Posts Tagged ‘ Complexity ’

The Rise of Developeronomics

Forbes

Venkatesh Rao is an acquaintance of mine – I was one of his first fans, when he needed them badly. I am glad to see he is coming into his own. Forbes gives him a really big sounding board.

This overview of the software industry, where I worked for 20 years, is excellent – the best I have seen. I keep saying the world needs to understand software – when most of the people in it don’t understand it themselves.

Evidently, I wasn’t smart enough myself to get into the main flow of the thing, and got stuck in various backwaters that were going nowhere – and, in fact were self-destructing. This kind of experience leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Allow me to brag about my own skills. At one company I was given the job of documenting a new software product. It was written by our star developer Benny Tang. He had to explain it to me over and over. The people of either side of his cubicle most have gotten tired of listening to him. But then, all of a sudden, the light dawned on me, and we were able to provide some excellent instructions for the users.

Too excellent, at it turned out. Tech support shot it down, because it eliminated them, and their high-priced support. Not too long after, the company bit the dust – after I had moved on to greener pastures – as I assume Benny did too. The turnover in Silicon Valley was unbelievable – but no one seemed to think that was a problem.

Lots of smart cookies ended up no better off then I did. The kind of smarts needed to flourish in today’s dog-eat-dog world are rare indeed – and luck is still needed.

His main point is the need to think of being in the right flow, because trying to stockpile it is impossible. I can relate, as an engineer during the Cold War, companies and the military were stockpiling us in vast warehouses, using our presence to get fat contracts. We won that war, not because we were smarter, but because the Soviets were stupider.

Now there is a new game in town, but it is so difficult, it will probably not save us from ourselves.

2011
12/07
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Technology
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Something More Important Than Democracy

Americans are experts at deceiving themselves, and they have been giving the rest of the world lessons in this. Our most important activity has become – being whatever we are supposed to be, controlled by unconscious social forces we are forbidden to think about.

Instead of being people we have become something else – so shameful we cannot tolerate thinking about it – and content ourselves with being consumers – including consumers of religious doctrines – including the doctrine of the market economy. To put this in a slightly different way – we have become obsessed with power, and are no longer interested in democracy or equality.

And we are ignoring this vast, fundamental change with all our might. We now pride ourselves on our ability to be exactly like everyone else, instead of being independent individuals. We are pleased with our weakness as individuals, which allows us to have massive power as part of the mass.

We now identify with the mass and with our things – a very interesting complex. But as our world was becoming more complicated, we were becoming simpler – and completely unable to cope with its changes. We wonder what is wrong with the world, instead of wondering what is wrong with us.

To put this yet another way – we have disappeared, and left behind us only a trace of the proud people we once were.

2011
11/21
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People Merge With Their Things

This is natural and unavoidable, part of being human. But in the last 300 years or so, this process has advanced so far it has become a catastrophe – there have so many new technologies coming so fast, that people could not cope with them, and they no longer know what they really are. People can only change so fast, and this rate of change has been greatly exceeded.

I have a whole book about this: Technology and Culture (1972 – before the computer/software/internet knocked us flat). This book has some interesting material, and its objectives are honorable – but I have the uneasy feeling it is overlooking the main issue – which is, what kind of a mess are in we now?

Whatever this mess is, one thing is clear – our present global culture (really just one culture) is not working. There are all kinds of reasons for this, and the reasons cannot be disentangled from each other (as is the case with any complex). We have to consider all of them at the same time. As the Introduction says:

The student and the layman should develop a historical perspective, learn the impact of the machine on events, appreciate the meaning of technological revolutions, perceive the various roles of technology in society, and become aware of its interplay with such topics as art, values, and international relations.

The key word here is should. But it is clear that this is not happening – there are not enough people that can, or want, to do this. This first thing we should do – is find out why this is so.

One thing is clear, I think – we have become too much like our things, and no no longer able to function as humans. This is not so difficult to understand, perhaps we can wake up and understand it.

2011
11/20
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History
Philosophy
Psychology
Sociology
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You Only Gotta Know One Thing

And that is this: where all the power is. If you don’t want to think in terms of power, think about money – they amount to pretty much the same thing. Who has all the money? And who has all the jobs?

For most Americans this question has no answer: jobs are just where they are, wherever you can find them. They are not accustomed to thinking in larger terms. But the world has moved on and larger things are now in charge. But they are perfectly happy being unknown and unknowable – while their hands are firmly on the steering wheel.

