Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed when you're faced with a complex problem? Well, I hope to change that in less than three minutes. So, I hope to convince you that complex doesn't always equal complicated. So for me, a well-crafted baguette, fresh out of the oven, is complex, but a curry onion green olive poppy cheese bread is complicated. I'm an ecologist, and I study complexity. I love complexity. And I study that in the natural world, the interconnectedness of species.
Da li se ikada osećate potpuno poraženi u susretu sa složenim problemom? Pa, nadam se da ću to promeniti za manje od tri minuta. Dakle, nadam se da ću vas ubediti da složenost nije jednaka komplikovanosti. Dakle, za mene, sveže izvađen iz rerne, dobro umešan baget, je složen, ali hleb sa sirom, karijem, lukom, zelenim maslinama, je komplikovan. Ja sam ekolog i izučavam složenost. Volim složenost. Izučavam je u prirodi, povezanost vrsta.
So here's a food web, or a map of feeding links between species that live in Alpine Lakes in the mountains of California. And this is what happens to that food web when it's stocked with non-native fish that never lived there before. All the grayed-out species disappear. Some are actually on the brink of extinction. And lakes with fish have more mosquitos, even though they eat them. These effects were all unanticipated, and yet we're discovering they're predictable.
Ovo je prehrambena mreža, ili mapa povezanosti ishrane među vrstama koje žive u planinskim jezerima kalifornijskih planina. A ovo se dešava toj mreži kada se napuni stranim ribama koje tu nikada pre nisu živele. Sve ovo sivo su vrste koje nestaju. Neke su zaista na ivici istrebljenja. A jezera sa ribom imaju više komaraca, iako ih one jedu. Ovi efekti nisu bili očekivani, a opet, otkrili smo da su predvidivi.
So I want to share with you a couple key insights about complexity we're learning from studying nature that maybe are applicable to other problems. First is the simple power of good visualization tools to help untangle complexity and just encourage you to ask questions you didn't think of before. For example, you could plot the flow of carbon through corporate supply chains in a corporate ecosystem, or the interconnections of habitat patches for endangered species in Yosemite National Park. The next thing is that if you want to predict the effect of one species on another, if you focus only on that link, and then you black box the rest, it's actually less predictable than if you step back, consider the entire system -- all the species, all the links -- and from that place, hone in on the sphere of influence that matters most. And we're discovering, with our research, that's often very local to the node you care about within one or two degrees. So the more you step back, embrace complexity, the better chance you have of finding simple answers, and it's often different than the simple answer that you started with.
I želim da podelim sa vama nekoliko ključnih uvida o složenosti koju otkrivamo proučavanjem prirode, a koji se možda mogu primeniti na druge probleme. Prvi - jednostavna moć dobre vizualizacije koja pomaže da se složenost razmrsi i ohrabruje vas da pitate ono o čemu niste pre razmišljali. Na primer, možete da napravite plan za protok ugljenika kroz lance za snabdevanje korporativnih ekosistema, ili međupovezanost određenih staništa za ugrožene vrste u Josemit nacionalnom parku. Sledeća stvar, ako želite da predvidite uticaj jedne vrste na drugu, ako se usmerite samo na tu vezu, i zanemarite ostale, to vam donosi lošije rezultate nego da ste ste uzeli u obzir ceo sistem - sve vrste, sve veze - i sa tog mesta, usmerili se na sferu uticaja koja je najvažnija. I našim istraživanjima otkrivamo, da je ona vrlo lokalna, u rasponu jednog ili dva stepena od čvora. Dakle, što se više vratite unazad, prigrlite složenost, imate veće šanse da nađete jednostavne odgovore, koji su vrlo često drugačiji od onih sa kojima ste počeli.
So let's switch gears and look at a really complex problem courtesy of the U.S. government. This is a diagram of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. It was front page of the New York Times a couple months ago. Instantly ridiculed by the media for being so crazy complicated. And the stated goal was to increase popular support for the Afghan government. Clearly a complex problem, but is it complicated? Well, when I saw this in the front page of the Times, I thought, "Great. Finally something I can relate to. I can sink my teeth into this."
Hajde da se prebacimo na zaista složen problem uz ljubaznost američke vlade. Ovo je dijagram američke strategije za borbu protiv pobunjenika u Avganistanu. Pre par meseci bio je na prvoj strani "Njujork Tajmsa" - odmah ismejan od strane medija što je tako ludo složen. A cilj je bio da se poveća podrška građana avganistanskoj vladi. Očigledno složen problem, da li je i komplikovan? Pa, kada sam video to na prvoj strani "Tajmsa", pomislio sam: "Sjajno. Konačno nešto s čime mogu da se povežem. Mogu da uronim u to."
So let's do it. So here we go for the first time ever, a world premiere view of this spaghetti diagram as an ordered network. The circled node is the one we're trying to influence -- popular support for the government. And so now we can look one degrees, two degrees, three degrees away from that node and eliminate three-quarters of the diagram outside that sphere of influence. Within that sphere, most of those nodes are not actionable, like the harshness of the terrain, and a very small minority are actual military actions. Most are non-violent and they fall into two broad categories: active engagement with ethnic rivalries and religious beliefs and fair, transparent economic development and provisioning of services. I don't know about this, but this is what I can decipher from this diagram in 24 seconds.
Hajde da to uradimo. Po prvi put, svetska premijera, ovog špageti dijagrama, organizovanog u sređenu mrežu. Kružni čvor je onaj na koji pokušavamo da utičemo - podrška vladi od strane građana. Sada možemo pogledati jedan, dva, tri stepena od tog čvora i ukloniti tri četvrtine dijagrama izvan sfere uticaja. U okviru te oblasti, većina tih čvorova nije vezana za aktivnost, poput surovosti terena, a veoma mali procenat čine vojne akcije. Većina njih je nenasilna i spada u dve široke kategorije: aktivno učešće u etničkim sukobima i verskim uverenjima i pravičan, vidljiv ekonomski razvoj i pružanje usluga. Ne znam mnogo o tome, ali to je ono što mogu da dešifrujem iz ovog dijagrama za 24 sekunde.
When you see a diagram like this, I don't want you to be afraid. I want you to be excited. I want you to be relieved. Because simple answers may emerge. We're discovering in nature that simplicity often lies on the other side of complexity. So for any problem, the more you can zoom out and embrace complexity, the better chance you have of zooming in on the simple details that matter most.
Kada vidite dijagram poput ovog, ne želim da se uplašite. Želim da budete uzbuđeni. Želim da vam bude lakše. Jer mogu da se jave jednostavni odgovori. U prirodi otkrivamo da jednostavnost često leži sa druge strane složenosti. Dakle, za bilo koji problem, što se više udaljite i prihvatite složenost, imate veće šanse za približavanje jednostavnim detaljima koji najviše znače.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(aplauz)