Major labels not too shabby on the People's List…

While mentioning privilege in my last post, I linked to an editorial that lambasts Pitchfork's recent People's List for being made up mostly of White and male artists. (They've since changed its title to be less incendiary, but you can still see the original in its URL.) Anyway, plenty have discussed this aspect of it to death, so I won't. What I find interesting is that half the artists in the top ten debuted on a major label, including Radiohead, who occupy the first, second, and sixth slots. (The others are the Strokes, Wilco, and Kanye West. Since Radiohead appears three times, there are only eight in total.)

The fact that Radiohead makes the strongest showing by far is particularly noteworthy, given that few had any real faith in them when they were first signed. Remember, they were just a Nirvana clone like every other band of that era, all swept up by the major labels using the shotgun approach despised so much by indie rock kids to this day. And through the years, Radiohead themselves have tried hard to downplay this ignoble origin, along with the incredible resources afforded them because of it. But in doing so, they're doing us all a huge disservice, by obscuring the reality of where great music might come from and how it might be discovered.

The indie labels look for bands whose creative habits appear fully blossomed. This approach helps guard against nasty surprises, but it also ensures that a breakout phenomenon like Radiohead will probably never happen under their watch. And yet, Radiohead made the two best albums of the past fifteen years, according to the very subculture that most ardently supports these indie labels!

Isn't that weird? That's weird to me.

Juche rock

In my last post, I compared Beck's upcoming lead sheet album with my own comic book album about Rosalind Franklin. Music writers hail one as a clever idea with definite promise, and appreciate the other for the ease with which it slides right into the recycling bin. But let's be honest, if we were to ask people who know nothing about either project to guess which one met which fate, they'd first have to ask, "And… which did Beck do?"

In other words, no work speaks for itself independent of the artist who created it. So it's technically impossible for a complete nobody to create a work of merit, because if that person doesn't exist, then the work doesn't exist, and existence is an essential precondition of merit.

But that goes against everything we believe, or at least wish to believe, about how success is won in the indie rock scene, doesn't it? I know I clung on for as long as I could. Surely the only path to becoming a somebody is through creating works of merit. And besides, if that weren't the case, how else could a nobody ever become a somebody? After all, every somebody starts out as some nobody.

My answer is that there are other factors involved, which I've narrowed down to these three: privilege, luck, and grinding.

Privilege

Privilege is any unearned advantage. Everyone enjoys some form of it, but of course some have less and some have more. In the case of indie rock, some people are just pleasing to behold. Others are admired precisely because they're not. Some long ago won the lottery for race and gender. Others have the right friends and connections.

Identifying privilege isn't a witch hunt; it's a necessary measure to prevent a downward slide into oligarchy, or rule by a permanent elite. Since we only ever hear from the successful, and theirs are the only opinions that matter, it's very easy to settle into an attitude that equates success directly with merit while neglecting every other possible cause. Given that most indie rock fans are social progressives, hopefully this point doesn't need to be explained further.

Luck

Duncan Watts once conducted an experiment in which thousands of participants, divided amongst parallel social networks, were asked to rate the same set of songs by unknown bands. However, each person could only see the votes made by peers in his or her own network, not those of any other. The results? Each network came up with a completely different order of ranking.

As Watts explains in a guest post on the Freakonomics blog:

Enormous differences in success may indeed be due to small, random fluctuations early on in an artist's career, which then get amplified by a process of cumulative advantage⁠— a 'rich-get-richer' phenomenon that is thought to arise in many social systems.

So luck matters. A lot. Sure, we might minimise how much it helped bring us the bands we love, but it also goes a long, long way towards explaining those we don't. It's not a difficult conclusion to accept overall, is what I'm saying.

Before I move on to the third and last factor, let me make it clear that I'm not denying the merits of any band that's found success. What I am saying is that when success means success over others, and the sheer number of talented bands out there is taken into account, then pure merit is a completely dishonest explanation for why a few somebodies get to be elevated above the countless nobodies. It's like insisting that anyone you date should have no prior conviction for armed robbery. A few other criteria might need to be involved.

