Project: Impossible — Easter Island

Moai

 My 26th book will be Project: Impossible, an exploration of how people achieved goals any reasonable person would have thought impossible. This week, the strange statues of Easter Island.

The European Discovery

On Easter Sunday 1722, a Dutch West India Company commanded by Jacob Roggeveen, seventeen days out of Chile, sighted a low, flat island, which he named after the day of his discovery: Easter Island.

Easter Island a windy place, flat and treeless. At the time of Roggeveen’s visit, he judged the population to be between 2,000 and 3,000 people. The poverty and barrenness of the island stood in remarkable contrast to what makes Easter Island famous: the monolithic rock carvings known as moai, the giant head-statues that dominate the landscape. The tallest of the moai towers a remarkable 33 feet in height; the heaviest weighs 86 tons.

About half the statues that have been discovered are still in the main quarry where they were all created. Many are only partially completed, as if the workers suddenly left their jobs, never to return. One thing, however, was abundantly clear: the sculpting, transporting, and installing of these statues was a remarkable feat — and clearly, one utterly beyond the capabilities and resources of the poor islanders.

Theories

Of the various theories on the creation, transportation, and erection of the moai of Easter Island, the most fanciful was advanced by Erich von Däniken, that they were designed and built by extraterrestrial visitors. Von Däniken was not alone in marveling about the Easter Island statues. Tribal folklore on Easter Island itself claimed that mana, or divine power, allowed the moai to walk from the quarry to their assigned locations.

A more serious theory was advanced by explorer Thor Heyerdahl, who actually moved a 10-ton moai using a sledge drawn by 180 islanders. Scaling up, it would have required approximately 1,500 people to move the largest moai. Anthropologist William Mulloy developed a complex engineering technique using huge trees for support, but later studies suggested that the necks of the moai couldn’t absorb the excessive stress the method would create.  Czechoslovakian scholar Pavel Pavel and Wyoming archeologist Charles Love attempted to move moai in a semi-upright position, but caused noticeable damage.

Moving the moai was difficult enough, but then came the problem of setting them upright on their ahu platforms. In 1994, archeologist Claudio Cristino could barely re-erect an 88-ton moai using a modern crane!

Of course, ancient civilizations (most famously the Egyptians) moved massive stones — all you need is lots of thick long ropes (traditionally made from tree bark in Polynesia) and lots of large trees. You also need a large labor force, and that also requires a generous amount of surplus food.

But on Easter Island, there are hardly any trees worthy of the name. Worse, the island is unable to support a large population.

Well, today, in any event.

A display of Easter Island moai atop an ahu platform. The ahu are an engineering feat in themselves.

How It Was Done (and Why It Shouldn't Have Been)

Although today Easter Island is relatively barren, botanical surveys have revealed that at the time of human settlement the island was heavily forested, with the dominant tree similar to the Chilean wine palm.
Chilean wine palms are prized for their nuts, for a sweet sap that can be fermented into wine or turned into honey, for fronds capable of being turned into a variety of useful products, and, of course, for the wood of their immense trunks. The trees were extremely important to human civilization on the island — and, of course, they were essential to the transport of the moai.

The imposing and majestic moai were built at the unwitting cost of the civilization that created them, triggering an ecological disaster. By the arrival of famous British explorer Captain James Cook in 1774, the islanders were, in his words, “small, lean, timid, and miserable.” The destruction was so complete that in the end, the people of Easter Island turned to the largest remaining source of protein — each other.

Map of Easter Island Showing Location of Moai

Managing the Impossible Project: The Consequences of Success

Every leader has to face the consequences of potential failure, but it’s important not to overlook the consequences of success as well. Too much focus on getting today’s job done can compromise — sometimes fatally — your future capabilities as well.

Even if you can do the impossible, it’s not necessarily always a good idea.

Project: Impossible — Julius Caesar at the Siege of Alesia, 52 BCE

Gaius Julius Caesar

My 26th book will be Project: Impossible, an exploration of how people achieved goals any reasonable person would have thought impossible. Here’s a summary of some of the cases covered in the book.

The Rise of Vercengetorix

Until the rise of Vercengetorix, Gaius Julius Caesar had been able to fight the tribes of Gaul one at a time. But in 52 BCE, they united under a single leader: Vercingetorix, chieftain of the Arverni tribe.

