A Moment of Reflection

Butterfly Effect

It follows from the Chaos Theory that the final situation of chaos is dependent on initial conditions and that the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly at some remote part of the world can cause a tornado at another. Most people will agree to the fact that seemingly unconnected trivial events might lead to earth shattering consequences like the domino effect. Relating to our contemporary world I’d like to quote an observation from this book called Freakonomics. It says that there was a sharp decline in crime in the US in the late 80’s after over couple of decades of total Law and Order havoc. “What lead to such a reformed society?” was the question. All the banal explanations weren’t enough to justify such a sudden decline in crime across the country. A Lateral investigation into the socio economic Diaspora and various changes in the laws sheds some light into the matter. In the later 70’s, a law was passed that legalised abortion. This small step did cause the huge rippling effect of total wipe away of a huge bunch of criminals by not letting them to be born. This is not extrapolation as we would see now with the explanation. Looking into the social structure of that country during that period, we would find that most under-age girls who were economically backward, in an absence of any future planning got pregnant and brought children into the world that they could not support. These children grew up in an environment of irresponsibility, economic destitute which paved the way to criminal acts. When the law was passed, the children who would have grown into goons weren't brought to this earth. We can find many instances of such Butterfly effects. Let’s look at the Economic crisis, the Recession that the world just went through and still recuperating from. In the US, monetary credit was given to people without restraint and the consumer centric economy was booming. Problem began when a few started defaulting as there was minimal risk in defaulting. And gradually, the trend took on and the number of defaulters grew to such extremes that the whole credit industry slumped and a lot of money vanished into thin air. And when people had no money, the real estate industry which was running on credit also slumped and that started the domino effect and the ripples grew wider. The waves are still hitting the shore and it would require quite some time and constructive effort to stabilise it. Another contemporary example of the apparently insignificant cause leading to Red alert situations is the case of Global warming. Ever since the fossil fuels and CFCs are being used, it was known that they add to carbon emissions and greenhouse gases that pollute the environment and thin up the ozone layer which is our protective shield against the harmful UV rays from the sun. Extensive use of paper and tree extract based products and clearing up of forests for fast growing populations have lead to mass deforestation and fewer trees on the face of this planet. Again, a fast growing population is the effect of newer medical achievements which has stretched the average span of human life by a good 10-15 years. All these effects and more, individually, are quite insignificant and might appear constructive but in a strangely correlated way it has brought us face-to-face with thickly polluted air, erratic climates, rising sea levels which if not checked will lead to our extinction. From all these examples, we can deduce the simple fact that no act is small or insignificant, every little change of direction has its effects and it is up to us to concentrate on what kind of effects we desire to construct a better life and go ahead with making that “wing flutter”.

©Manashi Pathak