A complex world view makes our present situation more comprehensible
This may seem like a contradiction, but once you accept that comprehension depends on being able to approach the real world with your own world view it is actually very clear. Complex systems defy classical logic especially in the realm of causality.
The dominant philosophy in our world is reductionism. Reductionism is based on the false premise that complex systems can only be understood by reducing them to simple systems. Hidden in this premise is that the material world is an adequate model for all things including non- material social interactions and other systems based on process. Process involves the parts of the system by causal links, we observe the effect of cause when what we are looking at changes.
We explain those changes by using a model. The reductionist model tells us that B has changed to B’ because and agent A has acted on it.
A acts on B causing B’
This model leads us to look for single agents when we want to understand an observed evet such as B changes to B’
What if the observed change has multiple causes acting on it and a lot of other things? Still more complex would be that some of the other things being changed are among those acting on B? One can envision a network of causal events with closed loops in it.
Before you give up let us turn this reasoning process on events in the political world for which we are so ready to give our own explanations.
Why have all the republican attempts to repeal the ACA failed? Can you find a causal model that satisfies You? I can’t. There are a lot of causes acting at once here many of which have a longer history than others.
Why is there so much importance being placed on the Russian influence on Trump and his family? Before you leap at this realize that it is a trap.
Why is the global economy heading more and more toward an oligarchy? Again a trap for the reductionist model.
And here is the big one. Why is the human species creating the conditions for its own extinction? Jim Coffman and I wrote a book about this one and still did not come close to a complete explanation.
Finally, just to keep you in touch with the inbuilt circularity in all this, why will you go back to your usual mode of political discourse after reading this?
Let me know if you have any answers.
Comments
Thank you! A lot!
Thank you! A lot!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Complex Systems Defy Predictions
Climate change for example. There are so many complex environmental and ecological systems interacting in ways that defy accurate predictions or only yield vague predictions that lack the specificity that "Western Science" magically requires to insist on concrete sacrifices from an uninformed populace.
The "dismal science" known as economics is given extremely wide latitude that climate change science is denied. Why? Because the necessary sacrifices that climate change science requires are politically unacceptable and political economists are allowed to tell the populace what they want to hear.
One small piece of the puzzle is that the political and economic "marketplace" rejects climate change science that imposes economic burdens on corporate profits and inconveniences consumers.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Why is that a "small" piece?
Of all the bewildering situations out there, environmental policy strikes me as the least complex. The cause of climate change indifference that you identified — economic burdens on corporate profits — looks right to me. The more intense the forces of capitalism in a nation, the more likely that inconvenient science will be suppressed or attacked, while government remains silent. Tobacco, pesticides, industrial waste have all followed that common pattern. The level of public apathy and misinformation thus correlates with a nation's level of predatory economics.
The exact mechanism of climate change, of course, is complex, although I think it can be generally reduced: If the average temperature goes up one degree, the climate goes unpredictably rogue. So, you don't want to do things that raise earth's temperature. However, like you say, the sacrifice is unimaginably high. It could abruptly yank civilization back a century or two.
Why or how the earth is heating up is a complex system, but the fact of it is tangible. Each year brings a growing number of record-breaking highs and lows and increased weather violence. What I find odd is that people can take comfort in green efforts like recycling, when climate change is well past the point no return. They have no plans for themselves. Going green now will not put climate change in reverse. It is progressing as scheduled. This is not to say the problem can't be solved by an extraordinary scientific breakthrough event, which is far more likely to happen when nations agree to focus their combined resources on planetary-level solutions. I'm more hopeful now that the belligerent US has stepped down. I think the chances of survival are much better with the Chinese at the helm,
Reductionist model is also used in western medicine
It helps create the desire for the magic bullet that will cure or control a symptom of a disease. We tend to use the same approach for drugs, herbs, vitamins, diets or surgery.
I have found the circular pattern with complex interactions of Traditional Chinese Medicine difficult to fully comprehend. In my quest to understand I have began to see repeatable or cyclical patterns patterns in politics, nature, economic and personal relationships. It makes one wonder how little we understand.
