Well, I'd love to reply to parts of this. I switched my mail
client to use HTML editing so I could do so. But:
* There are are ton of yellow tags in the included text.
* I can't find any way to intersperse my replies
* When I tried CTRL+NL to see if I could create an
out-dented reply, the whole message disappeared.
It may have been sent. Dunno. It certainly didn't get
saved.
I'll just say that the points about the anti-intuitive properties
about complex systems are 100% correct. (See my note
on feeding starving populations, for an example.)
It reminds of one of my very early posts, where I postulated
a long-range goal of being able to present and compare
*models* in a DKR. Even got a model-construction kit started,
though I've never found time to write up the notes.
However, short of constructing, sharing, and comparing models,
there is a lot to be said for a system that helps us organize
a conversation like this one, keep track of the threads, and
identify which arguments have been countered, which haven't,
and perhaps even provide some rudimentary rating of the
arguments in agree/disagree form.
"Garold L. Johnson" wrote:
> To reiterate my main points, which perhaps are getting lost in the
>
> debate over future economics:
> 1) Technological (as opposed to social or political) progress, while
> desirable for many reasons, is not required to solve basic human
> problems.
> 2) The exponential growth of technology is both a threat and a
> blessing,
> and at this point is a given, and like fire we need to do what we can
> with it for good ends (however we define those, where we may not
> agree).
> 3) To an extent the exponential growth of technology may help meet
> human
> needs of the disenfranchised through reduced costs it may seem
> desirable, but it is not required to do so. This means people driving
> technological innovation, including the Bootstrap Institute, should be
>
> clearer about what it is they are trying to accomplish. Is it simply
> to
> escalate the infotech arms race, is it to make charity more effective,
>
> is it in some belief in "progress", or is it for other reasons?
>
> -Paul Fernhout
>
> It seems this should probably start a different thread, but …
>
> Ø1) Technological (as opposed to social or political) progress, while
> desirable for many reasons, is not required to solve basic human
> problems.
>
> The question that I have in this regard is whether the social or
> political changes are really doable without better ability to
> collaborate, share knowledge, investigate systems and options, etc.
>
> One of the areas that I study is the question of how to reason about
> just the sorts of problems that are fueling this debate.
>
> ØIn complex systems, the obvious is not always correct. In fact, in
> most complex systems, many properties that seem obvious are simply not
> correct.
>
> ØThe penalty for answers based on incorrect models of the way the
> world works is failure to solve the problem. It is possible to
> hypothesize solutions that are simply unworkable if the model is
> incorrect.
>
> oe.g. it is possible to establish certain chess checkmate positions
> that cannot be achieved in the sense that there is no possible
> sequence of legal moves that result in the position.
>
> oI read a book (I think it was “Wasted Wealth” by ??? Smith – I’ll
> check it) in which the author makes some very good arguments that the
> amount of work that needs to be done is improperly allocated among the
> people doing the work. His thesis was that about 50% of the work being
> done was taking twice as many people as possible just to provide
> individuals a slice of the economic pie. His basic observations were
> sound, but his implicit assumption was that (some unspecified sort of)
> central planning would allocate work more equitably and efficiently
> resulting in phenomenal increases in efficiency and productivity. The
> only problem is that the rearrangement that he recommends has no way
> to be accomplished in anything he recommends nor in any way that I can
> see working. People are not arbitrarily reassignable to tasks as the
> statistical approach would indicate.
>
> ØIn social and political debate there is a very strong tendency to
> assume that anything and everything that is in pursuit of a “good
> cause” is in fact possible simply because the cause is “good”. Supply
> your own definitions. The problem is that this is not true. What
> determines the workability of a solution is dependent on the nature of
> reality and the correspondence of the solution with reality. The merit
> of the cause is no guarantee that a proposed solution can be
> implemented. The tendency, however, is to brand anyone who suggests
> that a proposed solution is unworkable is opposed to seeing the
> problem solved and is therefore (clearly!) in favor of continuing the
> problem and therefore evil. While this mechanism tends to be more
> evident on the left, it has no monopoly. Until we can get a handle on
> the fact that reality is not malleable just because it is
> inconvenient. There was a story, likely mythological, about a
> legislature trying to pass a law setting the value of pi to be exactly
> 3 because the current value was too terribly inconvenient. It is
> difficult to credit that even legislators could be this dumb, but
> other proposed legislation ignores truth in less obvious ways.
>
> If this is a correct assessment, political and social problems are not
> totally independent of the ability to understand complex systems,
> particularly social systems. There was an attempt to replace a series
> of “water temples” that were the traditional mechanism for allocating
> irrigation water with a “scientific” system. The eventual discovery (I
> don’t know whether it was before or after the temples were displaced)
> was that the temple system came closer to an optimum solution than any
> software mechanism they were able to devise.
>
> Therefore, I contend that the problems that are social or political
> rather than technical may well require that we understand more about
> the nature of the social or political systems that have to be modified
> than we ever have before, and *that* is a KM problem of magnitude. The
> solutions to the social an political problems are not going to happen
> just because it would be convenient.
>
> We don’t have models for even the most obvious issues. Consider the
> way polarization on a problem work, for example.
>
> ØA problem is stated as being a major issue.
>
> ØOne or several solutions are proposed.
>
> ØNobody bothers to define what the desired outcomes really are or
> whether there is any set of outcomes upon which agreement can be
> reached.
>
> ØForces polarize on the nature of the solutions, some adamantly
> opposed, other adamantly in support. The other viewpoint is
> characterized as benighted, misguided, and (eventually) evil.
>
> ØAt this point, any attempt to investigate either the validity of
> proposed solutions or of actually workable solutions is attacked by
> both factions.
>
> ØAt this point, there is no chance of arriving at any workable
> proposal because only those in one faction or the other are ever
> heard.
