Although I’m rather busy with my own research and writing, I try to find time to get involved with local happenings that concern me. I thought it might be worthwhile to post some of my letters, in case some of you are interested.
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Letter to City Re: 5th St. Corridor
Dear City Council,
I recently learned about yet another bike accident on 5th Street. Some of you I imagine believe bikers can simply 'choose' to take a safer route. You probably think we are, after all, 'rational creatures' who avoid certain hazards upon discovery. If this is your line of thinking, let me try to undeceive you.
There is a lot of research going on now about "cognitive illusions," or the sense of being in control of our own behavior when in fact we are not (cf. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html). Research on cognitive illusion demonstrates that a simple difference in how we interact with our environments, even something as simple as how a form is designed, can produce diametrically opposed results, e.g., in Germany, when people fill out forms to receive their driver’s license, they are asked to check a box if they want to be organ donors. The same form is used in Austria, but rather than asking people to check a box if they want to be organ donors, it asks to check a box if they _don’t_ want to be organ donors. This shouldn't matter from a rational standpoint. The same question is asked, only in a slightly different way, and so the same results should obtain. But the results are exactly the opposite of what a rationalist model would predict: only 12% in Germany signed up for organ donation, while 100% signed up in Austria. All this came down to a simple difference in how the form was designed—in Germany, they were asked to check the box if they wanted to be donors; in Austria, they were asked to check the box if they didn't want to. The simple intuitive inclination not to check a box made all the difference.
How does this example of "cognitive illusion" relate to arguing that people will simply "choose" an alternative, "safer" route, rather than the more convenient yet dangerous 5th St.? As it turns out, 5th St. is analogous to the form requiring a check if you want to be a donor, because people in general, even if they "know" there is a safer route, will nevertheless take the slightly faster route, not because they are daft, but because they are instinctively hardwired to take shortcuts whenever possible. And in the case of biking next to vehicles, we simply cannot intuit how dangerous they are. We did not co-evolve with high-speed vehicles. We have no inborn sense of the actual devastation one of these high velocity metal mammoths can cause after a mere instant of contact. So we also have the cognitive illusion of being in control of our own safety when biking on 5th St. Both of these illusions—taking shortcuts regardless of the risks and not understanding our vulnerability on a bicycle in traffic—are unavoidable. We simply cannot reverse engineer evolved architectures in the brain, so no amount of education will stop people from ending up on 5th St. with their bicycles.
The only solution is redesigning our man-made ecologies so they interact more safely with basic human tendencies. 5th Street is one of the most salient examples of a place where cognitive illusions channel us into immediate danger, even when we know better. And given the incipience of the student population—the recurring cycle of new students—most won’t even _know_ better.
I urge you all to please find the means to redesign 5th Street so bikers are not put at risk, not by their own choosing, but by natural inclination. I don’t want to see, as I did just the other day, 12 squad cars surrounding a lone biker whose life changed in an instant, forever, simply because he was doing what was intuitive. As I have learned from engineers tasked with a theoretical redesign, 5th St. can be modified to incorporate a bike lane without slowing down traffic substantially enough to affect commercial interests.
Upgrading 5th St. for safe bicycling is a win-win situation for the city of Davis, whose culture thrives on innovative, alternative modes of transportation.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Respectfully yours,
Z. N.
Open Letter re: Davis Food Co-op
Dear Concerned Co-op Community,
There’s a lot that’s good with the Co-op. I feel it’s the best grocery in town, with the best wage-staff. The Co-op often encourages local innovation, such as the Bike Peddler’s and Pacha-Mamma coffee companies. But there’s also increasingly much not to like. The board and management-staff have grown complacent vis-à-vis the membership base and co-operative principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles), and the Co-op has implemented what seems to me a full-scale Transformation as opposed to a mere Renovation of facilities, shifting the whole feel of the Co-op towards a conventional grocery-styled approach to consumerism.