Don - Thanks for the mental stretch
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
I'm a believer
The diminishing returns on complexity is one of our nearly irreversible problems. For example our extractionary social Darwinist economy is doing poorly so the central banks create trillions of dollars in credit but the GDP barely rises. Instead the people closest to the essentially free money (NIRP) stream massively leverage their wealth. The FED is pushing on a string and the oligarchs get richer.
Or in the Middle East we fight with the Shia Iraqi Army to kill the Sunni ISIS fighters. But in Yemen we fight with the Sunni to kill the Shia Houthi. In both places we end up with misery, leveled cities and what? I'm mean WTF. This has nothing to do with reductionist models. This is in fact complexity gone crazy. Much of my thinking comes from Joseph Tainters, Collapse of Complex Societies. As well as various thinkers on Capitalist Endgame, Gail Tverberg, Derrick Jensen, Charles Hugh Smith, and others.
Why go back to the inbuild circularity
Most of us have been discouraged from looking at the world from our point of reference. School, most religions, government bodies and corporations have been teaching us to look for them (the experts) for defining a problem, solution and critiquing actions for most of our lives.
If one stands out too far from the crowd they are easier to identify and silence.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
This is a question I tend to contemplate.
It seems to me that it may be a programmed feature to all forms of life. In humans, it is triggered by out-of-control population growth. A variety of mechanisms can bring the extinction — biological, mechanical, or environmental. But mathematics indicates that extinction is inevitable if life follows specific patterns. When human population growth is plotted on a chart, it forms a hockey stick, a universal pattern that signals colony collapse. Or, system collapse.
I believe in specific "points of change." I guess they can be described as "root causes" around which complex systems form a cloud of intricate interactive adjustments of constant adaptation. For example, we know for certain is that overpopulation (and ensuing resource scarcity) is the root cause of all large-scate environmental problems and most wars. Both promise to bring extinction. But the root cause is the inability of this species to control its breeding after it conquered its predators. And that "point of change" was triggered very, very recently. The average human lifespan was a steady constant that doubled only 150 years ago.
Complexity is great, and
Complexity is great, and should be respected when present. The way to do that is to acknowledge the complexity to your best ability (you might not be able to see its extent because it's, well, complex) and proceed carefully. The error in a complex situation is assuming you know what's up, a particular form of hubris. The danger is that someone will reduce the complexity to a form they can understand and control, usually one that is wildly inaccurate, generally controlling lots of people along the way, often to ill effect. Think George W. Bush and the Iraq war.
Characteristic phrase: If you're not with us, you're against us.
Sometimes things are actually simple, and that should be respected too. In that case, the way to show respect is to refrain from intellectual grandstanding and pretension. The danger in a simple situation is that someone will obfuscate the simplicity in order to create financial, political, or social capital for themselves, or to hide something foul that they're doing. Think Barack Obama and the aftermath of the Wall St crash. Actually, think most of Wall St and Washington in the aftermath of the Wall St. crash.
Characteristic phrase: You don't understand how Washington works.
Reductionism is an evil, not because it sees things simply, but because it sees things inaccurately. It is, in fact, one of the primary vectors of inaccuracy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good points.
But I will say that China used with great success the "root cause" in my example. They stopped breeding to lift a billion people out of poverty and into the middle class in less than 20 years. The caveat being it must be the root cause and not just a down-line event cluster, which, as you say, is an evil adjustment. Much like those of the Federal Reserve.
@Pluto's Republic Unfortunately, I
Unfortunately, I dumped that comment into your thread when it shouldn't have gone there (see below)! It really didn't have anything to do with your comment above. Sorry!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
I love the way you nail things!
Luckily for some, I'm feeling ghastly and short of any functional brain cells/memory again today or this'd be pretty lengthy, lol.
We need to consider everything, such as the Lego-block theory of genetics previously promoted by Monsanto and other polluting/pharmaceutical corporations producing so much microbiological 'information' fed to the public, and the simplistic treatment given for the anticipated disease/death rates of single chemicals, typically even when within blends - treated individually and with no possibility of assessing effects of random combinations - in the lucrative-for-some toxic petrochemical brew soaking the Earth.
