In a recent chat with one of my consulting clients, the metaphor of a big fish in a small pond vs. a small fish in a big pond came up. And it got me to thinking about the now excommunicated* St. Taleb’s idea of mediocristan and extremistan. For those unfamiliar, this is a nice and very brief example.
* Excommunicated for the heresy of Twitism — being a giant douche online.
One of the implications of this idea is that mediocristan is lots of small ponds and extremistan is one giant one. An example from The Black Swan is that once upon a time there were many thousands of opera singers in the US who made a good living singing in various small towns. Now there’s a tiny handful of really famous ones that record their performances at the most prestigious venues and sell copies all over the place and everyone else is really tiny.
If everywhere is one giant pond, then there are going to be a few really outsized fish in that pond. If we have multiple smaller ponds, there are room for many more mid-sized fish. Now, fish size – literally speaking – is a mediocristan distribution. There are practical biological limits to the size that a particular kind of fish can reach… but metaphorically, it’s way of viewing extremistan.
When we talk about ‘small ponds’ we’re usually talking location — i.e. small towns or communities. But in extremistan, that’s not how it works. Our entire society is one giant ocean at this point. This is why we have Starbucks and McDonalds in just about every small town… because they aren’t small ponds, but part of the giant pond.
We’re living in a time of cultural sameness — Globally, but particularly in the west. So Taylor Swift sells 8 gagillion songs all around the world, and 100,000 similarly talented and visually appealing (that is to say barely and somewhat) singers toil in obscurity. Why is this? In part it’s because access to music isn’t impeded by geography. Ms. Swift doesn’t have to come to your small town and play a set in the local bar for you to know about her.
That said, if you want a band at your wedding, geography does matter. Because Ms. Swift isn’t going to play there either, but you can find the best wedding band in your local area and hire them to play Love Story while you do your first dance. And the best wedding band in your area might just make a decent living playing all the weddings.
I’m bringing this up not to rail against technology (those new-fangled phonographs gonna put the opera singers out of business dag-nabbit!), but because it’s useful to think about how the metaphor of ponds is itself flawed and comes out of this flawed system.
Because ponds are boundaries and the whole reason there are big fish and small fish in ponds is because fish can’t evolve legs and walk over to a more welcoming pond or kick greedy giant fish out of their pond or create a smaller exclusive, gated pond. There’s probably a really nice Star-bellied Sneetch metaphor here, but that might be metaphor abuse.
So where do these boundaries in our non-aquatic world come from? They come from the systems that benefit from them. It’s cheaper and easier to invest in one pretty pop diva than 1000. And it’s way cheaper than investing in something that’s not a pop diva, maybe something niche or with less global appeal. So the music industry is a gatekeeper of the extremistan, giant pond model of music distribution. Or look at an Ivy League university whose focus is gatekeeping their tiny special pond, where only the biggest, most star-covered fish get to come and get extra benefits (more algae maybe?).
I’m not advocating for smaller ponds (which risks a those people and these people elitism) or bigger ones (if only the whole world would agree with this tiny non-elected group of rich mother-fuckers, everything would be OK!). I’m advocating for jettisoning the whole idea of these artificial boundaries.
Instead, we should be thinking about network effects. It’s not how big you are in relation to whatever pond (auto-mechanic, small pond; novelist, big pond) it’s about how many connections you can leverage outside of the whole idea of pond boundaries. And it’s about making those connections both near and far. How can we harm the environment if we are deeply connected to it, instead of separate from it? How can we make and share things / and find an enjoy things without gatekeepers and boundaries? How can we connect to people different from us and similar to us in ways that help all of us? How can we learn from and be inspired by people who are doing something we also do or care about without this sense of competitiveness (what does “big” mean in the fish/pond sense?).
I don’t have the answers, but I know we’re going to need to figure out some answers, and quick. Because extremistan isn’t sustainable and we’re starting to see that now.