The last time anyone tried one of these larger analyses was Karl Marx – and I have friends who still stubbornly insist that he was right. They are wrong, dead wrong. Socialism has been a total failure.

Americans then assume that Capitalism, as a result, is a success. They are wrong too – as the most superficial analysis should show them. They don’t even know what it is – and renaming it the market economy hasn’t them any wiser.

A short historical review is in order. Eisenhower warned us against the military-industrial complex. This was strange, because it was on his shift that this happened – but he had the sense to realize its dangers. The military and its contractors had merged – and become the same thing, the same complex. This set the pattern for much that was to follow: merger after merger after merger.

A final technological development: the computer/software/internet made all this possible. Powerful people have always wanted to control everything – now they had their chance. They latched onto these tools and made them their own. The result was something that is obvious to me – but as far as I know, not to anyone else: the corporate complex - consisting basically of every organization there is: the military/industrial/government/media/educational/security complex – and more are added all the time.

This is right where I lose everybody: they refuse to admit that such a thing could exist. It is just too incredible and too scary to be real – and they run for safety at the mere thought of it.

But once you accept it, a lot of things make sense. For example, Obama’s behavior. He was elected as a savior of the American people – but has not acted that way. His behavior is clear enough to me: he is the savior of the corporate complex. Everything he does benefits it (with some diversionary maneuvers to provide some smoke screen).

This even applies to Costa Rica. After its revolution in 1947 it enacted strong social reforms, including good public schools and medical care. The complex, as it developed down here, has fought it ever since. The result was that private schools and colleges and hospitals have flourished – while the public ones have languished.

All that money could go only one place: in their eager, greedy hands.

2011
07/08
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Economy
History
Life in Central America
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I Apologize to The Santa Fe Institute

In my posting We Cannot Cope with a Complex World, which I just wrote yesterday, I said:

Complexity Science was the most important discovery in the last century – but one which was ignored by all – and most of all, by the scientists themselves. They were unable to extend it to where it was needed the most – in human endeavors. Like everyone else, they were too scared to stick their necks out.

I spoke out of ignorance. As I continued to read The Logic of Failure, I decided to see if the Santa Fe Institute, the home of complexity science in America, acknowledged its existence. I looked at their Web site. What I found was this: Systemic Risks in Society and Economics - co-authored by German, American, and Hungarian writers:

This contribution presents a summary of sources and drivers of systemic risks in socio-economic systems and related governance issues. The analysis is based on the theory of complex systems and illustrated by numerous examples, including financial market instability. Typical misunderstandings regarding the behavior and functioning of socio-economic systems will be addressed, and some current threats for the stability of social and economic systems are pointed out.

This is something all Americans should know about – but the feedback from my blog indicates that Americans refuse to believe in complexity – even calling it a work of the devil - perhaps thinking of climate science.

This paper, written in dry academic prose, does have plenty of illustrations, and does give some credit:

Among the success stories of complex systems research, one may mention the nobel prizes of Ilya Prigogine, Thomas Schelling, and Paul Krugmann.

I read Krugmann nearly everyday in the NY Times, but I often have trouble following his main train of thought. Dietrich Dörner, the author of The Logic of Failure (a translation from the German) is a much easier read.

2011
05/01
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Science
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We Cannot Cope with a Complex World

Amazon - Summary of the Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS Service Disruption in the US East Region

But a complex world is what we live in. On top of all our other problems, we now have to deal with complexity – our most awesome, and least understood, creation. Most have no idea it even exists – and don’t really want to know.

Complexity Science was the most important discovery in the last century – but one which was ignored by all – and most of all, by the scientists themselves. They were unable to extend it to where it was needed the most – in human endeavors. Like everyone else, they were too scared to stick their necks out.

I want to approach this problem from an unusual perspective: comparing Chernobyl in 1986 and the Amazon EC2 failure just this week. There are some interesting parallels. Amazon has been completely open about theirs – in marked contrast to nuclear power failures, where everyone was covering their ass.

Both systems were on the verge of failure – without their operators knowing it. In both cases, routine changes in operating procedures, which should have been no problem, led to some unexpected results – very unexpected in the case of the nuclear power plants. We now live in a complex world where things like this are becoming more and more common.

These were highly-trained teams of professionals – that made mistakes a child could see in retrospect. Complex systems can act in strange, non-intuitive ways. Too many things are going on for us to understand them all.

This is like flying: you can’t stop your plane to figure out what is going on, like you can with a car. You simply crash, and are lucky to survive.

