In 1942, the United States at war had a problem. There wasn't enough metal and we needed more planes.

Howard Hughes came up with the solution.

He built the biggest airplane in the history of the world

and he built it out of Birchwood. Hey it's Seth and this is a Kimbo.

We'll be back in a second after this word from our sponsor.

Yes, the Spruce Goose, the biggest airplane in the history of the world, was made out of Birch, and it only flew once.

And the reason is pretty simple.

Unless you have no choice in the matter, it's a bad idea to make an airplane out of

wood.

Metal has better merit.

Metal is better.

Engineers understand the idea of merit

when it comes to natural materials

and other technological contributors to what they are building.

It gets really interesting and really problematic

when we start dealing with people instead of raw materials. How, for example, to decide who should go to

Harvard or who should play basketball at Stanford or Illinois.

How to decide what merit is.

And as people seeking the comfort that comes with being picked, the comfort from being awarded merit

from an outsider, the leverage that we get from walking in the front door? How do we get more of that? What are the rules? Are

there quotas? Do quotas matter? What are we measuring? I don't talk about organized sports a lot on a Kimbo, mostly because I'm totally not into it,

but they are a fascinating way to understand the contributors to winning and losing.

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