i do now notice things that are systemically racest in my narrow neck of the woods. But yet, i agree that every and everything can't just be chalked up to this grand notion of systemic raceism otherwise you can't fix it. And engineering will talk a lot about this. It's like, oh, we just got to get the message out there about engineering. How ridiculous is it that people don't view engineering as helping people?
We pile on “to-dos” but don’t consider “stop-doings.” We create incentives for good behavior, but don’t get rid of obstacles to it. We collect new-and-improved ideas, but don’t prune the outdated ones. Every day, across challenges big and small, we neglect a basic way to make things better: we don’t subtract. Leidy Klotz’s pioneering research shows why. Whether we’re building Lego® models or cities, grilled-cheese sandwiches or strategic plans, our minds tend to add before taking away. Even when we do think of it, subtraction can be harder to pull off because an array of biological, cultural, and economic forces push us towards more. But we have a choice — our blind spot need not go on taking its toll on our cities, our institutions, and our minds. By diagnosing our neglect of subtraction, we can treat it.