Caesar’s military and political situation at the time was deteriorating badly. Caesar’s political enemies, known as the boni, threatened him in Rome, and this new uprising compromised his plans for Gaul.

Vercingetorix conducted one of the first known uses of a scorched earth policy, destroying crops to keep them from falling into the hands of the Romans. He also dopted a hit and run strategy. In addition, he raised an army many times larger than the Romans who opposed him — by some counts, as large as 500,000.

Caesar, distracted with events in Rome, was in the settled Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul when Vercingetorix opened his campaign, but quickly crossed the Alps with eight understrength legions to find the scorched earth policy beginning to bite. Although Vercingetorix had burned twenty settlements, he had spared one, the fortress town of Avaricum, thought to be impregnable. In a 27-day siege, plagued by poor supplies and surrounded by hostile Gauls, Caesar took the town — and the food.

Vercingetorix, in response, captured a food convoy bound for Caesar. Still determined to avoid a decisive battle until the odds favored him, he retreated his cavalry into the fortress town of Alesia.

Vercingetorix had every reason to believe that his situation was still advantageous. His forces outnumbered Caesar’s. He had the advantage of high ground. Most importantly, the defending forces inside Alesia were only a small part of the Gallic forces. Soon, Caesar would not only have to contend with the forces inside Alesia, but also the remainder of the army of united Gaul — a relief army of between 125,000 and 250,000. Caesar would shortly find himself trapped in a doughnut, with enemies both inside and outside.

Caesar’s response was to launch one of the most ambitious and astounding feats in the history of military engineering.

The Impossible Project

First, Caesar’s men built a circumvallation, an eleven-mile long fortification of earth piled thirteen feet high, enclosing the entire town. Behind the earthen rampart his soldiers dug two ditches, each about fifteen feet wide. If that wasn’t enough, Caesar’s men built 23 fortlets, one every 80 feet, along the entire route — and did it in only three weeks!

Of course, Caesar also had the Gallic relief forces to worry about, so now he had to do it all over again. The Roman forces built a contravallation, an external set of defenses similar to the circumvallation, but this one extending for thirteen miles!

This immense engineering feat took thirty days, slowed by the need for Caesar’s men to collect supplies to feed the army. But it was all done before the huge relief army arrived.

A reconstruction of Caesar's fortifications around Alesia

The Battle of Alesia

After skirmishing and small battles, the main attack began at midnight, with Vercingetorix’s men crossing the treacherous fortifications Caesar’s soldiers had built. Caesar’s legates Marc Antony and Gaius Trebonius (later one of Caesar’s assassins) were able to repulse the attacks from both sides.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the relief army scouted Caesar’s fortifications and found a weak spot, a Roman camp to the northwest that had not been included in the contravallation because of the hilly terrain. Two legions (around 8,000 soldiers) occupied the camp, and the Gauls sent an attacking force of nearly 60,000 against it, starting with diversionary attacks before the major assault began. Vercingetorix, seeing some of the preparations, launched an attack on the inner lines.

Vercingetorix Surrenders to Caesar

Caesar himself waded into the thick of the battle, and the Romans carried the day. The next day, Vercingetorix surrendered. His men were sold into slavery.

Managing the Impossible Project: Maximizing Resource Quality

The performance of the Roman legionary is legendary, and it’s not surprising that 30,000 Romans could defeat a force arguably ten times as large. But even a cursory reading of Roman military history will make it abundantly clear that not all Roman generals enjoyed equal success.

Of course, Caesar’s military and engineering genius had a lot to do with his success, but it’s the superior performance of his legions, even by already high Roman standards, that is the key to understanding Alesia. The staggering magnitude of the earth-moving alone is a testament to backbreaking, unromantic work. It’s one thing to convince soldiers to fight; it’s another thing to convince them to dig.

If there is a mismatch between what you want people to do and what they actually are doing, you can either modify the process or modify the people. Modifying the process may mean improving the tools and equipment, or it may involve changing methodologies. Modifying the people can involve motivation, or changing the rewards and punishments for performance.

When people are well trained, motivated, and led effectively, they can achieve results that would otherwise be impossible.

Wrong is Right (Red Herrings, Part 25)

The 25th and final installment of Red Herrings (a subset of Fallacies) ends with the red herring known as “two wrongs make a right.” There’s actually one more red herring in the Wikipedia list, previously covered in my series on cognitive biases: the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Next week, something completely different. Or maybe not.

