Minor Roles

Minor Roles

I love old movies, and some not so old.  The leads form the pantheon of actors.  Tyrone Power, Clark Gable, Hedy Lamarr, Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, Meryl Steep, and so many more are included. 

I always look at the end credits.  Very occasionally, you will see a budding star having a small role; occasionally or more often you will see one of the great character actors of their day.  But most of the credits go to those serving in minor roles in the film.  They are where they are, making a living, saying a few lines, and then exiting off stage – their work done. 

This is the role of most.  A few minor lines and then stage exit.  All this is on account of some odd combination of circumstance, luck, and talent. Yet, not everyone can be an important star.  But, they are in the movie.   For most, this is just not too bad.  

Very occasionally, someone comes in from the back and into the front.  It does happen; if it never did this would be quite the signal.   There is an explanation using some math.

The Square Root Rule.  It is a rule of thumb that in any population of N persons, the number of notable persons is proportional to the square root of N.  So, if there are  N = 40000 actors of all types in Hollywood, this implies there are about 200 notable actors, i.e. the big stars.  If could be anywhere from 50 to 800, for instance.  Remember, the square root law used here changes the scale, but does not give an exact value.    If N = 10000, then the number of stars is about 100.   

In brief, not everyone can be at the top; indeed relatively few in any population are at the top.  

Some actual data.  The Screen Actors Guide, from their own website, represents more than 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcasters, journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals. This is a much larger population than merely actors.  Taking the square root of this number gives 400, and using a 1/4 to 4 times factors, a rough estimate is that there are between 100 to 1600 big shots. 

The population of the US is about 350,000,000 citizens.  The square root of this value is about 19,000.  Consider the congress, governors, significant military leaders state legislatures, mayors of large cities- basically all those about on a par at the top echelon of power, and add all these up, you obtain a number withing the scale given the square root law. 

This is quite a handy little rule.  It is not exact by any means, but it does give some appreciation of how many can and therefore cannot be at the top.  It can be derived from a rather simple management model - to be forthcoming.

Comments - Part V

•   Times of prosperity are rarely, if ever, equally distributed.
• A curious consequence of prosperity for some is a devotion to socialism.  Alternative:  Prosperity is the birth mother of socialism.  Alternative:  Socialism is the black sheep of prosperity's progeny.
• Your modern socialist lives by the mantra, “This time we’ll get it right.”
• I like warmth and I like water, but Texas summers have the worst possible combination of both.
• Being articulate does not imply being intelligent.
• Loyalty is a quality prized by some as the greatest of virtues.
• Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others." ---  Winston Churchill

• As of this posting, 6/8/13, AG Eric Holder is still on the job.  But what if it were not so?  The Administration likes Holder, and it likes his approach to the law.  Yet, Holder has become a liability.  He may need to step down.  So what if he goes?  What happens?  Nothing at all.  It is not like what he does or is doing is erased.  His people will be still in place, still believing in what he advocates, and still executing his vision of the law.  A new AG will be determined, and this person will likely believe in the same construction of the constitution.  The only real difference is that this person will have a six month honeymoon from serious critique.  Nowadays, six months is quite a long time.  What does the President give up?  Perhaps the long abiding friendship he has with Eric Holder?  Perhaps, he gives up an abiding trust knowing his friend will do what is needed?  Perhaps he gives up the agreements achieved in confidential conversations?   Nonetheless, whoever agrees to take on the tasks must do the bidding of his master.   Every leader with great power has experienced the loss of a trusted ally or friend.  Every leader with great power can find a replacement.  Every leader of great power is essentially alone. 
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  Longevity is the bane of the ambitious.
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  Where there is power at hand, a purpose evolves to apply it. Human nature, this is.
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  "Power to the people" is the mantra of those that have no power but who want it. 
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  For the pro-choice activists, it may a good thing that there are no fetuses that can carefully articulate their objections to being aborted.  This could change the calculus of the debate.   
  
