Letter to My Granddaughters

Dear Isa and Ally,

Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) estimates that 50% of young people, ages 18-29, voted in the 2020 presidential election, a remarkable 11-point increase from 2016 (39%) and likely one of the highest rates of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18.  Millennials ages 18-40 (born 1982-2004), must continue to vote in order to save our democracy.

Oregon is one of the states that has Democrats as leaders.  The goal of Millennials will be to flip other states to vote for Democrats, that have voted Republican in the past.

For you, that means probably traveling to other states to register Millennials to vote and to get out the vote during primaries, and in November 2020 and 2024.

At the same time, the consequences of climate change will increase the number of refugees worldwide and in North America.  Millennials will be called on to deal with the refugee crisis.

January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capital almost destroyed our democracy.  Now the success or failure of our DOJ and overall justice system will determine if our democracy continues.

SCOTUS lost legitimacy with their ruling against abortion.  The Republican appointed conservative majority threatens our democracy and the authority of the Federal government.  Rights are not Rights if someone can take them away from you.  SCOTUS needs to be reformed.  The Senate filibuster needs to be abolished.

The war in Ukraine is destroying lives, homes and democracy.  The war is disrupting food supplies in the Middle East.  US and EU are spending billions of dollars and euros on war supplies.

The US economy is dealing with inflation and will then experience a recession (hopefully not very long).  The US has a shortage of labor due to low wages for some jobs.

The COVID pandemic continues to have new variants spread across the world.

These crises, voting, refugees, war, economic and the pandemic will unfold in a chaotic communication bubble of propaganda, false realities, lies, and immoral and unethical behavior.  Millennials must use their social and networking skills, social media skills, internet and computer skills, and use face to face teamwork to organize young people ages 18-40 to take action.

Unfortunately, the fight for justice and equality will require sacrifice, however we will emerge with a clear vision of a better future.

Grandpa

Updated July 14, 2022

Why System Dynamics?

Review of prior post 

Why System Dynamics?

All systems, everywhere have levels and flows. These are the only two concepts needed to understand why systems work the way they do (Forrester, 1996).

We were taught in school to accumulate knowledge and skills in order to get a job. We define learning as the accumulation of knowledge. We test every child at every grade level to measure their accumulated knowledge. We teach people how to do things so they have a skill in order to get a job.

Public education teaches people what is important to know. Students learn skills so that they know how to do things.  Students are tested on what they know and the skills for how to use what they know. System Dynamics (SD) enables us to understand why systems work they way they do.

Public education involves a way of thinking, learning and communicating that focuses on the past up to the present. Science, math, reading and writing are all focused on knowledge (what) and skills (how) that have been codified into a curriculum. In public education students learn about the past up to the present.

Life is moving fast. We need a way to think, learn and communicate about the future.  The current public school system does not meet that need.

Sustainability education and environmental literacy are focused on students learning more and more about how to do more things.  By conforming to the way the current public education system focuses on what and how, we are asking students to accumulate more and more knowledge about the recent past.  We are asking students to accumulate more and more skills about how things were done in the recent past.

System dynamics is a tool to think, learn and communicate about the future. (Richmond 2010)  With SD, learning is about why systems work they way they do.  What is needed to model a system is accumulated just in time to use in a model.  The knowledge needed about how the parts of a system are related is accumulated just in time to use them in a model.  The understanding needed about why feedback loops in systems tell a story is accumulated just in time to use them in a model.

SD enables us to understand why systems work they way they do.  Politicians and decision makers need to know why systems work the way they do so that they can craft policies that are successful in the future. Policy makers need informed citizens who know why systems work they way they do.

Why do policymakers choose policies that fail? A policy response is rational for decision makers who fail to account for the feedback structure of a system. Only by considering the full feedback structure is the ineffectiveness of a policy revealed. By learning why feedback affects system behavior, small system dynamics models have a crucial role to play in policy making. (Ghaffarzadegan, 2012)

Policy makers fall prey to the “Pull my finger” joke.  They develop a policy that responds to correlations, trends and events believing that they understand the cause like when the finger pull and the sound are close together in space and time. The irony of public policy making is that, without understanding system feedback, what happened in the past will be made worse by a policy response.

Without SD, public education is teaching students to look to the past to make decisions about the future.  The public school system is walking backwards into the future. 

