When “bigger and better” isn’t either

Our culture has long subscribed to the theory that “bigger is better.” Sometimes, the evidence suggests this can be true. What this expression fails to note, however, is that it isn’t better if the bigger thing breaks. And we’ve had plenty of evidence in recent times to suggest we have a long way to go in the reliability department for many “big” things.

Much of the time, large-scale systems can work fine and have only minor glitches that are easily fixed. Such successes bolster our confidence, which can be a positive thing. But large-scale systems are also susceptible to system-wide failure sometimes. When this happens, the results can be catastrophic.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is our most recent reminder of this fact. For a time, the oil rig performed well and caused little concern. Yet, when it did break down, it quickly became evident that the problem would not easily be contained. (Read a report about this incident here.) As of this writing, it is still too soon to tell how much damage will be done, or what the long-term consequences to the environment and the economy will be. But it appears to be a grave situation with the potential for major, long-term negative effects.

The Gulf oil spill follows closely on the heals of Hurricane Katrina, which led to disaster in the region. It’s easy to see these as different sorts of phenomena, with one being a technological failure and the other being an unavoidable act of nature. Yet we now know that human engineering and development decisions played a large part in the Katrina disaster. The system of levees devised for the region was not up to the task, as became all too apparent  when Katrina hit. (See a report about the levee failure here.) And the large-scale systems in place to address a catastrophe were chaotic disasters themselves, inflicting mayhem on much of the population in New Orleans and elsewhere. Indeed, it is hard not to conclude that the Katrina disaster was as much the result of poor human decision-making as it was an uncontrollable outburst from Mother Nature.

In a different arena, we have witnessed a series of problems with the food supply, as flaws in centralized production facilities fan out to affect — and sometime infect — people from across the country. Contamination or cross-contamination in a small facility, with a small market is still a serious matter, of course, but it is by definition of a smaller scale, which should be easier to contain. When a mega-facility is distributing its product over a wide area, the potential problems also have the capability of being scattered across a wide swath of the population. (See a report on that topic from Science Daily here.) The large-scale and resulting centralization of production, it turns out, not only can be a solution to one set of problems, but also the source of new large-scale problems.

On a regional, but still revealing scale, the metropolitan water system in the greater Boston area was disrupted for 2 million people yesterday, as a huge pipe sprung a leak at the rate of 8 million gallons per hour at one point. The section of the pipeline in question was relatively new. (According to press accounts, it was maybe less that 10 years old.) It is highly doubtful that its makers thought it break down in such a spectacular fashion in less than a decade. (See a related story from Boston.com here.) But although some back-up systems were in place, this episode revealed how reliant the area has become on a large, single solution to an ongoing human need.

The list of large-scale projects with unanticipated consequences goes on and on. Sometimes these huge endeavors seem too perfect to fail. Yet, like the Titanic, they sometimes do. The point is not to completely shy away from big projects, but rather, to note that we often do not choose such projects wisely and don’t make the necessary plans in case things don’t work out. Beyond that, the “bigger is better” culture seems to blind us too frequently to smaller, more localized solutions to problems that may be quite viable if  only we were to investigate them more to find out.

For the most part, however, people seem not to question the “bigger is better” philosophy that has provided material comforts for the past several generations. Confidence is often a good thing, of course. But as systems, of all different sorts, get larger and larger, questions of confidence seem increasingly a concern. Humans are fallible, and so are the systems they devise. Grandiosity has an allure in many aspects of life. But it’s not always worth the price.

–G.A.

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Image (above): Lifeboat with survivors of the Titanic, in the collection of the National Archives

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