So a problem arises when we discuss any successful band's merits. If I choose A over B, then compliment A for a certain trait and leave it at that, I'm not lying even if B also possesses that trait. But I'm clearly doing B a disservice. Similarly, when we marvel at the innovative genius of a somebody, we should also note that some nobodies out there might be just as deserving of the same applause, if we were to actually pay attention to them.

Grinding

Grinding in World of Warcraft means doing something mindlessly repetitive like killing boars, purely for the sake of acquiring items or leveling up. It's also an apt term to describe the one surefire way for any band to grab the reins of its career and gain massive respect in indie rock. I'm talking, of course, about paying one's dues.

So what does it mean to pay one's dues? Does it mean to work hard? Not quite. After all, the hard work that goes into something like a comic book album is pretty evident on the surface. No, paying one's dues specifically means working hard according to predefined and observable metrics. You know, self-promotion and distribution, endless touring, and so forth.

But if such metrics already exist, and the means by which to fulfill them have long been understood by everyone, doesn't that mean we're merely retreading the same path over and over, instead of forging new ones? Yes, that's correct. And truth be told, I don't think anyone really gets all that excited when hearing about the latest band to finally get noticed after having paid their dues. It's just that the option has to be kept open if there's to be any semblance of meritocracy in this scene.

So while it's called paying one's dues in indie rock, and busywork in the academic and corporate worlds, the concept is the same: earning respect by working hard to contribute nothing of genuine value. But I'm just going to call it grinding. To me, killing virtual boar after boar after boar… is exactly what it feels like.

Juche

The interesting thing about grinding is that it's the only one of these three factors for success that's specific to an ideology. Privilege and luck are unavoidable facts of life, and much effort has to be invested to counter their effects. But the same isn't true for grinding. We either choose to value it or we don't. It's as simple as that.

So, I was sitting here trying to think of any other culture or institution besides indie rock that places such a high value on grinding. NASA? Jazz music? Professional hockey? No, all of these care deeply about results. If a process that leads to superior results doesn't match an original assumption, then they discard that assumption, not the process. So no, in these fields, there's probably zero patience for hard work undertaken purely as a symbolic gesture and signaling device.

Then I remembered Pyongyang, a comic book novel by Guy Delisle that tells about his time there. We don't think of North Korea as producing anything of value, and yet the North Koreans work incredibly hard. Their workweek lasts for six days, and on the seventh, they "volunteer" for hastily planned civic projects. In one instance, Delisle describes seeing schoolchildren watering a park lawn by running back and forth carrying buckets.

If you weren't born to privilege, you can still get ahead in North Korea by grinding: keeping your head down, doing exactly what you're told, and not making waves. Most of all, you don't innovate, because innovation means disrupting the system. And there are just too many people whose lives and livelihoods are at stake. "Hey, I didn't spend weekends in my youth watering park lawns with a bucket, just to watch you invent something called a sprinkler! I paid my dues! You die now!"

So there you have it: indie rock and North Korea, two institutions where grinding is celebrated and rewarded. Incidentally, indie rock stands for independence, holding as its ideal a world in which no artist and no label must rely on any other. Meanwhile, the official state ideology of North Korea is Juche, which can be roughly translated to "self-reliance."

I don't think that's a coincidence.

Pseudepigrapha

When I was a religious studies major many moons back, I learned about pseudepigrapha, the practise of attributing authorship of one's works to another of greater renown and authority. The Gospel of Thomas is one famous example. Now, at the time, I understood this ancient custom on an intellectual level⁠— but it made no sense to me on a personal level, young and idealistic as I was, and holding the individualist values that I did. If your message is profound enough to resonate with the world, I reasoned, why would you deny history the truth of whom it came from?

Well… I'm starting to really, really get pseudepigrapha now. Because, when you're a nobody, nothing you say or do matters! It doesn't count, because you don't count. All the time and energy that goes into each project of yours, at the end of the day, still has to be multiplied by the base number of your actual being⁠— which, if you're a nobody, is zero. Well, what's ten times zero? Zero. A hundred times zero? Zero. A thousand times zero? And… so forth.