>
> If we can’t find a way around this problem, the chance of solving
> other social and political problems seems to me to be vanishingly
> small.
>
> We don’t understand how groups organize or what contributes to their
> success or failure. There are all sorts of explanations for business
> failure rates, for example, but the only things that can be said with
> any definiteness are:
>
> ØEvery enterprise that fails does so because there are one or more
> things that were essential to their survival that were not
> accomplished correctly or to an adequate level. This is a tautology,
> and yet it gets lost in the myriad of “single point” explanations.
>
> ØWe still haven’t identified a workable set of success factors for
> organizational success.
>
> ØAs a result, every new organization begins in ignorance of whatever
> success principle there might be, and ends up having to discover the
> success factors by trial and error, and the search for success factors
> is not even explicit in the group.
>
> ØWe are having similar problems with this forum. We have little
> agreement on what we are trying to do, why we are trying to do it, or
> even how to frame these questions in a way that stands a chance of
> arriving at answers rather than endless, largely pointless debate.
>
> In short, I contend that certain technological advances are essential
> to the solution of some social and political problems, and that among
> those advances are tools that allow people to collaborate effectively
> and to investigate the working of complex systems. Without this we
> cannot form successful groups that can
>
> ØFormulate problems in ways that permit of solution
>
> ØAllow self-organization of individual efforts
>
> ØEvaluate proposed solutions for actual workability, resulting in
> workable programs for achieving the solution.
>
> ØSee that solutions are implemented effectively, and are modified when
> (and only as) necessary when reality contradicts preconceived notions.
>
> We can’t accomplish this in the relatively simple case of defining and
> implementing a set of software tools. Let’s not even consider the next
> larger problem of how to organize efforts to develop successful
> software systems (any candidate definitions for what it means for a
> software development project to be successful?). Just how does anyone
> suggest that we go about tackling world scale problems of vastly
> greater complexity when we can’t begin to handle such a small scale
> endeavor?
>
> >2) The exponential growth of technology is both a threat and a
> blessing,
> and at this point is a given, and like fire we need to do what we can
> with it for good ends (however we define those, where we may not
> agree).
>
> Here I agree. There are some forces that we aren’t going to be
> successful at opposing no matter how we view them. The best that I can
> see is to try to find ways to attack problems of interest to us while
> the rest of the world does what it will.
>
> Realize that as bad as things may appear, we have more people having
> more energy that doesn’t have to be devoted directly to survival, and
> more tools for them to work with than at any time in history. A cynic
> would say that this results in too many people with too much time on
> their hands.
>
> While the remaining problems may indeed need solution, it is necessary
> to maintain some degree of historical perspective. In short, a far
> greater percentage of humanity has a higher standard of living that
> ant any time in history, and that seems to be improving. Even that
> supposition can’t be evaluated with currently existing KM capability.
> Certainly just stating that there is a problem and then that any who
> disagreed with the currently proposed solution, workable or not, known
> to be workable or not, are somehow part of the problem is not going to
> get them solved.
>
> >3) To an extent the exponential growth of technology may help meet
> human
> needs of the disenfranchised through reduced costs it may seem
> desirable, but it is not required to do so. This means people driving
> technological innovation, including the Bootstrap Institute, should be
>
> clearer about what it is they are trying to accomplish. Is it simply
> to
> escalate the infotech arms race, is it to make charity more effective,
>
> is it in some belief in "progress", or is it for other reasons?
>
> If you don’t believe that the tools will support the efforts that you
> consider socially worthy, don’t support them.
>
> The intent of building a tool of the generality of the KM solution is
> such that I don’t see how the use of the result can be constrained by
> anything but its lack of capacity. I don’t see better tools for
> collaboration and helping groups manage their efforts is in any way
> detrimental to the accomplishment of social agendas.
>
> How do you build a system of the generality being proposed that can be
> used only for “good” uses or that cannot be used for “good” uses?
>
> I can see no way to force such constraints on a system like this
> except to build it on models of authoritarian management, or to
> develop a solution that is so limited that it cannot manage efforts of
> the scale of social or political solutions. Since I can’t see how we
> can possible create a system that has the problems that are supposed
> for it, I can’t see how this debate is useful
>
> If we really want to see that the evolution of such a system is
> appropriate to the sorts of problems that we want to tackle, we need
> to look at requirements on the system that are levied by the nature of
> the efforts required to address problems of the complexity that we
> face, not the specific problems, their proposed solution, or the moral
> benefit to be derived from their solution.
>
> As a simple example, a tool that would allow proponents to create
> proposals that are at least self-consistent and make some attempt at
> completeness. Take a look at any piece of legislation as a document,
> and it is clear that we need better ways to evolve and organize
> knowledge and information. This is completely aside from whether you
> agree with the legislation or can even understand what it proposes.
>
> If we could add some ability to model at least some of the possible
> effects of implementing these proposals, we could advance dramatically
> the ability of people to achieve the ends they agree upon and organize
> to achieve.
>
> *Then* we might have tools that would allow a debate such at this to
> be more than an exercise in using bandwidth.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Garold (Gary) L. Johnson
>
>
> eGroups Sponsor
[Click Here!]
>
> Community email addresses:
> Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
> Subscribe: unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
> Unsubscribe: unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
> List owner: unrev-II-owner@onelist.com
>
> Shortcut URL to this page:
> http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II
-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
Big News - eGroups is becoming Yahoo! Groups
Click here for more details:
http://click.egroups.com/1/10801/0/_/444287/_/977453531/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->
Community email addresses:
Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
Subscribe: unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
Unsubscribe: unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
List owner: unrev-II-owner@onelist.com
Shortcut URL to this page:
http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Dec 21 2000 - 19:02:46 PST