Not so much later Apple came with adaptable ‘true type’ fonts. Apple brought music to the computer, and video. Each step has been a provocation to the establishment and to conventional wisdom.

Until far in the 1990’s artists and computers have been considered as fundamentally incompatible, for the very reason mentioned above. Computers and technology were part of the vertical line that should keep as far away as possible from emotions and feelings. Artists were part of the horizontal line that just should keep away from money and power. They mistrusted each other and from either perspective: working with the other was simply not done.

Then, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he declared ‘creative professionals’ as his main target groups and launched the “Think different” campaign. Within a decade all those design schools and music studios became filled with MacBooks and it appeared you could do wonderful things with them. Again Steve Jobs mingled those two streams that were supposed to remain very separate, again a provocation to what the world was supposed to be. In his latest keynote, as to put insult over injury, Steve Jobs once again emphasized his company is at the crossing of those two streams that were never meant to meet in the first place.

Remaining change

It is hard to imagine these things will not have a long lasting impact. Apple proved its products – despite being misfits – work and are hard to compete against. It is also hard to imagine any company can seriously compete against Apple without having a well designed object oriented code base. And for that matter: without leaving the old one-truth paradigm.

Eventually, off course, Apple will find its match. Apple itself is helping to educate a whole new generation of Stanford students into the secrets of OOP, Cocoa, iPhone, … Soon enough these galls and guys will start their own ventures without taking much notice of the restrictions that used to be applied. That centuries old paradigm that there is one truth and one truth only will be gone and people will no longer understand why Apple products have ever been ‘misfits’.

Tags: Apple, hierarchy, iPad, one-truth, Steve Jobs
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 14th, 2010 at 17:09 and is filed under Article. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.