Based on initial reactions from the indie labels and press, it looks like my prediction is coming true: The Rosalind Franklin comic book album isn't impressing any of the powers that be. I can argue all I want about the promise it holds for combining unrelated mediums to create new storytelling possibilities; or that, as a female scientist she was robbed of her place in history, and this album hopes to correct that injustice; or even simply that the songs are really, really good. But none of these arguments matter, because I don't matter.

In fact, the whole "female scientist" angle is a pretty good analogy for my position, I think. When you read about educated women and Blacks in the 19th century, it's always the same story about how their accomplishments were ignored. But really, it's not like everyone around them was trying to be a jerk. People back then simply weren't capable of accepting scientific insights coming from women and Blacks, any more than I'm willing to accept relationship advice coming from a talking banana. You can't take it personally. When you're a zero, you're not being ignored because they hate you. You're being ignored simply because people who don't count… well, don't count.

By now, everyone knows about Beck's plan to release an album solely as lead sheets. Given that there are plenty of genres such as gospel music where sales in this format have always been strong, this by itself isn't noteworthy, of course. We find it new and exciting because it's Beck. Meanwhile, what would happen if Beck were to release a comic book album? I'm guessing there'd be a bit of talk about the promise of combining unrelated mediums to create new storytelling possibilities. Beck is a somebody, so anything he does, multiplied by his nonzero self, will actually be, like, multiplied. That utterly blows my mind.

And suddenly, the idea of giving authorship of my work to a somebody like Beck starts to sound really, really nice. I just have to cross out "Bobtail Yearlings" and scribble in "Beck" on this comic book album. That's all it'd take to have my work appreciated by millions! Seriously, how awesome would that be?

Footnote: Actually, truth be told, I'd happily take relationship advice from a talking banana. Lord knows, I need all the help I can get.

Labelmetrics? Musicball?

Peter Brand: People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws: age, appearance, personality. Bill James and mathematics cut straight through that… Billy, this is Chad Bradford. He's a relief pitcher. He's one of the most undervalued players in baseball. His defect is that he throws funny. Nobody in the big leagues cares about him because he looks funny… This guy should cost $3 million a year. We can get him for $237,000.
—Moneyball

Some of you know that several years ago, I set out to create the "Ulysses of rock albums." The hope was that by putting out an album that couldn't fail to win stellar reviews, I'd gain a foothold in this scene without having to spend years playing in dive bars to crowds of three on a Wednesday night. Both Secretly Canadian and Nonesuch liked the album and kept in touch for a while, though both eventually declined. But overall, there just wasn't enough of a reaction elsewhere to solidly confirm to me that such a path isn't in fact viable.

So I concluded instead that my "Ulysses of rock albums," which necessarily demanded the kind of time and attention from its listeners that I as a nobody hadn't yet earned, was simply the wrong project to make it happen. My next project would leave nothing hidden below the surface, and all would be well. Feeling the sting of rejection and fearing that my place in music history wasn't as assured as I'd assumed, I decided to mix pragmatism with personal feelings by making a comic book album about Rosalind Franklin, the historically neglected English biophysicist.

But lately I'm beginning to realise that this new project is fated to be completely ignored as well, even before its first wave of promos has been sent out. The immediate visibility of its worth is irrelevant. The true lesson I should've learned the first time around is this: Any attempt to gain a foothold in the indie rock scene by crafting an album that can't fail to win stellar reviews will always be doomed to fail, for the simple reason that indie labels don't consider album reviews.

This is a provocative statement, I know. I could buttress my argument with observations I made as a former intern at Dim Mak, or exchanges I've had with various label reps over the years, but I'd rather not risk descending into snark, however unwitting, and anyway these wouldn't mean anything coming from a nobody like me. So let me just ask you to step into the shoes of the label reps, and see things from their perspective.