To the careful lack of attention to essential and typically unmentioned factors in virtually everything related to profit-driven policy deleterious to the public/health/life, including those making it clear in simulations including them that war between nations using modern nukes will likely not leave a viable life-support system in the planet and the public discussion of how to vote in (captured) elections and which of two disastrous choices allowed the American public is likely more survivable within the Two-Party Trade-Off Trap.
Reductionist thinking, also propaganda-instilled in the public, not only got us here but affects virtually everything and I am so very glad to see it being discussed here.
Places like C-99 are among those metaphorical butterfly wings which can blow a blast of fresh air around the world.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Pluto's Republic That comment was not
That comment was not meant to be a response to you. I still sometimes screw that up.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Pluto's Republic Being more an advocate of
Being more an advocate of science fiction rather than religion, I'm of the opinion that we're being menaced by something we built, not something we are.
Why we built/invented it is an interesting question, and I suppose it could be treated as a question of essential biological identity. However, since humanity didn't invent financialized corporate capitalism until the 16th century at the earliest, I'm more inclined to see it as a question of history.
Corruption and greed are far older, of course, and if you like you can ascribe our impending destruction to those things. But then, corruption and greed persisted for many centuries (and probably millenia) without threatening to destroy the human race or the world.
Ultimately, and I hate to admit this, the Victorians had it right. We invented economic weapons of mass destruction in the 1500s and refined them in the 1700s. We invented particularly bad weapons of military destruction in the 1600s, refined them to terrible effect in the 1800s, and invented weapons of military mass destruction in the 1900s. But by the Victorian Age, it was clear that power was concentrating into fewer hands and simultaneously widening its area of effect with potential consequences that were terrifying. In retrospect, that's why the Victorians had the constant moral anxiety and emphasis on character and honor that they've been twitted for ever since. Their problem was that they couldn't confront the moral issue honestly and instead wrapped piano legs in cloth and told themselves they were bringing civilization to the barbarous world.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That's a wonderful example.
A veritable feast. Especially with the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Age of Reason running in the background.
Still, all races were in their indigenous homelands and relatively safe until White people invented guns 500 years ago. At that point, they got on their boats and ransacked the world. Every square inch of it. Killing like mad, taking what they wanted, and bringing religion. We're all reacting with massive complexity to that Root Cause. The Gun. And technology that bloomed at least a century too soon in a species that was still swinging in the trees, emotionally and intellectually.
@Pluto's Republic Thank you, Pluto, but
Thank you, Pluto, but turns out I made a mistake...actually it looks like we invented the gun in the 12th century, in China. It got to the Middle East, and then to Europe, in the 13th century. So I was three centuries off! (I had thought that the Chinese invented gunpowder, but not guns. I thought they used gunpowder primarily for fireworks. My bad!)
So we invented the gun in the 12th century, but the shitty global trajectory we're currently on didn't start till the age of colonization in the 15th century(In fourteen hundred ninety-two/Columbus sailed the ocean blue/He braved the unknown without fear/And fucked us all right in the ear. My revision. How do you like it?) And we didn't, IMO, actually sow the seeds of our destruction until we invented corporate capitalism in the 1600s. The combination of corporate capitalism, colonization, and slavery was toxic. Then it was just a matter of waiting for technological advance to put worse and worse weapons at the disposal of a horrific system.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I like it.
I often refer to this map showing the countries that Britain invaded, once they acquired guns.
China indeed invented (and discarded) the gun. They invented just about everything centuries earlier than the West. But I was not aware of the gun migrating. I had assumed White people figured it out it all by themselves, centuries later. Either way, that invention marked the end of cultural sovereignty in every corner of the brown world. Nowhere else on earth had a blond evolved. Now after 50,000 years or so, their world was about to change completely — at the point of a gun.
As for commerce, the kind you're thinking of, that too was inspired by the arrival of the gun. There were historic overland trade routes, but big ocean-going ships only made sense when they had canon strapped to their decks. I think of the Dutch when I think of the beginning of capital investment. Capitalism and guns were a good match.
