Drupal Public Data, Statistics & Silver Linings? An Exploration #5

This is part 5 of a 6-part series examining Drupal public data in search of actionable insights. The previous parts can be accessed from the following links: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4. 

Preamble

Previous installations of this article presented and analyzed Drupal installation data and introduced ideas from economics, statistics, and mathematics to forge models to help explain (or "fit") that data.  Encouraging results were achieved, but not without some deficiencies that were ameliorated somewhat via the introduction of even more models and concepts.  The remarkable "Drupal 7 situation" was introduced and discussed.  In this segment we introduce even more concepts drawn from philosophy, psychology, biology, accounting and finance in order to prepare ourselves for the final installment, which outlines the possible futures that the Drupal Project found itself confronted with at the beginning of 2025, and proposes reasons for why it finally chose the one it did.

The "Fight or Flight" Model

In 1915, Walter B. Cannon published "Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage: An account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement", in which the so-called "Fight or Flight" response was first identified and popularized. His article was the result of a desire to better understand what happens to animals when they feel threatened. 

What Cannon discovered was that threatened animals enter a state of "hyper arousal" characterized by a specific set of activations in the nervous system, including the release of certain chemicals into the bloodstream. This resulted in not only a markedly different physical state, but a different mental state as well. The presumption made by Cannon in the article, likely informed by the work of Darwin, was that these physical and mental changes were likely to increase the probability of survival, regardless of whether a "Fight or Flight" was the outcome.

Extending the "Fight or Flight" Model

The Cannon article was fantastically influential, with its terminology ("Fight or Flight") even entering the popular vocabulary.  Other researchers, seeking to raise their profile by leveraging its influence and fame, have since added other concepts such as "Faint" (Hagenaars et al., 2014), "Flop" (Bracha et al., 2004), "Fawn" (Walker, 1977), "Flee" (Marks, 1987), and "Fright" (Gray, 1988). What distinguishes all of these modes (aside from the obvious gimmick that they all start with the letter F) is the fact that they too signal a change in the physical and mental state of the animal from that which is considered normal—something researchers often term "homeostasis".

Paradoxical Immobility

One standout in the list is "Freeze", first documented by Gordon Gallup in his 1977 work, "Self-Recognition in Primates". This work describes how animals fall into a state of complete physical and mental immobility when threatened. This response has since been linked (Cooper, 2015) to how prey detection works in the eye of predators. For some predators, immobile prey is functionally invisible, and prey species have evolved a "freezing" response to the presence of predators as a winning survival strategy.

Human parallels in terms of this type of immobility have been remarked upon through the ages.  They are memorialized in tales such as "The Fox and the Cat" in Aesop's Fables, "The Centipede's Dilemma" in Pinafore Poems (1871) and "The tale of Buridan's Ass" as related by Jean Buridan, a 14^th-century French philosopher.  

In a more modern context, the same circumstances are reflected in a state called "paralysis by analysis" by Charles R. Shwartz, who wrote about the inability to make a choice in a financial services context in his 1956 work, "The Return-on-Investment Concept as a Tool for Decision Making". At their core, all of those stories explore what happens when people cannot determine "the best" choice from a range of equally "bad choices". For humans at least, it appears that a mental paradox can lead to physical and mental immobility.

Reality is But a Dream

"The Matrix", a popular film from 1999, presents a vision of a dystopian future where people are used as batteries to power a simulated reality for themselves provided by intelligent, controlling machines. While they are "in the matrix", people go about what seems like a perfectly normal life, with only the odd moment of synchronicity, deja vu or other unexplainable phenomena arising to indicate that all may not be what it seems. 

This aspect of the film is informed by a long line of philosophical works, including those of Jacques Lacan, who wrote extensively about the different modes that people operate in. Lacan's work categorizes human experience into different registers: the Imaginary (relating to images and identity), the Symbolic (structured by language and social systems), and the Real (the ungraspable aspects of existence)." 

Lacan was hardly the first to discuss the difficulty of mediating the imaginary from the real. In his 1641 work, "Meditations on First Philosophy", Rene Descartes posed a paradox regarding reality in the sense of his inability to tell whether he was operating in reality or merely dreaming about operating in reality. In the end, the only thing Descartes could be certain of was his own ability to consider the paradox itself, giving rise to his most famous phrase "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I exist").

Going back even further, "the cave" as described by Plato in "The Republic" outlined the situation where a group of people behaved according to shadows projected on the wall of a cave, whereas other people were able to leave the cave and engage with reality, or the thing that produced the shadows.  The fact that this self-referential line of philosophical thought even exists is a testament to the fact that some people have always had the luxury of being able to operate a mostly mental landscape, because their physical security was already being assured by law enforcement, architecture and cultural norms. With negligible attention needed to guarantee physical safety, people could choose to live in a world composed mostly of the imagination.

The Brain-Body Debate

While popular, the notion of the sovereignty of the brain has become a somewhat more nuanced and questioned concept. The body already does so many things (breathing, balancing, digesting) that the conscious mind is completely unaware of; it's hardly radical to suggest the body may be more fairly considered a peer of the brain rather than its subordinate. Given how recent consciousness is compared to the entirety of our evolutionary history, it may not seem that radical or surprising at all. 