Music is hopelessly subjective, and familiarity breeds comfort, which makes it difficult to objectively judge things like artistic beauty and cultural relevance. At the same time, support for the indie labels is dependent on their role in nurturing artist empowerment and self-reliance. Consequently, a label's confidence in an unknown band is gained not through recordings, for which the barriers of entry are too low to be an effective gauge, but through live shows, with everything signified by what they entail: the voluntary presence and immediate feedback of the audience, the spirit and passion evident on each member's face, and the ability to meet and connect with the band on a human level afterwards.

So new bands are discovered through some undetermined combination of personal connections, word-of-mouth, and serendipity, and the live show is the forum where it all comes together.

Let's say you're a label rep, and you've just watched a fantastic set by a band you've heard great things about. They've built up a local reputation through sheer commitment and elbow grease, and it shows: A good-sized crowd for a Saturday night has turned out. A longtime fan pulls you aside and tells you she was there from the beginning, watching them play in dive bars to crowds of three on a Wednesday night, and even back then they always gave it their all like they were onstage at Wembley.

You meet up with the band after the set and they're super friendly and passionate about what they do. Talking to them feels like talking to old friends. Reassured, you sign them. Half a year later you release their album, send them on the road with a more established band on your roster, and wait.

The reviews come in… they're great! You pat yourself on the back for another gem well spotted. Or… they're not so great. You tell yourself, that's okay. You've heard firsthand their brilliance. It just wasn't meant to be confined within the carpeted walls of a recording studio. And you've seen them make it in their own hometown. With your resources and their diligence, they can just as easily win over Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, one at a time, in the exact same manner.

Your intern walks in with the day's mail, which includes a few unsolicited demos. You tell her to file them away with all the rest in an overstuffed bin at the back of a closet, and ask her to book your flight to the upcoming SXSW, which you've been eagerly anticipating for weeks.

In other words, a general prediction of how favourable the album reviews will be is never once made before a label signs a band. They simply don't matter. Live shows, not recordings heard free of any context, are what make and break the deal.

But wait! Let's step back into our own shoes now. How many of us prefer to discover new music by randomly going out to see unknown bands play live? At most, one out of ten of you just raised a hand. Many of us rely on recommendations from friends, but that just kicks the question up the road: How do these friends hear about new music? And concert reviews don't tell us much, since they contain more descriptive commentary than qualitative judgment, which is what we're really after. We read them to keep up with bands we already like, not those we don't yet know.

No, with new bands we want album reviews, preferably with the option to see all the various scores aggregated into a single number. Any band that has a realistic chance to reach our ears is obviously good enough, yet being bombarded by thousands of them, we count on trusted intermediaries to winnow down the selection even further. For most of us, album reviews are the lifeblood of our musical tastes, whether directly or indirectly. But you see where this is headed: The most important criterion by which we judge new music is actually completely irrelevant and only tangentially related to the actual decision-making process that brings new music to us!

The movie Moneyball, based on Michael Lewis's book of the same name, is about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who led a team with one of the lowest payrolls in the major leagues to a stunning twenty-game winning streak in 2002. Beane's strategy was based on sabermetrics, a system of statistical analysis pioneered by Bill James. As Peter Brand (based on real-life Paul DePodesta) explains in the movie:

There is an epidemic failure within the game to understand what is really happening… People who run ball clubs, they think in terms of buying players. Your goal shouldn't be to buy players, your goal should be to buy wins. And in order to buy wins, you need to buy runs… When I see Johnny Damon, what I see is an imperfect understanding of where runs come from. The guy's got a great glove. He's a decent leadoff hitter. He can steal bases. But is he worth the $7.5 million a year that the Boston Red Sox are paying him? No. Baseball thinking is medieval. They are asking all the wrong questions.

For sabermetricians, the problem with traditional statistics such as batting average and slugging percentage is that in order to be translated into meaningful action, they need to be interpreted by human beings, whose gut instincts are woefully susceptible to irrational biases. In the movie, for example, we see Beane's scouts express faith in one player's abilities due to his "strong jaw," while another player's "ugly girlfriend" is taken to signify a lack of self-confidence.

