By Leah Cox
Okay. I’m about to ask you to do something really difficult. Reach back into your brain and try to recall what you learned about tectonic plates in science classes.
If you’re in Mr. Crowley’s AP Environmental Science class, you shouldn’t have to reach very far back. If you were successful, you may remember that the earth’s lithosphere (the crust and upper part of the mantle which forms a solid, rocky, brittle layer) is broken into seven major plates. The place where each of these plates meet is called the plate boundary. Each plate boundary has a relative motion that determines the type of plate boundary: convergent, divergent, or transform. Each type of plate boundary has different outcomes—ranging from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to mountain ranges and oceanic trenches.
However, every movement of tectonic plates doesn’t cause immense destruction as we tend to think. In fact, tectonic plates have been moving slowly since about 3.3 billion years ago—a time frame that happens to coincide with the period that life started on Earth. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, plates move toward or away from each other at an average rate of 1.5 centimeters (0.6 inches) a year.
At this point, I’m sure you’re puzzled as to why I’m giving you a science lesson. Well, it’s quite simple. Like tectonic plates, politics and culture are always evolving—even if on a seemingly (very) small scale. We often imagine history as a series of major events across time. But what about the small events? What about the events that shift the paradigm only about 1.5 centimeters?
On February 6, 2023, at 4:17 a.m. local time, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria. According to the UN’s Relief Web situation report published on March 8, the death toll has surpassed 50,000 people—including 45,968 confirmed deaths in Turkey and 7,259 in Syria. Since the death toll from this tragedy is so high, some are likely to assume that the entire country shifted a dramatic distance. However, this isn’t exactly the case in the Turkey-Syria earthquake.
Just one more time, please put your science cap on. A majority of Turkey sits on a tectonic plate called the Anatolian Plate. According to William Barnhart of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Program, that plate moves westward less than one inch per year.
In the recent event, the Anatolian plate (which is smaller than the surrounding plates) was forcefully shifted west by the Arabian plate. It’s estimated that the area immediately around the earthquake fault shifted about 10 feet. But Barnhart is speaking to specific places on the faultline—this doesn’t mean that the entire country shifted.
Apparently, it would take “approximately 140 to 150 years for the whole of Turkey to move 10 feet to the west.” This example just goes to show that some of the world’s most consequential events don’t necessarily stem from really magnificent moments or moves. 10 feet certainly doesn’t sound like a far distance, but its impact was quite intense.
What I’m describing above might be related to the butterfly effect. It’s a concept created by mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz in 1963, and described by Farnam Street as the idea that “small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon.”
Most times, complex systems are often already very sensitive. Now I won’t describe in depth the theory because it would take both you and me down a wormhole of chaos theory and the “imprecision in human measurement of physical phenomena.” (No thank you!)
A Google search for examples of the butterfly effect turned up some pretty interesting and provocative answers. An example on the site Learning Mind, begins with the header: “One man’s kindness caused the Holocaust.” The story goes like this: In 1918, a soldier named Henry Tandey was in France fighting on behalf of the British. During a battle, he decided to spare the life of a young German soldier. The young soldier was injured, so Tandey could have killed him easily. But he took it upon himself to be a good samaritan and let him go. The man was Adolf Hitler.
It’s an interesting story indeed, but I have one qualm about it. How should we distinguish correlation from causation? From what I can tell, Henry Tandey was just being a good person. He had the upper hand in the situation, so he could’ve just killed Hitler. It’s easy to look retrospectively at the situation and say that Tandey should’ve just let Hitler die. But again, he wouldn’t have known that Hitler would go on to cause one of the greatest tragedies this world has ever known.
Do we know that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened if Hitler had died? I disagree with the statement that one man’s kindness caused the Holocaust. That’s too big of a burden for one person to carry—especially since Hitler was a known anti-semite before 1918. To me, this amounts to correlation rather than causation.
On the other hand, another butterfly effect example leans more towards the causation side of the equation. I read an article from the Washington Post to get some insight into it. Frank Wills was a security guard inside the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. He was patrolling the parking garage when he noticed masking tape covering the lock on a stairwell door. According to the Washington Post, he thought maybe the maintenance crew had taped the doors to keep them from locking. So, he ripped off the tape. He then went across the street to a restaurant to order carryout while on his shift break.
When Wills returned to work, the tape had also returned to the door. Wills subsequently called the police and reported a burglary in progress at the Watergate. Alone, Frank Wills had discovered the biggest political corruption scandal in U.S. history. The tape’s discovery led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Unlike the Henry Tandey situation, I think the Wills case is a great example of causation. On July 17, 1972, Wills was just working his security guard shift—from midnight to 7 am for $80 a week. Calling the police to report a burglary was just a product of the job. Nevertheless, the cause is directly linked to the effect. Without Wills’s routine and seemingly insignificant act history would have played out completely differently.
I’ve had some tectonic shifts in my life, too. The first shift that comes to mind was quite monumental and altered the trajectory of my life. Since I was in first grade, I wanted to be a doctor. That’s all I would ever talk about, seriously. When I got older, I specifically wanted to become a cardiothoracic surgeon. I wanted to attend Stanford University for my undergraduate degree and Johns Hopkins University for medical school. I had the roadmap of my future laid out entirely….or so I thought. On one Monday in March of 2021, I was sitting in Ms. Morris’s ninth-grade honors English class, when it suddenly dawned on me that I didn’t want to spend that much more time in school. I do really like school, but sitting in the classroom isn’t something I wanted to do for—what felt like—a long time. I wanted to get out in the world and make a big impact. When this thought hit me, I swear I felt lighter. My shoulders were definitely loose, and my posture was straighter (for once in my life). At that moment, I decided that I wanted to do something in the realm of politics and public policy.
I’m not too sure why I was thinking about my future in the middle of class. It’s possible that Ms. Morris gave us a workday and I was just contemplating. Regardless, when I look back at my life, I can pinpoint moments that may have been an indication of what my future would look like—whether I realized it myself or not. Maybe my interest in politics came from running for class president (and winning) in seventh grade. Or maybe, it started in sixth grade when I began reading the New York Times like a maniac. Looking back, all of these small instances, these small shifts—while insignificant at the time—molded me into the person that I became in March of 2021 while sitting in Ms. Morris’s class.
I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that we all make choices in our lives—big or small—that feel isolated in a moment of time. Rarely do we consider how these choices can be a part of a chain reaction of events whose ultimate outcome we may have little control over (and that outcome itself will then become part of a larger chain)
I certainly get that thinking in such a way can be worrisome. But it’s possible to turn the butterfly effect or tectonic shift into a positive thing. If small events can evolve into a multiplicity of events, for good or ill, why not at least try to put your best foot forward in everything you do, or at least pay attention to those dawning realizations that you may no longer want what you thought you wanted.
I’ll let you know if I end up in public policy. If I’m cutting open chests someday (in an operating room), you’ll know something shifted again.
