Spring Equinox - 2017: The End of the Beginning of the End

The elections are over. The new president is installed and has already brought chaos to the world, not just the US. History may not repeat itself exactly, but it does prove we humans have gotten into cycles of the same stupid mistakes and for all of history since the first civilizations of Mesopotamia, and, indeed, all other parts of the world where civilizations arose, humans have been repeating the same pattern of expansion, complexification, and resource depletion to the point of exhausting their source of wealth. And the rulers invariably respond to the unrest in the ways we are seeing today. Some, like Assad, who were already in power when the s**t hit the fan, respond with brutal crackdowns on rebelling populations. Others like Trump are put in power by promises to fix what is wrong with the status quo, but turn very quickly to trying (and most often succeeding) to subdue the potential unruly crowds by continuing promises to fix their lives, all the while undercutting their meager sources of income or wealth. Look at the repeal of Obamacare and replacement with a plan that is widely recognized as greatly inferior - except for the already rich.

The old saying goes, "the people get the government they deserve." And I think there is a great deal of truth to this. We have become a nation of profoundly ignorant people - ignorant, tending toward stupid, and incredibly selfish, narcissistic. When somebody pops up and promises to make the world the way it was when they were "happy", well this is what we get.

As the days get longer the pressure will be building toward an all out breakdown in civil society. As millions lose their healthcare, or unemployment (the real unemployment) rises when good jobs were supposed to be increasing, somebody is going to wise up and call bulls**t on the current government. I expect the same to happen when Brexit produces more hardships or when the far right parties in Europe gain control and proceed to screw up royally.

The problem is that even if some of, say for example, Trumps prescriptions were correct with respect to the intended, and promised outcomes, he would still fail because his predecessors (and at all levels of government and business) have left an unfixable system. The sheer complexity of the modern state, along with the sheer lack of consciousness and knowledge of the general governor, ensures massive failures as have happened so many times throughout history. Nothing fundamental has changed in this pattern since the days of old. Only now the collapse of civilization is global. And there is no sanctuary for those who seek to flee. Look at the plight of the Syrian refugees as they struggle to find places in countries that are on the brink of collapse themselves (hint: Greece).

Several thoughtful people I know who have been concerned about the future are now voicing a kind of despair for the future. The evidence for the build up to collapse is now so evident that anyone with half a brain and a bit of knowledge about the history of civilizations can see the end in sight.

On the other hand, and to leave you on a high note, the collapse of the current cultural system (neoliberal capitalism, profit maximization, revolving debt financing, the impacts on the education system, etc.) is a good thing. When I say unfixable, I mean just that. Some systems are fixable, or adjustable so that they work better in time. This one we live in is neither. It is so full of positive feedback loops that reinforce destructive behaviors that there is very little that can be done to break out without that very act destroying the interlocking processes and thus, itself bringing about collapse. What we need to do is see the bright side of this. For one, it will significantly slow down the human-caused forcing of the climate (other natural feedbacks aside this will be a very positive development.)

Once the rotten old system is debris it will be possible to reset human values (many of which are learned) and start fresh. We won't have the high tech gadgets to help us back to the kind of life many of us live now. But, so what. We will get a chance to start over, and hopefully do it better next time. At least that is my hope on this day of turning.

Comments

[Don Stewart]

George
If your professional role permits it, I would appreciate your reaction to Nora Bateson's proposal to separate engineering complex systems from biological complex systems.

https://norabateson.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/symmathesy-a-word-in-progress/

Thanks....Don Stewart

[George Mobus]

Hi Don.

I am sorry for delays in response. I retired only to take on a number of publication duties and now am a slave to publication deadlines worse than when I was in academia!

I will take a look at Nora's work. I met her and her mother at ISSS 2016 but I missed her talk. Get back to you as soon as I can!

George

[Fred Magyar]

Hello Don Stewart,
You might be interested in listening to Suzanne Simard's TED talk:
"How trees talk to each other"

https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other

Though while reading Nora's piece I kept thinking that the complex engineered systems she was talking about were, at the end of the day, products of our living wet ware...

Cheers!

[Don Stewart]

Fred Magyar
Take as an example epigenetics. We all have genes which can facilitate our behavior either in a dominant or a subservient role. When a subservient mother is pregnant, she passes on to her foetus methylation marks which cause them to be born behaving as subservient. However, methylation marks can be changed by drugs or strong environmental changes.

I believe it was more than 5 years ago that Dr. Dean Ornish demonstrated with before and after heat maps that he could change the diet of a patient and significantly change their gene expression. Now 'methylation reversal' drugs have been used to remove the addictive reaction to recreational drugs.

Of course, if the person reverts to the same environment that created the methylation pattern to begin with, then they may very likely revert back to the old methylation pattern. Using a drug to cure the addiction to junk food, therefore, may not work unless junk food is significantly restricted from the environment.

Living systems seem to be full of these kinds of effects which are built into the biology, but which we don't commonly see built into mechanical systems. Nora Bateson's claim (as I understand it) is that the biological and the mechanical are so different that it just creates more confusion than clarity to try to describe them both with the same sorts of models.

But George wrote ONE textbook, not two textbooks. And so I am curious what he thinks on the subject.

Don Stewart

[Godofredo Aravena]

To start over
As a designer of real world systems, what my experience shows is that there are no fixable systems in terms of functionality. There are only two types, well designed and badly designed. Because what defines a system is it´s functionality. You can patch either, to keep them running, but patching is only a way to keep them doing essentially the same, the basic principles will not change. The flaws will not disappear. To correct the flaws, we have to designed a totally new system, from scratch.
Our society since the origins is a badly designed system. We have been patching it over and over, but always keeping its essence, the original functionality, what defines it. In the basis, modern society is the same system as 3000 years ago. Humans as the center. That is the flaw. All other minor flaws we see today, and along the times come from that basic principle, that defines the functionality of the system. So, the collapse or total failure is what we can expect, as will always happen with all badly designed systems, it is a matter of time. It surprises me how it has lasted for so long.
Given the position we have today in history regarding the collapse, the collapse on itself should not be the point. It is (almost) a fact. Nothing to do about it. So, we should focus our current efforts on what has to come after. What kind of society we should have. Not what we would like it to be, instead what has to be, tuned with our human nature and the supporting system (the environment). We have to learn from what is wrong with our current experiment. And come up with a new system.
But not to “hopefully” work well.
“Hopefully” is a word that does not exists in the world of designing systems to perform a function in the real world. Hope will always collide with reality. We design systems to perform functions, overcoming the challenges that reality offers. No hope in the process. Just applied knowledge.
All intelligent systems are designed to learn from past experiences. Is the way they can evolve, as individuals and groups.
Humans as intelligent systems have to learn from their mistakes. We have intelligence, so we have all is needed to begin to design the new society to work 99% within expected. As designers in the modern real world always do. All systems society uses currently perform within 99% (or above) of what was expected.
Why a new society from scratch will not be possible, if we put the right efforts?.
But for that, science has to stop being a reason on itself, knowledge without a real practical need. First should be the real practical, functional need, and then comes the investigation to fill the gap.
Regards