Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I came across an interesting anecdote while reading Guns Germs and Steel, that I wanted to share.
Author Jared Diamond lays out a very thoughtful and easy to follow theory for why humans have developed the way the have throughout history. Why was it Europeans colonizing the Americas and not the other way around? Guns Germs and Steel, provides some very compelling arguments.
While discussing the evolution of technology, Diamond discusses how societal vested interests sometimes get in the way of what would otherwise be advantageous adaptations of new technology.
The example he gives is that of the modern QWERTY keyboard. His anecdote is just a single paragraph, but I found it fascinating. Researching further, I found a paper written in 1985 by Paul A. David, a professor of economics at Stanford titled, CLIO and the Economics of QWERTY.
“The story of QWERTY is a rather intriguing one for economists. Despite the presence of the sort of externalities that standard static analysis tells us would interfere with the achievement of the socially optimal degree of system compatibility, competition in the absence of perfect futures markets drove the industry prematurely into the wrong system– where decentralized decision making subsequently has sufficed to keep it there.”
David goes on to share the history of the QWERTY keyboard in greater depth, along with the economic analysis that is so interesting. The story goes something like this.
A Milwaukee printer and tinkerer, Christopher Sholes, with some help from his friends, filed a patent for his “Type Writer” in october 1867. David lists him as “the 52nd person to invent the type writer”, which I found particularly amusing.
Sholes’ model was a mechanical up-stroke device where by the type bar struck underneath the paper cartridge making it invisible to the user. This non-visibility was a major issue because, when keys were struck in rapid succession, there was a tendency to clash and jam, and repeat the same letters. This could only be seen when the typist raised the cartridge.
Sholes’ continued to modify his device to combat this problem. His solution was changing his previously alphabetic keyboard into one that was deliberately less user friendly. Making it harder to type would slow down users, and thus prevent the jamming that plagued the machine.
The most commonly used letters were placed apart from each other and shifted to the left side of the keyboard where they would be harder to strike in rapid succession for right handed users.
The type writer with the updated keyboard was sold to Remington where it went into production in March 1873, with the final change of adding “R” to the top row. This allowed salesman to type out the product name “type writer” with all keys from the top row.
Around the same time (1870-1880’s) more advanced type writers (without the visibility and jamming issues) and better keyboards were designed and manufactured, and yet the QWERTY remains to this day the standard. The question David asks, is why did we stick with the inferior model?
David goes on to explain that a series of decisions and events coincided to make the inefficient QWERTY model entrenched.
Future typists were learning how to type on QWERTY keyboards. Increased manufacturing ability made it easier for other companies to change their design to match the typists rather than retrain them on a new keyboard. As more typists learned on QWERTY keyboards more jobs became available that required that skill and that equipment, further perpetuating the cycle.
David lists technical interrelatedness, economies of scale, and quasi irreversibility as the factors that led to the path dependent sequence of economic events that led us to an inferior typing system. Small historical factors can have disproportionate influence on potential outcomes.
This blog is being written on my phone on a QWERTY keyboard. Doing things a certain way because “that’s the way it’s always been done”, or “I can’t learn another way” is a common occurrence. After learning the history of the keyboard the natural question arises, how many other things are we doing suboptimal because of a path dependent history.
David again, “I believe there are many more QWERTY worlds lying out there in the past, on the very edges of the modern analyst’s tidy universe; worlds we do not yet fully perceive or understand, but whose influence, like that of dark stars, extends nonetheless to shape the orbits of our contemporary economic affairs”
When my father was learning how to homebrew beer, he shared with me a story from one of his mentors. The brewing equipment was built in a way that required the use of a step ladder to reach the top of the pot on the kitchen countertop. When my father asked why he built his equipment this way, there was no logical answer, it was just the way it was designed. My father’s equipment was later built in a way that did not require the step ladder.
He could have followed the blueprint and been trapped in path dependence, climbing the ladder every time he had to add an ingredient or stir the brew. Instead he approached the subject as a beginner and asked questions which went against the entrenched views. He broke out of the dark star’s orbit.
There is a frustrating beauty in questioning entrenched methodology. It is so easy to be blinded by momentum and habit, that we become habituated to the inefficiencies that repeatedly smack us in the face. This comes to a head as a father, when inquisitive young minds are asking why the world is the way it is. Answers, are not always forthcoming.
Ask questions. Break free from the dark star’s orbit. Change your path to be independent. You will probably find serenity along the way.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.