As an evolutionary phenomenon, our physical body and genetic memory go back millions of years. For much of that time, we were closer to the base of the food chain than its apex, and our genetic memory still bears those hallmarks. Some researchers have proposed that consciousness is a lucky accident, and a luxury that the body engages in when "something important isn't happening" in the physical world, like being chased down by a predator. In other words, it is the body that is ultimately in control, with precedence granted in the following order: Regulation, survival, cognition.

The 5 Stages of Grief Model

Introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969, the five stages of grief describe the emotional process people go through when dealing with loss. The stages detail the mental journey a person takes, from initial shock to eventual acceptance:
•    Denial
•    Anger
•    Bargaining
•    Depression
•    Acceptance

Denial

Denial functions as the mind’s way of protecting itself from overwhelming emotions. In this phase, people struggle to accept the loss. They may feel numb, go into shock, or become convinced that the loss didn't occur. 

Anger

Anger provides a powerful emotional outlet that allows people to begin processing their grief. As reality sets in, frustration and resentment regarding the loss may surface, directed toward oneself, others, or even the circumstances surrounding that loss. 

Bargaining

Bargaining is often marked by feelings of guilt and an intense desire to avoid, reverse or prevent the loss. During this stage, people may attempt to regain control, often dwelling on "what if" scenarios or by trying to make a deal in hopes of reversing the loss.

Depression

Depression, while interminably painful, is crucial for emotional healing. The weight of grief becomes fully apparent in this phase and feelings of deep sadness, withdrawal and introspection are common. Externally, people may display a sense of hopelessness or disinterest in the details of daily life.

Acceptance

Acceptance is demonstrated when people seem to once again be finding meaning in life beyond their grief, and once again moving forward with their life. Reaching acceptance does not mean they forgot or started "being okay" with the loss—it simply means they have learned to live on despite it.

The "Sunk Cost" and "Write Off" Models

The "Sunk Cost" theory is an intriguing aspect of Finance. It basically states that future financial decisions should not be influenced by any past financial decisions. It treats the enterprise as if it were beginning every day anew, without any historical "baggage" or "legacy" to worry about. This idea flies in the face of human nature, which tends to adhere to ideas beyond the point of economic sense. Enacted in Accounting practice as the "write off", its incarnation is usually a notation formally entered in the books of the business indicating that, despite any investments in a particular effort up to that point in time, no further investments shall occur.

The "Zero-Based Budgeting" Model

"Zero-Based Budgeting" is a practical application of the "sunk cost" concept where, operationally speaking, an organization is required to justify any future budgeting on a strict cost/benefit ratio, with a full quantitative analysis and qualitative exploration of any expected outcomes. This kind of budgeting normally happens when a budget is being allocated for the first time. In order to save time, the normal budgeting process for subsequent budgets often uses historical actual spending patterns, inflation-adjustments and additional inputs regarding initiatives that exceed the contours of the original mandate that the budget was initially awarded (and scoped) for. As a contrast, while it can be very time-consuming, defenders of "Zero-Based Budgeting" says starting every budget cycle "from scratch" helps to keep the organization focused on maximizing Stakeholder benefits.

The "Richard Bach" Model

People respond well to authentic, meaningful, well-intended and well-taken actions. Richard Bach, a notable American author, once famously wrote "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours forever. If it does not return, it was never yours in the first place." This quote captures a core tenet of Bach's work in the sense that there seems to be a natural flow to life that cannot be denied. It also directly challenges the psychological tendency for people to form an egocentric attachment to things, people, or ideas they have been in contact with for a length of time for fear of losing them. 

Instead, Bach proposes the foundation for a relationship of freely adopted association, which should be the basis for a more maintained, true and lasting bond. While many interpret Bach’s words as being primarily intended to guide interpersonal relationships, the concept has also found its way into business contexts in terms of influencing perspectives, policy and actions taken regarding retaining key talent, attracting customers and even community or stakeholder engagement.

But... What About "the Drupal 7 Situation"?

With conceptual landscape now completely populated, we can finally turn our attention to analyzing the "Drupal 7 Situation". Looking at the numbers, a case could be made that something like an "extinction event" happened when the Drupal Project decided to transition to Drupal 8, which represented a step-change in terms of both its philosophy (from a functional programming paradigm to an object-oriented programming paradigm) and technology (from a proprietary framework to the Symfony framework). In essence, with the release of Drupal 8, the Drupal Project "rebooted" itself, and the Drupal Project has been regrouping ever since. 

The next (and final) piece in this series examines some of the obvious choices that the Drupal Project had to make regarding "the Drupal 7 situation". It explores the "alternate futures" that the individual choices may have represented, had the Drupal Project chosen to go in that different direction. The article concludes by using the information and analytical models previously introduced to help explain and contextualize the choice that was ultimately made, completing the roster of markedly different but individually promising outcomes (or “silver linings”) for the Drupal Project. 

In 2002, Professor Graham Leach began lecturing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the largest school in Hong Kong, by teaching graduate-level courses in the Department of Computer Science of the School of Engineering. In 2010, he moved over to the School of Design and remained there until his retirement in 2023. Graham currently occupies a Professorship of Entrepreneurship in the School of Business of the newest Tertiary institution in Hong Kong, Gratia Christian College.