Two Wrongs Make a Right

Given the reality that no side is completely innocent of all wrongdoing, the “two wrongs make a right” argument crops up with surprising frequency. When Side A is accused of some misdeed, the response all too often becomes “Side B is even worse!” But the sins of Side B, no matter how true or how severe, don’t excuse Side A.

The fundamental test of any red herring fallacy is that the truth or falsehood of the counterclaim is irrelevant to the merit of the primary claim. Whether a different group is as bad or worse changes nothing. Two wrongs, as we all know (or should know), don’t make a right.

But that doesn’t stop people from trying.

Drawing Straws (Red Herrings Part 24)

Part 24 of Red Herrings covers still more responses to arguments that distract from the argument rather than address it directly. This week, the straw man.

Straw Man

The Economist reports Mitt Romney’s stump speech about President Obama, in which Romney says,

Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes.

Of course, Mitt Romney is lying. As the article goes on to say, “Barack Obama doesn't ‘believe that government should create equal outcomes’ any more than Mitt Romney believes that 1% of Americans should have all the wealth while the rest get nothing, or that companies should fire all their American workers and send their jobs to China because Americans are overpaid and lazy.” Instead, Romney is attempting to reframe a discussion on income inequality in a way that is more advantageous to his own arguments.

This is an example of the Straw Man fallacy. Instead of arguing with what a person actually says or believes, the responder creates a distorted version of that argument and attacks that, instead.

Straw man arguments take the following form:

1. Person A holds position X.

2. Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. Position Y is distorted from position X in varying ways, including:

a. A direct misrepresentation of the opponent's position. 

b. Quoting an opponent's words out of context — i.e. choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions.

c. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the main defender, then refuting that person's arguments — thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated. 

d. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical. 

e. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.

3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

There may well be honest and legitimate reasons to attack Position X, but attacking Position Y instead is always dishonest.

Hume’s Guillotine (Red Herrings Part 23)

Part 23 of Red Herrings covers still more responses to arguments that distract from the argument rather than address it directly. This week, the is-ought problem.

Is-Ought Problem

The “is-ought problem” is also known as Hume’s Law or Hume’s Guillotine, first articulated by Scottish philosopher David Hume in his 1739 work A Treatise of Human Nature.

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

As in the case of many logical fallacies, it’s not necessarily the case that “is” precludes “ought,” but rather that “is” doesn’t constitute a sufficient proof by itself. To reach a conclusion of “ought” requires additional argument.

The problem is easier in goal-setting than in morality. For example, if you want to win a race, then you ought to run quickly. However, whether you ought to want to win in the first place is a different question.

All-Natural (Red Herrings Part 22)

Part 22 of Red Herrings covers still more responses to arguments that distract from the argument rather than address it directly. This week, the appeal to nature.

Appeal to Nature

There’s nothing inherently wrong in appealing to nature as part of an argument, but it becomes a red herring logical fallacy when it turns into an unwarranted assumption. The form of the logical fallacy is:

N is natural.
Therefore, N is good or right. 

U is unnatural.
Therefore, U is bad or wrong.

A medicine made with “all natural” ingredients could well contain arsenic and uranium, which hardly qualify as safe. The definition of “natural” itself can be twisted using judgmental language, which you’ll see in various arguments against homosexuality.

But that’s just a load of santorum.

I Am Curious (Yellow) (Red Herrings Part 21)

Part 21 of Red Herrings covers still more responses to arguments that distract from the argument rather than address it directly. This week, the naturalistic fallacy.

Naturalistic fallacy

The naturalistic fallacy was first described and named by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica. It describes the problem of trying to prove an ethical claim by appealing to a definition of “good” in terms of natural properties such as “pleasant,” “more evolved,” or “desirable.” For example, if something is both pleasant and good, inferring that “pleasant” and “good” are therefore the same quality is one bridge too far.

Moore stands in contrast to philosophers who argue that “good” can be defined in terms of natural properties we already understand. Instead, Moore argues that properties are either simple or complex, and complex properties are made from simple ones. Complex properties can be defined by breaking out their simple components, but the simple ones are indefinable. You can define “yellow” as the color of a ripe lemon, or as the primary color between green and orange on the visible spectrum, or as electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nanometers, but none of those are sufficient to help a blind person perceive what you’re talking about. As Justice Potter famously observed about pornography, “I know it when I see it.” But that doesn’t enable one to produce a meaningful operational definition.