Incremental vs Disruptive Change
I might even make this blog post title simpler and just said blue pill vs red pill. And yes I am referring to Morpheus offering Neo a choice in the movie The Matrix. The first time I encountered the blue vs red pill syndrome was 2002 when Brandon and I launched "disruptive data collection" on the Chesapeake Bay for the Spring Striper Season. After deciding that the Maryland DNR was making arbitrary catch limits we decided to challenge their data by collecting our own and publishing it in the local newspaper. We met with DNR biologists who were fine with the data collection of size and weight of released fish and so were 8 different fishing guides who agreed to collect the data. This was early citizen science before the iPhone!
But the evening before the start of the season the DNR police called the head guide Richie Gaines and informed him if he and anyone else measured and weighted fish as part of our program then... well their boat and truck would be confiscated and the perp would be fined in addition. Yea - shut down on our first project.
Lesson learned is those blue pill - slow change/no change people don't like disruption at all. Guess our data might have disrupted their public image and decision process around opening a fishing season during the spawning run. So we retreated to rethink our strategy to radically change how fish were managed for the entire public good on the Bay.
One note - we had met with the big NGOs that work on the Bay like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Our takeaway was they were entirely content to maintain the status quo, keep everybody happy (especially the fed and state agencies) and just focus on the little things that held no real potential to clean up the bay. And looking back at this project 18 years later the Bay is in no better shape nor is there anyone capable of disrupting the status quo. Some would call this slow death for the Bay.
Finally our choice to always try and collect disruptive but informative data has been repeated many times since 2002. Bluefin tuna, mahi, maki, white marlin, bonefish, tarpon, trout - we have supported and participated in tagging and assessment programs. I can't say any of those projects really led to any change since 2002. The bluefin tuna project was started in the 1960s... and not much has changed except for a dwindling fish population complicated by false catch logbooks and deception. Sometimes control and greed are the guiding principles of fishery conservation. And I personally will not be alive when some of these major fisheries are protected or alternatively unsustainable. Fuck the blue pill. Take the red pill and live.