What does all this mean for indie rock? Simple: In the same way that most sports fans are loyal to their teams rather than to individual players, most music fans are won over by the music first, not the artist. Consequently, an indie-rock version of Peter Brand might argue that there is an epidemic failure within indie rock to understand that an indie label's real goal shouldn't be to sign bands, but to sign music. And in order to sign music, you need to sign albums⁠— that is to say, the albums that have yet to be made.

It won't be easy to effect this change, of course. The indie labels will find it unsettling to focus primarily on hard results while ignoring the auras, personalities, stories, and human connections that speak to them most and count for so much in their eyes. But such a dispassionate approach would actually be a blessing, for it'd encourage them to evaluate new bands the same way that first-time listeners already do. Indie rock will also have to drop its penchant for myth-making in real time, but this would be no real loss either, since history usually backfires on such attempts anyway.

Perhaps the most valid objection is that in baseball, wins are quantifiable and indisputable, while music is hopelessly subjective. All's fair when it comes to making judgments, so it's pointless to argue with whatever external features enhance our listening enjoyment, however much they're based on irrational biases. I get that. And it's natural to be suspicious of sterile calculations, especially when something that's so emotionally engaging and personally meaningful is at stake. The decision-making process will always retain some element of the mystical and ineffable. I get that too.

But I'm not asking anyone to accept some totally inconceivable alternate reality here. I'm simply arguing that this aversion to cold, hard numbers shouldn't cause the indie labels to neglect the one cold, hard number that most music fans not only already do trust, but possibly trust above all other criteria: the weighted average of every score that accompanies each album review.

Trusting gut feelings is what defines the spirit of Generation X, the generation that started indie rock. By contrast, the Millennials will accept all the mounting evidence that human intuition is largely irrational, and work with that as a fundamental reality.

So it won't be long before indie-rock versions of Bill James and Billy Beane come along to forever change the game of discovering new music. When that happens, the indie labels will have to ask themselves: Do we want to be the indie-rock equivalent of the 2002 Oakland A's? Or are we content to be depicted in the eventual movie as some old guys signing bands based on criteria that future audiences will find no less wrongheaded and superficial than "strong jaw" and "no ugly girlfriend"?

Can indie rock survive the Millennials?

When I first started playing in bands hoping to make a splash in the East Bay scene a decade ago, it was common knowledge that the way to attract indie label attention is by not needing a label. For the bands themselves, this makes perfect sense: Self-reliance through promoting and distributing your own music allows you to negotiate from a position of strength. When you consider what's in it for the labels, though, it's exactly as strange as it sounds.

Imagine this McDonald's billboard: "Anyone can put meat and cheese between bread, really. The real exchange takes place between our suppliers and our customers, which we merely facilitate. We're not really needed!®" This would make for a pretty lousy business strategy, which is why no business works this way. The ideal model for a business is interdependence, where every single part and person is needed to play a unique role.

The model for indie rock, by contrast, is indie-pendence, where no part nor person is forced to rely on any other. But despite its reduced efficiency, this strategy has worked pretty well these past two or three decades, precisely because we value artist empowerment so strongly. We support the indie labels that refuse to exploit untested bands, and in turn, they promise that every band they sign has proven its mettle through self-reliance.

Of course, by forgoing interdependence, we lose the possibility that the whole can ever be greater than the sum of its parts. In my last post, I explained that the Beatles were exceptional precisely because they could count on others to handle every little thing unrelated to making music. But our desire to see bands get out there and hustle essentially guarantees that none today will be as musically noteworthy as the Beatles. Self-reliance, then, isn't just a virtue we highly respect; by default, it's the only virtue that has any chance to distinguish indie rock.

And this will go on for as long as the generation that started indie rock, Generation X, can go on. But the next generation, the Millennials, might choose to play a different ballgame altogether.

Let's face it, indie rock was perfectly made to suit Generation X. The notion that pluck and courage should count for more than cultivated talent, or that those of like-minded spirit can be adored by the world for banding together⁠— these resonate well with a generation that famously resented having to work jobs they hated, to pay for houses they couldn't afford, to fill with stuff they didn't need.

