Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm

This chart shows the population of individuals in the US sorted into buckets. One bucket for each last name. One dot for each bucket. Only the three thousand most popular names are shown.

The axis on the left shows how popular a given name is, while the bottom axis shows what percentage of the population has that name. Both axis are log scales.

My last name, for example, is aproximately number 1000 on the last name hit parade. The bottom axis shows what percentage of the population enjoy that name, i.e. nearly .01 percent of the population.

This data comes from the US Census, say thank you! Try your name.

The striking thing about this chart is how smooth and straight it is (the choppy part at the upper left is due to how the data only had three digits after the decimal point). This pattern is known as Zipf’s Law and it appears in a lot of data involving systems with large interacting populations: words, cities, etc. etc ) where there is some ‘competitive advantage’ for the larger subpopulations.

I’m interested in standards, the behaviors that groups adopt which on the one hand reduce the diversity while on the other add some efficiency.

Many standards are informal, possibly the majority. Consider the handshake. Why hold your hand vertically or offer the right hand? It is not hard to make up insta-theories for these choices.

The boy scouts have a different standard handshake, the “Left Handshake”, which mirrors the standard handshake. If you are going to use a non-standard handshake people are going to react. “What’s up with that?” they will say. Secret handshakes always come with a story.

The Boy Scouts tell a delightful set of stories (imagine telling these in a hushed tone these around a campfire). “The chief of the opposing tribe appeared, flung down his shield and held out his left hand.” Or “The Ashanti Chief said to Colonel Baden-Powell: ‘No in my country the bravest of the brave shake with the left hand.’ So began the “left handshake” of the world-wide brotherhood of Scouts

Oh this is exciting, a whole book about how systems with network topology work.

Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.

The book’s website includes a nice visual companion, though it suggests the book might suffer from ‘people magazine syndrome’. Boy I hope this is a good book

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Five ways to get rich:

• pick the right parents (inheritance),
• pick the right spouse (marry well),
• pick the right pocket (theft & conquest),
• pick the right card (luck,serendipity, gambling), or
• pick the right trade (craft, profession, industy).

This list was triggered by an essay by Brad DeLong on how the standards around inheritance have evolved thru time. I’d love to know which of these techniques explains what percentage of a given dollar of wealth.

Assuming wealth floats your boat…
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