The public school system is the primary obstacle to students using SD.  The entrenched paradigms are the foundation for education institutions that teach what and how from K12 through university doctorate programs.  Educators and students are evaluated based on what they know and how to use what they know.  SD enables us to understand why systems work they way they do.

System dynamics is a tool to think, learn and communicate in a new way so that educators engage student’s mental models. When mental models rely on “Pull my finger” thinking a person is not going to understand feedback. To use SD requires a new way of thinking: Think about levels and flows connected in feedback loops within a closed boundary.

To use SD requires a new definition of learning: Learning is improving the quality of our mental models.(Richmond 2010) The current public school system does not attempt to improve the quality of student’s mental models. 

To use SD requires a new way of communicating: Communicate about why your model works using feedback loops.  This is where qualitative tools like causal loop diagrams and behavior-over-time graphs are used and useful.

Jay Forrester is the founder of System Dynamics. He has said for many years that with the right guidance “students must create their own models and learn from trial and error.” In this way dynamic modeling is learning by doing. “I believe that immersion in such active learning can change mental models.” (Forrester 2009)

Why System Dynamics? System Dynamics enables us to understand why systems work they way they do in order to prepare for the future.

Bibliography

1. Forrester, Jay W. "System Dynamics and K-12 Teachers." Creative Learning Exchange. 30 May 1996. Web. 11 Feb. 2012. <http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4665-5.pdf>.
2. Ghaffarzadegan, Navid, John Lyneis, and George P. Richardson. "Why and How Small System Dynamics Models Can Help Policymakers: A Review of Two Public Policy Models." System Dynamics Society. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2009/proceed/papers/P1388.pdf>.
3. Richmond, Barry. "Introduction: The Thinking in Systems Thinking- Eight Critical Skills." Ed. Joy Richmond. Tracing Connections: Voices of Systems Thinkers. Lebanon, NH: ISEE Systems, 2010. 3-21. Print.
4. Forrester, Jay W. "Learning through System Dynamics as Preparation for the 21st Century." Creative Learning Exchange. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2012. <http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/whyk12sd/Y_2009-02LearningThroughSD.pdf>.

Value Lenses

A few years ago, my young niece was afraid of a large white rabbit (person in costume), I gave her my sunglasses and told her the rabbit couldn’t see her.  She believed me and we walked hand-in-hand right past him.  She was so happy!

Republican politicians tell their voters to look at the world thru only three value lenses: individual rights, personal responsibility and private authority.  They demand their voters reject collective rights, collective responsibility and public authority - the values of Democrats.  

However, Democrats include all six values in their policies, communication and voting.  Why don’t Republicans?  Because Republicans require an enemy, a boogyman and a devil.  Republicans live in a bubble of misinformation, propaganda and lies to keep their loyal voters.

Li-ion Cost Decline and Forecast Using Cumulative Production Volume

Li-ion Cost Decline and Forecast

Using Cumulative Production Volume

Data Source: Ark Invest

https://ark-invest.com/analyst-research/wrights-law-2/

 Wright’s Law Formula Y=aX^b

Y = cumulative average $/kWh

X = cumulative kWh produced

a = cost required to produce 1st unit

b = slope of the function

For example, the graph shows Li-ion cost decline and forecast using cumulative production volume.  Estimating the values from the graph and entering them into a spreadsheet, then estimating the linear equation using natural log values (LN).

LN(Y) = 9.2 - 0.55*LN(X)

As a result, we forecast future battery cost declines based on increases in cumulative kWh produced.  2020 costs average $100/kWh.  Estimated 2021 and 2022 are $95/kWh and $90/kWh respectively.  However Tesla has stated they have a new 10 gWh factory producing the new 4680 cells in California at full capacity by 2022.  This means Tesla will probably be producing batteries at about $40/kWh from the 10gWh factory and the older designed batteries and Nevada factory will still be at $90/kWh.

This aligns with Tesla’s estimate that they will reduce $/kWh battery costs by about 50 percent in 2022 when operating at full capacity.  As volume increases, based on scaling up to Terawatt-hour factories (probably in Texas and Berlin), then the battery costs per kWh will continue to decline until they are a commodity both for vehicles and grid scale, residential or commercial energy storage.