The big story about Millennials, on the other hand, isn't that they resent their jobs, but that they can't even find jobs. Their worst fear is to be forever shunted aside, despite all their qualifications, to make way for those possessing elusive qualities that can't be earned. In this light, the notion that pluck and courage should count for more than cultivated talent might suddenly seem a bit more vulgar, while an indie label that prides itself on being run more like a family than a business might look no different than any other institution that favours connections over credentials.

This is all conjecture on my part, of course, but I've noticed that I don't hear the rallying cry "Support the indie labels!" nearly as often as I did a decade ago. Which makes sense, given the rise of crowdfunding as the self-reliant artist's new source of empowerment. If your business strategy as an indie label is to not be needed⁠— to be a mere facilitator, contributing nothing of substance to the process⁠— then your unwillingness to step aside once a more streamlined option becomes available… makes you no less an exploitative middleman than the major labels have long been accused of being.

Indie rock currently reflects Generation X's admiration for the effort it takes to get to the top. But should the Millennials ever definitively declare that they'd rather celebrate what it takes to be at the top, the indie labels will need to drastically change or else wither away. Rather than signing bands that don't need a label, then, they must prove themselves indispensable by signing exactly those that do⁠— in other words, the ones desperately reliant on others to handle every little thing unrelated to making music.

Don't get me wrong, indie rock's model of independence has given us a long run of truly amazing bands. But the most influential and relevant bands in music history thrived during times of inter-dependence. And when you think about what interdependence is⁠— well, that just sort of makes perfect sense.

Of Deists and late Beatles

Who do you think would make a great President of the United States? I think many people would include Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Neil deGrasse Tyson on their lists. Yet, none of these three could ever hope to become President. Why? They're all self-professed agnostics.

In this country, believing in the providence of a Judeo-Christian God is an unofficial requirement for the Presidency. It might not make much sense to those of us who don't believe religion holds an exclusive claim on morality, but it especially doesn't make sense in light of what we know about the Founding Fathers, many of whom subscribed to Deism, the 18th-century version of agnosticism. (Without the theories of evolution and the Big Bang, they needed a divine clockmaker at the very least to explain the origins of life and the physical universe.)

It all kind of reminds me of indie rock. In this scene, you need to get out there and keep playing shows. And yet, the Beatles, arguably the greatest rock band of all time, completely stopped touring and performing after Rubber Soul. They then went on to release four of their five best albums. So why do we insist that current bands should only be discovered by doing the very opposite of what the Beatles were doing at the peak of their career?

Okay, I know what you're thinking. The Beatles did their residency in Hamburg. They wrote nothing but crowd-pleasing pop songs for years before putting out the intricate studio pieces that cemented their legacy. In short, the success of their later years very much depended on the honed performance chops of their earlier ones. And whether a band has that initial, solid foundation to build upon is exactly what indie rock's unofficial "get out there and play first" requirement is meant to measure.

But does it really, though? Look closer and you realize that the Beatles got tremendous help, particularly from their managers Allan Williams and Brian Epstein, and especially starting at a time when many around them still found them mediocre. Read the history and you'll get the impression, again and again, that the Beatles had zero business savvy and couldn't possibly have made it out of Liverpool on their own. For those who understand human nature, of course, that should go without saying. You can only do so much, and the Beatles were obviously too busy writing and performing music.

But we no longer live in a time when budding entrepreneurs were more likely to be lurking in the wings hoping to discover new talent, rather than just starting their own bands. If we did, then yes, a band's draw might be a more accurate gauge of their artistic worth. As it is, though, "get out there and play" isn't so much about a band's ability to play live shows, as it's about their conviction to get them.

And that's a problem for bands that want to grow. When you're young, getting shows isn't hard to do. It's pretty easy when you're content with nothing more than being in a band and playing out. That conviction isn't hard to come by, so it's easy to see why few in this scene can muster any sympathy for those bands who lack it. But let's face it, it's only easy to come by when you're young. As you grow older, life gets in the way, just as you start having more to say, and these changes in circumstance and temperament naturally make writing and recording more fruitful and rewarding than performing and touring. But what happens if you never got any exposure during your early years? Then those early years don't count, and according to indie rock, nothing you do beyond them will count either.

