Read the article Million Dollar Murray in the docs and assignment section of this site. The piece is from a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the bestselling Blink and the Tipping Point. Take a look below at the difference between the normal distribution, where the majority of people are responsible for the majority of data points in the center, versus the pattern on the right called the power-law distribution, where just a few people account for almost all the data points at just one end. 1. Summarize Gladwell’s argument in about 200 words, all your own. 2. Evaluate his argument. What do you think? Does the distribution of homelessness follow a bell-curve distribution or a power-law distribution? Does he make a pure cost/benefit argument? Does it make sense to essentially ignore a large proportion of homeless people and their suffering and concentrate on a very small part of the population who are costing society the most money? How much of this decision should be bottom-line-dollar oriented?
