Networks..Can we really get a grasp on how they work?

It's always nice when the author scares you on looking back on how reliant we really are on something simple like electricity. " The life blood of the economy" was probably an understatement now that we're so dependant on such a simple commodity.
I enjoyed his example of the power lines and the failure that occurred and almost seemed like a domino affect which targeted millions of people.I wasn't too sure on where he was going with this issue other than he was trying to prove the interconnectedness of a network and how one action can really put at risk many others. The way he wrapped it up on how such a catastrophe could happen was that by installing protective relays the designers had inadvertently made the system," as a whole" which was more likely to fail the way it did. A system like this could be orderly, chaotic, and it really has an unpredictable factor to it but I think the size of this network and creating it to a "whole" would explain how the power is distributed now-a-days. My charter services were out, cable and Internet, on the south side of town but when I called my friend on the north side they had all the charter services. This doesn't necessarily mean that the interconnectedness or the strength of the network between the characters in the community has been weakened but they are better protected then what happened in the New York and on the West Coast. On the other hand this is another way to look at it. To isolate certain networks so that it won't affect others could have a negative affect. Take New Orleans for example. This disaster hit one of the poorest cities in the United States but because of the certain isolation and interdependence the city does not really affect the nation as a whole and the action to repair the city is a lot slower if it were to be interconnected as a "whole".
Duncan sets his argument for his research with a question saying,"How does individual behavior aggregate to collective behavior?" He recognizes that systems and networks are far more complex then trying to create a graph to get a simple answer. The interactions between the characters are hard to predict because we're using so many factors where it seems almost unlimited on the reactions that can occur. Although there are all these reactions Watts does find certain patters and it's these patterns that happen between individuals in a large system that he's trying to get a more accurate overlook. A sociologist approach is so much different then the mathematicians and other fields because they keep in mind the individuals behavior, institutional incentive, and cultural norm. This seems to me just too much to get a hold of and the whole concept of "six degrees". Although Watts disagrees that this can be accurate and that it is far too simplistic. I see it hard, and he mentions this earlier in his article, on how you can grasp a common dynamic for the patterns of individuals within a network and have a basic application to all. We don't drink tea and watch soccer tournaments and we don't live in the rain forest so would it be only American culture that he would be trying to set a certain formula for? And our nation is quite complex in its own.