  Letter from the womb:  Dear Mom,  I know I am growing inside you.  I know I kick from time to time.  I know I make you a little uncomfortable.  I know you are enchanted by this advent. I may be inconvenient.  But, please, I want to live.  Please let me come into this world.  With your help, I will do well. 
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The Automated Life

The automated industry implies a new efficiency in production.  Pioneered by Henry Ford (1863-1947) with the mobile assembly line, this automated industry reduced the cost of automobiles (the Model T), from $825 to $575, a reduction of more than 30%.   Anyone who reduces by 30% the cost of anything has made a footprint in the industry.  Nowadays, mobile assembly lines are common in every industry.  Automated assembly lines are good.  There was a price to be paid, of course.  In the original automated factory, universal craftsmen were replaced by workers assigned to specific tasks.  A management team was in place for procurement of materials, training, marketing, and the like.  Workers on individual tasks were interchangeable.  Hence, one level of skill was reduced.  Fast forwarding to modern industries, the moving assembly line persists, though the workers have been replaced by robots, with the workers now tending the robots.  The management teams remain in place.  Hence, one further reduction of skills and clearly numbers obtains.  The managers of control should be called the “caretakers” of the system. 

 

This is the modern automated industry, and it has made goods we could never afford otherwise.  We enjoy them. 

From Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), the great American philosopher, we learn ”When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.”  In Reflections on the Human Condition, 1973.

Many examples of automated lives are available, across the spectrum of life.  An ant colony provides an automated life for its individuals, each interchangeable, none with a unique signature on the work to be done.  Your local zoo provides an automated life for its animals.  All aspects are cared for from birth, to health, to food, to death.  The only choice the animal has is where to lie down to sleep during the day.  The canary in your kitchen, the dog in your backyard, the cat in your home, all have the same life.  They are little more than living, breathing plants.  Fully functioning and fully automated.    Maybe this is OK, regardless of the large segment believing zoos are inhumane toward animal displays for our pleasure.

Yet, even humans live such lives.  The typical prison provides an automated life for its inmates, not very much different from the zoo.   The prison must do this to keep order amongst unruly persons.  Choices include perhaps books to read, to eat or not food provided, how and when to exercise – though regulated, or television to watch.  There is little else; this is not much.  

The newer social systems providing cradle to grave lives for its citizens implies extant well automated lives.  Health care, education, assigned jobs (with little chance of termination), old age retirement, and finally internment are all components.  Even social alternatives are provided.  Many countries have opted for such systems.  The USA is also seemingly headed toward this.  What are missing are risk, the pleasure and adventure in living, the ups and downs of success and failure, the chances of great success or abject failure, and the multitude of choices of true freedom.   All risks will have been converted to the remote possibility of winning the LOTTO – upon which many live.  We are voting ourselves into living in a zoo – a humane zoo, but a zoo nonetheless.   One can't pick and choose to select a zoo-like world as a safety net but reject it when doing well.  This is an all in proposition.  This is not OK.

Yet, like any automated industry, there will be the caretakers, those that live beyond the automation and make certain all the components function smoothly, cleansing errant aberrations that foul the works, removing the extraneous, and culling the nonconforming.  They will be the managers or caretakers of our automated lives. 

All of this may be reminiscent of George Orwell’s (1903-1950), 1984, but it is not!  Orwell’s system was imposed-forced.  Indeed, we are walking into, some running into, and voting all of this into existence.  Governments not yet converted are encouraging it with all their might.  They have made security the foremost of all human desires.  They have denigrated personal responsibility and achievement as equal to class warfare.  They have assured us of greater prosperity that ever before.  Just comply, just conform.  Embrace the justice of equality.   

Make no doubt, the advocates of automated lives simply do not imagine themselves as individual components of this grand design.  They envision themselves as the caretakers.   One could certainly term the new automated life as primitive – with gadgets. 

Yet, such a system, foundationally weak to external pressures as the citizenry regard the system as the succor of security, cannot sustain itself unless all systems are the same and in union. Such systems also need a security net, as provided by stronger systems up the chain.  Stronger systems may poach, and this is a notable problem.  In this, there is possible salvation.