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The Kony 2012 of Roads - Solar Freakin' Roadways

2022-09-29 · explainer · Hank · 3:40 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube (also: Science & nature) · mode: Personal essay

Revisiting the viral 2014 Solar Freakin' Roadways campaign, Hank argues big simple solutions are rare because everything is complicated; such stories feed conspiracy thinking when the division of expertise lacks trust, and big problems get solved only when people with varied expertise trust each other and work together.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The 2014 Solar Freakin' Roadways Indiegogo campaign and its paved-area statistic

  • ★★ Hank recalls that in 2014 his social media filled with people urging him to talk about Solar Freakin' Roadways, an Indiegogo campaign for roads that would supposedly solve every problem. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Indiegogo
  • ★★ Hank says the US is so paved that covering all its paved area with solar panels would produce more power than the US uses, a wild but, he adds, irrelevant statistic. — 00:00:16 · United States

00:00:29 — Why people believed it: cure-alls, and the campaign's too-long list of solved problems

  • ★★ Hank says the list of reasons solar roads are a bad idea is very long; his video is instead about why so many people thought they were a good idea. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Hank cites the medical saying, heard on the podcast Sawbones, that cure-alls cure nothing: the body is too complex for one magical simple solution to everything. — 00:00:43
  • ★★ Rewatching the 2014 video, Hank feels its list of solved problems is too long: drainage, playgrounds, moose warnings, the economy, fossil fuels, snow, power transmission and partying. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Hank says the video was built to excite, and since most people know little about how roads work, it is easy to list problems and propose one solution to all of them if you don't look too hard. — 00:01:13

00:01:27 — The tension between expertise and frustration; division of expertise needs trust; simple solutions and conspiracy theory

  • ★★ Hank says no one can know everything, which creates a tension in society between not everyone understanding technical intricacies and frustration at problems not getting fixed, which annoys experts. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Hank says the division of expertise is the number one thing that makes societies work, but it stops working when there is no trust. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Hank says when big simple solutions aren't implemented, people either realize it's more complicated or suspect a powerful cabal is blocking them, so talk of such solutions often meets conspiracy theory. — 00:02:08

00:02:26 — Big simple solutions are rare; the Kony 2012-like hopeful moment; Solar Roadways today

  • ★★★ Hank says big simple solutions like solar roadways are very rare because everything is very complicated; soap may have been the last one. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ Hank says the solar roadways moment, like Kony 2012 two years earlier, came from a good impulse, hopefulness: people felt the internet might stop a Ugandan warlord or create roads that melted ice, warned about moose and generated more electricity than their cars used. — 00:02:36 · hope
  • ★★ Hank says the Solar Roadways people are still at it and have done some small-scale installations. — 00:03:07
  • ★★ Hank sees solar roads as an incremental value add for very specific situations, which is fine: it is how almost everything gets done in a messy, complicated world. — 00:03:07

00:03:16 — Big problems come from 8 billion people living together and are solved by trust and cooperation; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says big problems exist not because evil people create them but because 8 billion people living together on one planet is difficult. — 00:03:16
  • ★★★ Hank says big problems only get solved when many people with widely varying expertise trust each other and work together. — 00:03:26

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says solutions mostly come from many individuals doing small things, and Hank is very skeptical of big simple solutions and thinks viewers should be too. — video description
  • ★★ In a comment, John teases Hank for forgetting to link pizzamas.com and urges viewers not to wait, since everything there is available only during this year's (2022) Pizzamas. — creator comment · Pizzamas
  • ★ In a comment, Hank says he worked on this script for about four months. — creator comment
  • ★ In a comment, Hank says the product's makers did not make the viral video; a family friend who wanted to support them did, he thinks. (hedged) — creator comment

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: division of cognitive labour · Solar Freakin' Roadways · trust

Also: People: Joseph Kony

Works: Kony 2012 · Sawbones

Organizations: Indiegogo · Solar Roadways

Concepts: conspiracy theory · expert · hope · panacea · solar power

Places: United States

Only in the description or credits: Pizzamas

Also centred on division of cognitive labour: Trust and Fire - Thoughts from the Smoke

Also centred on trust: The Time a Taxi Driver Stole My Money · My Ballot Made Me Angry · How Actually Crazy is This Mess? · Two Unrelated Destroyers of Trust

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