The immediate response, one everyone thinks of, is that their training should have been better – such as better pilot training. All we need to solve the world’s problems is better-educated people. Unfortunately, this kind of training is hard to find, is something few want to submit to – and even if they did, they would be overruled by higher-ups who are essentially untreatable – they got where they are by ignoring the rules and getting away with it.

2011
04/30
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Education
Technology
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Life is Too Much

Life has become too complicated, and impossible to understand. This is the central fact of our time; the source of many of our ills; and the source of much of today’s senseless activity.

Life has become so bad we want to get rid of it. Understanding this would be a huge step forward, it would let us know where we are. But this self-knowledge is something we resist with every atom of our being. We still believe we have the secret of the Holy Grail locked within us. That we know everything. And we refuse to accept that we do not. Somehow, we believe that doing the same thing will in the end, save us.

We insist on having an ideology; but we insist on not knowing what it is – or even knowing what ideology is. We are thrown into a maelstrom of conflicting currents that threaten to  suck us under; and insist we are in a calm, moving stream.

The situation is too horrible to be believed – and therefore we do not believe it. Our powers of reason have failed us in a most fundamental way – and prevented us from making the one observation that could save us.

We live in a hell of our own making – and as creators of this hell, we are unable to accept our own creation. Which is, after all, a modern wonder of the world. We have learned how to make us suffer, and we insist on perfecting this knowledge.

How did this happen? I think it was a two-step process. First we made a decision about what kind of things there were in the world – the basic ontological question: what exists? Or in other words: “What kind of world do we live in?” This is not an idle question, it is the most important question there is – we have to have an answer for it, or we die.

Looking around our world we could not help but notice all the powerful things in it – and even something more important: that we were busy serving those things. We were forced to the conclusion that they were real, and that we were less real.

Consider the economy. Is it busy perfecting mankind – or in perfecting mankind’s things? The answer is clear: we are like little ants busy serving the hive: a hive of things - or machines. True, we get to own these things, but that is only a legal distinction – in reality, they own us.

We all know this, but we refuse to acknowledge its implications. The most important one being that we no longer exist, as beings in our own right. It boils down to a matter of being: ontology again.

Unless we can acknowledge our own being, we have no right to anything else. Simply because we do not exist.

I began by saying life has become too complex: there are too many things happening, and they all affect each other. But being is simple, and everything depends on that.

On our own Being.

2011
03/31
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Philosophy
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Complexity and the Loss of Agency

This is a chapter in the book Autonomous Technology, on page 279. I skipped over the first 278 pages, but this one stopped me dead. Langdon Winner starts off with some quotes from Ellul’s Autonomy of Technique, a landmark work:

Technique has become a reality in itself, self-sufficient, with its special laws and determinations.

Technique tolerates no jugement from without and no limitation.

Technique, in sitting in judgement on itself, is clearly free from the principal obstacle to human action.

The power and autonomy of technique are so well secured that it, in its turn, has become the judge of what is moral, the creator of a new morality. Thus, it plays the role of creator of a new civilization as well.

He then goes on to another topic, one that I have noticed myself:

We are completely immersed in technology, but have no idea how it works, or how it is made.

We can all drive a car, for example, but cannot make one – or even repair one. Lot too long ago, every child knew how horses were made and could harness and drive one. And, if pressed, could even make a serviceable horse-drawn vehicle, because he had been around those who had made them.

The situation now could not be more different. Society has become so complex technologically we are unable to form a coherent, rational picture of the whole. And many theories have appeared that make this seem like a good thing:

1. Adam Smith’s picture of the invisible hand that regulates the economy without human intervention. This is now seen to be the gospel truth – and is part of a new religion: neoliberalism.

2. Access is all that is required:

There is not need to understand electricity or plumbing to operate a garbage disposal. No comprehensive grasp of airline organization is necessary to fly United…Obliviousness to such things is, in fact liberating. It permits us the time to lead lives which encompass a variety of activities we could not otherwise.

3. General systems theory has its own beliefs. It claimed, the best I can make out, that a comprehensive theory of everything social was possible. Lately, its inventor Ludwig von Bertalanffy has become more pessimistic.

4. The solution of the average citizen is simpler:

He immerses himself in the metaworld of shows, extravaganzas, commercials, news, and televised sports events, and allow them to represent a larger world he cannot experience first hand. Instead he seeks satisfaction, titillation, and a minimal level of real information. He rests content in the belief that if anything does happen, there will be a televised special on it.

I was initially attracted to Complexity Science. But became disillusioned with it when it refused to face the most important complex of our time: the massive, all-important one formed by the interactions of technology and society. It couldn’t see the elephant in its own living room.