Millenial Generation (Born 1982 - 2004)

Our lives, our sacred honor and our Democracy are all on the line November 3, 2020.  Each Generation approaches this kind of tipping point in history with a different attitude.  GenX (Born 1961 - 1981) believe individual responsibility solves all problems.  They expect nothing from government and receive nothing.  The majority of GenX will be on the losing side of the election in November.

Millennials remain incredibly optimistic because they know who will win the election and lead America out of this multi-crisis era.  Millennials will continue to adapt and change, and fit into whatever happens.  Millennials experience all the chaos, destruction and turmoil in society.  How do they remain optimistic?

Optimism saves Millennials from following the path described by the current Administration.  Millennials believe in Community and learned to be risk averse. Millennials believe you don’t trust the individual, you trust the group.  Millennials have been told they are special since they were born and so they take care of themselves because everyone expects great things from them.

There will be tremendous wealth destruction over the next 5 to 10 years as the fossil fuel industry wealth degrades and their influence on politicians plummets to nothing.  The old social order also gets destroyed with the shift away from Republican and Conservative values toward Democracy and collective values.

As then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover wrote in his 1922 book American Individualism: "Individualism has been the primary force of American civilization for three centuries.”  Individual responsibility will degrade and collective responsibility championed by Millennials will prevail in 2021.

Political scientist Stephen Skowronek said in an interview in November 2016:

“If there’s going to be a reconstruction following a failed Trump presidency, it’s going to be something completely different than what we’ve seen before. Somebody has to come up with what that’s going to be. That’s a job for political action, not political science.”

In 2020 and beyond, happiness will be based on a collectivist society not individual wealth.  Collectivist teams are where everyone is making decisions collectively, this results in more of a consensus decision making model and typically the team feels responsible for the success collectively.  The Biden/Harris nomination positions Democrats to take political action by creating collectivist teams that reject individualism offered by Republicans.  As a result, Republicans will be reduced to the minority party for decades after the Democrats success from 2020 through 2028 enters the history books.

What about Baby Boomers?  Joe Biden is one of the oldest Boomers alive today.  The top leaders in a time of multiple crises have always been from an older generation at the time.  There are GenX and Millennial leaders supporting specific agendas within the overall Democrat agenda.  However a Boomer generation leader was expected to step forward and lead a collective political action.

COVID-19 Made Impossible Possible

COVID-19 is a major public health and economic event of historical importance, potentially unprecedented in its magnitude in peacetime, with an economic contraction faster and steeper than the Great Depression.  This impossible situation opens gaps in America’s institutions, laws and healthcare system.  These gaps become opportunities for politicians after January 20, 2021.  Lifting Americans out of poverty now includes the unemployed or "working poor".

Assuming a total in early 2020 of about 160 million people, in the workforce or looking for work, with a historical 3.5% unemployment rate, that would be 5.6 million unemployed and looking for work.  In May 2020, estimated unemployment rate rising toward 30% that would be 48 million people unemployed.  The unemployed are unable to get health insurance through an employer.  This obvious gap in our private healthcare system presents an opportunity for politicians to lower the age for Medicare and expand the eligibility for ACA.

Today, COVID-19 made the impossible possible. The Pandemic has opened our eyes to the significant inequality and injustice of the American private healthcare system that depends on full employment. After January 2021, a new President will work to improve the healthcare system for everyone.

When Trump Became Irrelevant

When Trump pulled America out of the Paris Climate Agreement, he became irrelevant to the cities, counties and states approving Climate Action Plans.  Since then, anything Trump says about the Climate Crisis sounds like noise.

When Trump failed in responding to the Pandemic, he became irrelevant to the mayors, county health officers and governors managing the global COVID-19 pandemic.  Since then, anything Trump says about the Pandemic sounds like noise.

When Trump and the GOP passed a tax cut so that 83% of the benefits were for the top 1%, Trump and the GOP became irrelevant to 99% of workers.  When Trump and the GOP refuse to pass bills to help unemployed workers, underfunded states and the pandemic response, they become irrelevant to working Americans and the unemployed.  As a result, anything they say about the economic recovery, businesses reopening or funding sounds like noise.

When Trump and the GOP engaged in corruption, violating laws and damaging America’s democracy, they became irrelevant in politics.  As a result, anything they say about the November election, policies or the economy sounds like noise.