@Pluto's Republic
Admittedly, my brain hurts too much right now to think, but, if I understand the comment (big caveat there right now, lol,) about blondes not having evolved anywhere else on Earth, weren't blondes pretty much introduced to Britain by various Northern settlers/raiders?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
The Scandinavians were part of the White
…migration, indigenous to Europe/Russia, largely remaining in place for 70,000 years, with various pockets of local markers and features.
@Pluto's Republic
Thanks! Knew my brain wasn't working, so that makes me right (on at least that point) for possibly the first time this year. (I always try to be right about something at least on an annual basis, and the brain-not-working is a popular fall-back often useful to maintain that achievement.)
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Pluto's Republic It apparently got
It apparently got from Asia to the Middle East on the Silk Road, and went from there, after a hundred years or so, to Europe. That's what I got from a cursory Googling. It might be false. I should look it up in an actual book in an actual library.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Pluto's Republic I am distressed that
I am distressed that Queen Elizabeth I was involved in creating corporate capitalism. I always liked her, despite certain evil things she did or that were done in her name, anyway.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
Let's not blame humanity, except for allowing psychopaths to ruthlessly drain others of wealth and rights in order to accumulate it all for themselves.
That's an inhuman condition; what defines humanity (empathy, a conscience, etc.,) is missing in the psychopath. Not that societies can't be propagandized into psychopathic thinking...
Edited to complete an unfinished word. Not having a good day, lol.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Ellen North What's up Ellen? Are
What's up Ellen? Are you sick?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thank you,
, for mentioning overpopulation as a root problem - it seems to be rarely mentioned these days. Any idea how overpopulation has resolved itself in other species? Epidemics, starvation, accelerated intra-species violence?
For some species overpopulation is cyclical but those are predator/prey dances of life and death.
I am aware that human population has more than tripled during my lifetime. We were already overpopulated at 3 billion.
Yes. I use yeast as a stand in for humans.
Yeast in a bottle of grape juice. Life is good. Lots of kids. Pretty soon their swimming in their own pee. Which is wine to you and me.
The correlation is really about the limited environment. Earth is that bottle. And we do see it in contained species that overpopulate their environments. Infections or viruses that kill their hosts. I think it's pretty common, Enough so to theorize that self-extinction in some form may be genetically embedded in biological life when facing certain constraints.
Under the circumstances, I can certainly understand why over-population is rarely ever mentioned. No one wants to stare into the abyss.
What's interesting about the entire thing is that humans can solve their most life-threatening problems by simply controlling their breeding. It's a top-down discipline that would ward off the extinction — but that idea is the most taboo concept on the planet. When China initiated a "one child" policy, heads around the world exploded. It's a wonder that the US didn't nuke China over it. That reaction even more convinces me that extinction may be programmed into the species.
@Pluto's Republic I will see that one
I will see that one and raise you.
Yes, we need to control our breeding. That's what the 99% has to give up: having as many kids as we want to, whenever we want to. Because there ultimately just isn't enough room, or food. This is the 99%'s sacrifice to make, because there aren't enough 1%ers to breed enough to create the problem.
But the 1% also has a sacrifice to make for humanity's survival. If we give up the uncontrolled urge to breed, they must give up their uncontrolled capacity for greed. The drive for maximized profit is as destructive to ecological balance as the drive for maximized reproduction.
We needed to jump both those hurdles, and we're jumping neither. Bad times.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Pluto's Republic
Speaking as One Who Knows Nothing and has a vicious headache but always has that 2 cents handy to put in, lol: might be, but it hardly seems necessary as a development in most cases, since overcrowding typically and often rapidly destroys the environment sustaining the overpopulated (and other) species and even where outright starvation isn't yet present weakens individuals due to reduced nutrition, stress, etc. so that they are more likely to perish of such things as also more readily spread parasitic overloads, more readily transferred contagious diseases, less ability to avoid territorial fighting, where this applies.
It might, I suspect, have been predominately religious heads exploding over the notion of restricted human breeding, in example, Christian societies having been indoctrinated with the idea that they had to multiply by order of their god, apart from those still of the thinking that a large family was a good thing for many reasons, including elder care.