2011
03/27
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Creativity can be a Curse

Creativity, or innovation, is one thing we pride ourselves on. But it is also one thing we should be careful of.

I know I sound like some kind of reactionary or conservative here – which I am not. So I hasten to explain. It all boils down to what we think we are – and that basically the same as it always has been: our bodies and our overdeveloped brains.

But we are never satisfied with what we are and always want to be something better. This is where we can get into trouble, because we can easily end up in situations where we are worse off than we were before – much worse off. At this point we should think over what has happened to us, where we went wrong, and then try something different. This has been the goal of my life, at the end of my life.

I have lots of company, lots of people are trying to do the same thing, and some of them can talk directly to me and my problems – which I seem to be blessed with in abundance. But we seem to be a small minority. For the majority, the careful consideration of our problems is the last thing they want to do. Our problems are so horrible (as they perceive them) that they don’t even want to admit their existence. For them, the only solution is to rush on doing the same thing – or to destroy the whole mess. Or to do both at the same time. This, my dear friends, is where we are – and it is indeed a horrible situation.

I have been obsessed recently with learning programming again, as I have said in my recent posting Once Again, I Fail to Become a Programmer. As always, I am ambivalent about the Computer/Software/Internet (CSI) complex we find ourselves a part of. I am using it now, sitting here in my pajamas in my bedroom.  I cannot imagine being without my blog – the technology for which has matured considerably in the last few years. And I use Wikipedia constantly – and my online version of the Merriam-Websters Unabridged.

On the other hand, the new handheld readers, such as the Kindle, do not interest me at all. Paper books, for me, are still the greatest invention ever invented, and I have a ton of them. But lots of my friends can hardly wait to get one – and make up all kinds of excuses why. It seems to be one of those things everybody has to have – and therefore they have to too. Will their Kindles make them better readers, more learned people? No. They will simply have the latest high-tech toy, and be satisfied with that. They seem to live in a person vacuum, or black hole, that sucks everything into it.

This is amazing. We have created these marvelous things, but have ended up being nothing ourselves. We should be putting all our energy into understanding why this is so. And some of our best thinkers and artists have been doing just that.

I have become interested in poetry, at exactly the same time most have lost interest in it. Poetry Magazine had an interview in it recently with Iain McGilchrist, a Psychiatrist who works at neuroimaging, has taught English at Oxford, and who can also discuss the trends in poetry intelligently. I have his book The Master and his Emissary, and am going to be spending some time soaking it up. Things like this do me a lot of good.

On the other hand, my studies in computer programming are soaking up too much of my time – without giving me, as a person, much at all. I have found an application framework (win2py) that is compatible with me – but is not popular with the business world, which does not care much about quality work or protecting its customers – which are prey to all kinds of virus attacks – one unfortunate side-effect of the Internet.

These studies have opened by eyes to one important fact: that much of our precious creativity is going into making the CSI more powerful – and thereby more attractive to us – and thereby taking away our attention from ourselves – which should be what we are concentrating on.

In practical terms, what does this mean? It means that this morning I have to force myself to forget programming for awhile (which is a struggle, because it gets so obsessive), and concentrate on my people studies – and on some real learning.

2011
03/23
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The Economy is a Living System

The reason for this is obvious: it consists of the interactions of people, who, hopefully, are living beings – although this is becoming doubtful, as I have recently said.

But this is not the view of economists, who like think of it as something mechanical, subject to simple linear laws – the law of supply and demand, for example – when it is clearly a complex system, with many interrelated actors – much like natural ecosystems – an analogy that seems natural to business analysts, who talk this way all the time.

The difference between living and non-living systems is fundamental. Non-living systems are subject to increasing entropy: they eventually run down. Living systems have the amazing ability to defeat this, and can keep on running forever – by a process of continual renewal: individuals are continually born and continually die.

Economies also arise and fall continuously – but in addition they have an internal feedback system that determines whether they are growing or declining. Once an economy begins to be successful, this very fact makes it more successful, because people see new opportunities for them to acquire wealth, and this, in turn attracts more people. Confidence builds, and this creates more confidence.

This can also work in reverse: people lose confidence in their society and their economy. And this causes a downward spiral.

An short-term example is the familiar business cycle, the bane of capitalism. Slower feedback loops determine longer-term trends – but these can be fundamental and hard to detect by the people directly involved, because they are often blind to them – and assume what has worked in the past will also work in the future.

This is not always the case.

2010
04/16
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Economy
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