[FRIAM] ** this Wednesday** Lecture May 31 12:30p - Carlos Gershenson: A General Methodology for Designing Self-Organizing Systems

[Carlos Gershenson]

> I think that assumes that cause and effect for any one system is
> statistical across all systems.  I don't believe that to be the case.
> Given a cellular system like an economy, where you can't really
> transcend the basic cells, the humans with all our gifts and failings,
> there seem likely to be response time failure thresholds where ever
> bigger repercussions get ever slower and less reliable corrections,  
> and
> stabilizing the rapidly changing internal and environmental
> relationships fails.

I think that it is common to think that human society is fragile.  
Well, the fact that we're still around shows that we aren't.
Last week, I learned about two competing "doomsday theories" from  
LANL people: bird flu, and peak oil. They both assume that small  
catastrophes trigger chaos. But even if nuclear war breaks out, that  
wouldn't erase mankind from the face of the earth. It would suck, for  
sure, and all these scenarios make profitable blockbusters, but we  
humans are a persistant little vermin...
In any of these cases society would change, for sure, but precisely  
that is part of the adaptation. It wouldn't collapse. It hasn't  
collapsed, and there have been plenty of wars, famines, plagues, and  
all other things mentioned in the Apocalypse... and we're still  
around. So I find it extremely unprobable that something would wipe  
us out. I am not suggesting that mankind will be forever on Earth,  
but that evolving into something else seems to me more probable than  
extinction by catastrophe.

> Asteroids might be a problem, and failures of imagination might be of
> seeming equally stubborn nature.  I mean, if we've gone and built an
> entire civilization, business plan and government financing structure
> that relies on continual exponential increases in the complexity of  
> the
> system,... and that turns out to be really dangerous, it's quite a  
> major
> failure of imagination it seems to me.

If the complexity growth would fade away, I don't see civilization  
collapsing, so I don't understand why do you say that we rely on  
increasing complexity, nor why this might be dangerous.

> I definitely think we should
> make government competent by design.   There are lots of do's and  
> don'ts
> regarding performance measures, but if departments developed  
> concepts of
> productivity beyond just bean counter efficiency, having internal  
> groups
> competing would be highly very productive.

Indeed, there are many things to be improved. Some people might think  
that there is no pressure for improving services. That is the case  
when there is no political choice (like in dictatorships or pseudo- 
democracies). But if there are competing political forces, they will  
try to improve government to gain more votes. So, slowly (maybe too  
slowly), but surely, we're getting there...

Best regards,

     Carlos Gershenson...
     Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
     Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium
     http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/

   “There is no game in which you cannot cheat”