Duncan Watts reading

I have always found the six degrees of separation thing pretty interesting but have never really thought about it, probably because i haven't seen enough kevin bacon movies, so i'm terrible at that game. Nonetheless, I've always been curious to figure out how many people away i would be from knowing brett favre or keira knightley. In the reading it mentioned how Duncan Watts' father asked him about being no more than six degrees from someone who knows the president. This got me thinking about who i might know who might know someone who might know someone who might know someone who might know someone who knows the president. The surprising thing is, it was pretty easy for me. I grew up in Middleton, WI, which is where Russ Feingold lives. His daughter and my sister were in high school at the same time, so through my sister, who i'm assuming knew someone who knew her, i know Russ Feingold, who no doubt knows the president. Though pretty much anyone can probably do that with a local representative, I think my situation is cool because Russ Feingold is awesome. It seems no matter how many times we do a little game like that with anyone, we always seem to be amused and even surprised by how connected we all are, even though we all know how easy it is to communicate with so many people from so far away on an every day basis.

The second chapter of the Watts book we had to read was a lot more confusing for me, maybe i just made it a lot more difficult than it had to be. What i got out of it was how great of a risk we are in, because of our networking culture with ease of travel and how connected we are to places around the world, for a potential epidemic that could wipe out a huge portion of our population. I don't think this is really news to anyone anymore. I became more aware of this potential a few years ago when SARS broke out and everyone was freaking out. There is also heightened awareness now with the potential for a bird flu pandemic sometime in the near future. The bird flu seems to be what everyone thinks will be our demise. The thing that goes along with how our culture makes it easier to pass on an illness or disease so quickly and over such a great distance, is the fact that our culture also makes it easier to find a cure, vaccine, or another way to remedy the situation because it is easy to communicate globally to see where people have whatever the illness is and to get information on how best to treat it.

I started to get really confused when Watts started using all of the math and networking lingo. Some of it was easier to digest than other parts. I believe i understand the SRI model stating that people are susceptible to disease, then infectious when they have it and can pass it on, and finally removed when they are either cured or dead. That is all pretty self-explanatory and logical. Then you have the growth phase, explosive phase and burnout phase of a disease. Watts eventually linked these ideas to computer viruses as well as human diseases, and basically shows they can spread in much the same way.