Change, Culture, and The Number Twelve

Welcome back, dear readers, and forgive the clichéd introduction. Last issue, it was the end of September and term had only just entered full swing, and I wrote to you about the promise of the future and how the autumn season always fills me with a feverish desire to do as much as I can. With our second issue, we approach the end of October, and the term has just crested into the inevitable accelerating mess of a downhill slide as we enter the clutches of Hell Week.
To the first years that have already begun their good fight with the rapid wash of midterms, keep strong! You can and will get through this, just keep your head above the water, and remember that sleep, eating, and breathing are generally advisable for survival. To the upper years that still await their own midterms… I think you all already know more than I can advise. May the Forsey be with you.
This issue is – if I may say so myself – a real gem. Donovan will let you in on a few of uWaterloo’s best-kept secrets (unless you are a wise and informed Iron Warrior reader), while Raessa goes in-depth on the nature of the niqab controversy, and its political significance. You can also look more into Caitlin and Cameron debating the benefits and consequences of delaying assignment deadlines.
In the way of columns, aside from the continuations of the series you have all come to know and love, we have four brand-new columns to look forward to! Donovan begins flexing his critiquing muscles in From Page to Page, where he reviews the Sci-Fi time-travelling comic book epic, Chrononauts. Meanwhile, David gives you a few pro-tips on how to carve an appropriately festive pumpkin for the Halloween season in his new How-To column. Finally, Tina gives her own playlist of jams to check out in On Replay, and Donovan reviews some local draughts in Broskies on Brewskies.
Speaking of Donovan and Caitlin, shoutouts to both of them for all of their content this issue. They are both the unofficial Iron MVPs for this issue. And, as always, thanks to Nina and Leah for sticking around the majority of the weekend and helping me do all the things that need to be done. You all gain my non-refundable seal of approval!
Last issue, I spoke somewhat briefly on how autumn is, in my opinion, the season of change. I have given it further thought in the past three weeks (over a plentiful meal of turkey, I might add. I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend), and found myself pondering the nature of change in itself, and how we as people seem to, as a general rule, oppose change, as if following some skewed version of Newton’s third law.
It’s a matter that has even earned itself its own fancy Latin phrase— we are told to maintain the status quo before bringing out unnecessary change. And, of course, this mentality of choosing, by default, to oppose change has its own benefits, as trivial changes that elicit no real benefit are typically nothing but a waste of time and resources (just imagine the excess cost associated with constantly changing, say, the colour of your bedroom walls every week).
But at what cost is this default? Allow me to give an example.
One topic (of many) that gets me excited in conversation is the idea of the dozenal numerical system, to replace our base-10 decimal system with one using a base-12. While initially it seems like such a trivial change, I have no doubt that it would inherently benefit us as a culture to have a system favouring divisions of two, three, four, and six rather than simply two and five, as five is (both literally and theoretically) a rather odd number.
In fact, I would go so far as to argue that only reason five is a significant number at all is because of the decimal system we have chosen. Aside from it being one of only two factors of ten, it is itself both odd and prime, and occurs naturally only in a select few locations— primarily, as the number of digits we (and many other animals) possess on our hands and feet. Three, four, and six are all far more common numbers that we observe naturally.
We as a society have also developed systems that benefit inherently from a dozenal system—imperial units that contain 12 inches in a foot, and 144 things in a gross. We package many things (not simply eggs) in dozens, for the convenience of having either 4×3 or 6×2 grids available. Even our time system even clearly favours a dozenal system, with 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 12 months in a year. This isn’t even addressing how common fractions, such as 1/3, 1/6, and 1/9, are no longer ugly to write out in digit— they become 0.4, 0.2, and 0.14, respectively. Now, isn’t that convenient?
But alas, for all the added convenience and logic that would come from replacing our rusty, inefficient decimal system for the all-around superior dozenal system… I know that there is almost no chance of society making the swap, at least not in my foreseeable lifetime. Why? Obviously, because the perceived hassle greatly outweighs the conveniences that would come from the change. Centuries of using the decimal system have understandably made us rather fond of it. And from a logistical perspective, even if we could convince all of the countries of the world to make the switch, the required costs to replace and erase any device or process that utilizes the old decimal system would be gargantuan.
So, you might be asking: “why all the bitterness, Meagan?”. Well, aside from the fact that this is a matter that I would wholeheartedly support, given the opportunity, it also represents something that I see happen far too much in society as a whole— a defaulting disdain towards change that is seen, in some regard, as “not valuable enough”. Even if something has merit as an improvement from status quo — potentially minor, yes, but still a notable improvement — the general opinion on the matter is to dismiss the idea.
Frustratingly, at times it feels as though this is primarily a matter of laziness within ourselves. If we know two routes to lead to the same end result with little or no added benefits or consequences, chances are that we would opt to take the easier route. Thus, any perceived additional effort to change will often result in the potentially beneficial opportunity being dismissed— even if the associated “cost” in effort is less than the potential benefit.
To draw the analysis to chemistry (which I will do in any situation a heartbeat), there is still an associated activation energy for the reaction to occur, even if the products are energetically more favorable. In this analogy, there has to be sufficient perceived reward in order for change to come about— the reaction is not instantaneous.
You might say “Well Meagan, what else did you expect? Nothing comes free.” Well, yes and no. I don’t expect large changes to come free of charge— but, the fact that even minor changes, ones that should be intuitive to accept, are far more difficult to initiate than necessary and, as a result, are worth.
What causes this high metaphorical activation energy? Is it because we are simply that lazy? Do we have some sort of inherent fear of change that causes us to shy away from change?
Perhaps what upsets me most is how much this can lead to the thought that progress, change, even exploration can be viewed as an inconvenience. Innovation— the word that we as engineers should salivate at the sound of— could be seen as ‘not worth it.’ Too much of a hassle. After all, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
Well, that’s not a mindset I can bring myself to support. And I hope it’s one that some of you can recognize and criticize yourself. After all, if we are to bring about any true improvements in the world, we first have to be willing to face the difficulties and complications that come with trying to make a difference.