I’m also upset with the increasingly Corporate-style of the board, which I think alienates values-oriented members who might otherwise be excellent directors. Members with anti-corporate sentiments will find a corporate-styled board and ‘policy governance’ both alienating and inconsistent with their lifestyles and ideals (at least I can say as much for myself, and I’ve served on many academic boards, so I know there are alternative governing styles). A co-operative should be more club-like than corporate, more non-profit and community-oriented than for-profit and business-oriented.
So what is ‘my’ general outlook?
I fear the Co-op is losing touch with its membership base and growing more and more stereotypically Corporate. I see the Co-op behaving like a Corporate-styled Grocery with co-operative principles becoming abstracted into the background. Co-operative principles are becoming rhetorical policies while the reality of the Co-op's operations is something different altogether. What’s to be done?
I want those who are upset with changes at the co-op to step in and say
No, we don’t like what’s happening with the ‘renovation,’ which is being implemented not at all according to original intentions—the so-called ‘renovation’ is actually more properly characterized as a ‘transformation,’ for the changes on-the-floor are not merely upgrades for safety and efficiency’s sake, as originally proposed, but major additions of a stereotypical grocery kind. We did not vote for these changes.
And I want the board to say
We repudiate the dogma that directors cannot get involved with operations—we need Co-operative principles to serve as gatekeepers for operations, not as after-the-fact rhetorical criticisms. What is our mission? To become more corporate? To lose sight of our co-operative values under the pressures of the market? No! We ‘compete’ not by becoming less co-operative and more like corporate competition, but by becoming more co-operative, by embodying co-operative principles in every way on the floor and in relation to membership engagement.
And if you don’t like what’s going on at the Co-op, by all means, exercise your Democratic Control and organize “membership initiatives,” where signatures are gathered from the membership and desired changes are placed on upcoming ballots.
What are the obstacles?
Right now, I feel the Co-op has been co-opted by a managerial, autocratic style of business viewing most everything through a ‘bottom-line,’ ‘for-profit’ lens. An autocratic, corporate style is not only inconsistent with Co-operative values and principles, but has led present Co-op management to grow out of touch with the membership. In fact, active membership has dwindled significantly over the past years, while management has grown disproportionally more powerful. By all accounts the management have come to view the barely 50% win for renovation as a mandate to ‘transform’ the store into a commodity and variety factory, all in the name of ‘competition.’
This fear-based reaction has led to a slow but sure Conventional Grocery transformation: now we have a sprawling, overpriced household-goods isle, with products shipped in from all over the world (not to mention imports from countries with dubious human rights records); now we have an open seafood freezer and 'Safeway-styled' open refrigeration around the meat-center (not to mention the wasteful packaging for the 'Organic' Green-Sheen Chicken); now we have increased space for processed foods (the towering-up of products with the new shelving system); now we have added food bars that are hardly 'organic, local, or seasonal' and that produce tons (literally) of wasted food tossed out into the garbage bins, etc. Are these changes mere ‘renovations,’ or do they suggest corporate-styled profligacy? Clearly the membership has been misled. There’s also the matter of Co-op management opposing the 5th Street Corridor if it cuts into DFC’s bottom line. Is that a community and co-operative based decision?
Whether you agree with me or not, if nothing else I urge you to actualize the Democratic Control principle of Co-operation and disaggregate your households into individual voting members, and encourage other household members to become voting members (‘shareholders’). Right now, the Tri Co-ops, Domes, and other households have grossly asymmetric voting power that’s not at all proportional to their numbers. The Tri-Co-ops—to highlight a salient example—only get three votes—three votes!!! That's one vote per household, even though everyone in each household benefits from superworker discounted goods purchased at the Co-op. This needs to change!
I encourage you to speak out, debate, share with me or other candidates your positions, and bring the co-op into your worldview of eco-mindedness, make your local food Co-op the hub for local change. As for transformational changes at the co op, these we do not have to accept. They are reversible.
You’ve been facilitating a co-operative “values revolution” right in your own backyard, and I imagine you’ll continue to do so wherever you end up, but right now, getting involved at your local food Co-op is the closest thing you can do to realize your ideals.
Sincerely yours,
Z. N.
