Brian Klaas

That's exactly right. So that was the plan. And so I talked to some of the soldiers involved in the coup and I asked them what they did and they went out to the army commander's house in the middle of the night, something like three in the morning. And he sort of hears these noises and runs out, presumably in his pajamas, out the back of the compound and starts climbing up the wall.

And one of the soldiers I interviewed describes how he grabs the sort of pant leg or trouser leg of the army commander and the commander is pulling up on the wall trying to climb over and he's pulling down. And in this instant, the sort of fabric slips through his fingers.

And one of the soldiers I interviewed describes how he grabs the sort of pant leg or trouser leg of the army commander and the commander is pulling up on the wall trying to climb over and he's pulling down. And in this instant, the sort of fabric slips through his fingers.

And one of the soldiers I interviewed describes how he grabs the sort of pant leg or trouser leg of the army commander and the commander is pulling up on the wall trying to climb over and he's pulling down. And in this instant, the sort of fabric slips through his fingers.

And as a result, the commander clambers over the wall, rushes to the government house where the sort of government headquarters are and alerts them to this coup plot underway. So he slipped through their fingers by chance and the coup plot fails catastrophically. They find the ringleader hiding in a trash can three hours later. I mean, it's just like clownishly disastrous ending to the story.

And as a result, the commander clambers over the wall, rushes to the government house where the sort of government headquarters are and alerts them to this coup plot underway. So he slipped through their fingers by chance and the coup plot fails catastrophically. They find the ringleader hiding in a trash can three hours later. I mean, it's just like clownishly disastrous ending to the story.

And as a result, the commander clambers over the wall, rushes to the government house where the sort of government headquarters are and alerts them to this coup plot underway. So he slipped through their fingers by chance and the coup plot fails catastrophically. They find the ringleader hiding in a trash can three hours later. I mean, it's just like clownishly disastrous ending to the story.

But it taught me a lot about the way that we understand the world because what stuck with me and was always just sort of in the back of my mind when I was trying to practice social science as I do professionally is if they had just been a millisecond faster,

But it taught me a lot about the way that we understand the world because what stuck with me and was always just sort of in the back of my mind when I was trying to practice social science as I do professionally is if they had just been a millisecond faster,

But it taught me a lot about the way that we understand the world because what stuck with me and was always just sort of in the back of my mind when I was trying to practice social science as I do professionally is if they had just been a millisecond faster,

That they would have actually captured Zambia's government and that when I was taught all about models and data and trend lines and so on, the details, what people would call the noise, is what I thought was really, really important in that coup plot. And it was all reduced to one number, which was zero, a failed coup plot.

That they would have actually captured Zambia's government and that when I was taught all about models and data and trend lines and so on, the details, what people would call the noise, is what I thought was really, really important in that coup plot. And it was all reduced to one number, which was zero, a failed coup plot.

That they would have actually captured Zambia's government and that when I was taught all about models and data and trend lines and so on, the details, what people would call the noise, is what I thought was really, really important in that coup plot. And it was all reduced to one number, which was zero, a failed coup plot.

This is the big problem of social research and why it's so unbelievably difficult to do effectively. Because if you were trying to model where the atomic bomb is going to be dropped, you wouldn't include the vacation histories of U.S. government officials. But all of these things matter.

This is the big problem of social research and why it's so unbelievably difficult to do effectively. Because if you were trying to model where the atomic bomb is going to be dropped, you wouldn't include the vacation histories of U.S. government officials. But all of these things matter.

This is the big problem of social research and why it's so unbelievably difficult to do effectively. Because if you were trying to model where the atomic bomb is going to be dropped, you wouldn't include the vacation histories of U.S. government officials. But all of these things matter.

And what I've realized is that intuitively, when we think about the trajectories of our own lives, we take this stuff seriously. When we think about how we met a partner, why we ended up going to this school rather than that school, the little bits of noise always matter in our life histories.

And what I've realized is that intuitively, when we think about the trajectories of our own lives, we take this stuff seriously. When we think about how we met a partner, why we ended up going to this school rather than that school, the little bits of noise always matter in our life histories.

And what I've realized is that intuitively, when we think about the trajectories of our own lives, we take this stuff seriously. When we think about how we met a partner, why we ended up going to this school rather than that school, the little bits of noise always matter in our life histories.

When we aggregate it out to the social level and we try to make predictions and talk about trends and so on, all that detail gets treated as though it's meaningless. And my argument in a nutshell is that that is a mistake, that the noise is really important because the small changes can create massive social differences over time.