So is a band really to keep itself artistically stunted for years and years, until a scene representative comes along to start the ticker? No one prefers this to be the situation, and yet we see it happen all the time. A good live band traverses the local circuit for a decade, then finally gets discovered and enjoys their brief moment in the spotlight only to dwindle back into obscurity after a year or two, precisely because they languished for too long as a good live band when it was probably time for them to progress onward towards something bigger. Who'd want to hear this band? Who'd want to be them? And yet, surprisingly, the present system remains unsympathetic to any other approach.

I think this explains my band's predicament in a nutshell. With doublespeaker rhyme, Bobtail Method, and everything else we've done, I feel that we've long reached our Revolver phase, and I refuse to regress backward. Meanwhile, indie rock coolly awaits our Please Please Me and until then, refuses to accept anything more advanced or developed from us. So one of us will eventually have to cave.

But this issue is really about so much more than the Bobtail Yearlings. Many of you would agree that religion is an absurd gauge of a President's moral compass, not only because it'd be easier and more accurate just to observe those morals directly, but also because some of our greatest Presidents would've failed such a test. Similarly, do we really need to see a band "get out there and play" in order to believe in their potential as a great band, when we can just directly assess their potential to be a great band? Because, guys… THE BEATLES.

The Wason selection task for understanding success

Let's say there are four cards on a table, and each one has a number on one side and a colour on the other.

Card A shows the number 3.
Card B shows the number 8.
Card C shows the colour red.
Card D shows the colour brown.

Which cards would you have to flip over in order to confirm the statement that if a card has an even number on one side, then it's coloured red on the other?

This is the Wason selection task, and supposedly people are pretty bad at it. The answer is B and D. Neither A nor C can prove or disprove the statement, whatever their hidden sides reveal.

Let's try another one. There are four people in a bar, and each one is drinking from a glass. The legal age for consuming alcohol is 21.

Person A is 18.
Person B is 25.
Person C is drinking beer.
Person D is drinking soda.

Whose ID or glass would you have to check to make sure that all those drinking alcohol are of legal age?

The answer this time is A and C, and interestingly enough, most people don't have any problems answering this second one correctly, even though it's logically equivalent to the first. The explanation is that our capacity for reason evolved to follow social rules, not abstract concepts.

Let's try one more.

Band A is good.
Band B isn't so good.
Band C is successful.
Band D isn't successful.

Which bands would you have to find out more about to confirm the statement that if a band is good, then their success is inevitable?

The answer is A and D. Again, this problem is logically equivalent to the others. In the real world, though, you can't learn about Band D when you aren't even aware that they exist. If they were a card, in other words, it wouldn't be on the table. So is this problem more like the first, or the second? That is to say, does it run counter to most people's capacity for reason, or does it follow it?

The reason I ask is because we're entering a new era of unprecedented models for achieving and sustaining recognition. Some bands have become viral sensations; others have showcased novel ideas for online distribution. This has led many observers to complacently believe that if a band is good, then their success is inevitable, all the while oblivious to the sheer volume of Band Ds out there politely being shielded from their view. In other words, while the technology is now available for us to witness many daring new success models, we have yet to develop the kind of critical thinking needed to accurately gauge whether they can ever be consistently and universally applicable.

The question is, will we ever? That is to say, are the concepts needed for this desired level of understanding rooted in the kind of social rules for which our human intuition naturally evolved? Or are they simply too abstract for the less sophisticated majority of us to ever follow? I hold out hope for the former, but unfortunately, I suspect it's the latter. Despite all the sociological research out there suggesting the precarious nature of success, the concepts and terms involved are probably too inaccessible to ever overcome the limitations of how our brains are ultimately built.

For better or worse, then, the burden will forever be on the losers to explain how they lost, not on the winners to justify why they won.