Personally, I've always felt that once we developed the ability to typically survive childbirth and the death of infants became an uncommon thing among families, we should have begun restricting ourselves to replacement.
Unlike most other organisms, we really have no predators feeding off us, apart from criminals of our own kind, who tend more to 'milk' us than to immediately kill us to reduce the excess population. We just aren't smart enough, overall, to realize that reality applies to us, although I'd attribute rather a lot of that to propagandized notions.
2 cents doesn't buy much, though, lol. I'm just not down with what's become an auto-attribution of so much to genetics, as has been promoted by such as Monsanto, which wants environment and especially toxic industry-produced exposures left out of calculations as far as possible, theirs being particularly wide-spread - especially since disease-producing petrochemical exposures tend to run in families living together in whatever areas/countries - and lots of investment in their patented genetic manipulations.
Edited for a letter typo - FSM knows what else, so maybe he'll step in and fix whatever else, lol.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@gustogirl I remember when we
I remember when we stopped talking about it, in the late 80s.
In my case, it was because every time I talked about it there was a percentage chance that I'd be accused of favoring eugenics and trying to wipe Black people off the face of the earth.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
There are some limited tools
available to us. Multiple linear regression comes to mind. Perhaps a better educated member than I can point out additional mathematical or statistical methods that deal with identifying or ranking multiple casualties.
Of course, these are reductionist methods. But what other methods are a available to the sciences?
Why
will I go back to my usual mode of political discourse after reading this?
Because I don't have a better idea. I have not found a way to influence the issues you raise. I have found very little ability to create or participate in the creation of meaningful change, even to the extent that it adds additional time to solve such problems as global climate change.
We drive 2 small cars, one a hybrid. We try to keep a low footprint. We (my spouse) gave more money in the primaries and to select candidates in the general than we could afford.I was a civil servant for 20 years. I could not be politically active beyond walking into a voting booth. It was my job to produce data and, back when we had more people, analysis. The data I produced were neutral and, to the best of my ability, accurate. Elected officials took the pieces of the data that supported their ideological predispositions and the opinions of their most militant supporters and ran with it. The number of elected officials who wanted to learn anything about what I thought the data meant existed, but was quite small.
When I retired and constraints on my activity were removed I thought I might have a greater impact. Not so. For the most part elected officials start with the answers and work backwards. And the higher you get the more elected officials are surrounded by gatekeepers. The last thing these people want are others who may be better informed having access to their official.
I attend demonstrations on occasion. I write the occasional letter. I don't expect much in the way of results. In my immediate community I can engage in activities that have a positive impact on people's lives. But these activities are not going to slow climate change.
Now, please allow me to turn the question about. What would you have me do?
@FuturePassed I would have you really
I would have you really want to survive rather than rationalize going down the same path to destruction.
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
@don mikulecky Writing off
Writing off FuturePassed's question as rationalization avoids the very real question s/he brings up.
The issue is power.
Or, to put it even more simply, HOW can ordinary people affect the powerful and change their current course?
Not by voting--the process is corrupted
Not by changing the electoral process--the legislative system we would use to do that is corrupted
Not by eradicating the corruption of the electoral process by investigating, prosecuting and arresting the criminals who corrupt it--the legal system we would have to use to do that is also corrupted
Not by demonstrating--such activities are either suppressed, as with Occupy and Standing Rock, partially co-opted, as with BLM, or simply ignored, as with every climate march I've ever been at.
Anyway, the fact is that the PTB absolutely CAN ignore every march and demonstration with perfect impunity, because
The electoral process is corrupted
There's the additional problem of fake resistance movements/controlled opposition being created, which confuses people and fragments those who might otherwise form a coherent resistance movement. Not that we know what we would do with one.
We are left with 1)picking up our guns and fighting a ghastly, asymmetrical war which we are extremely unlikely to win--and I think I'm putting that mildly
or 2)inventing something new that would change our conditions. There seems to be little will to do that, even here. People lack the energy, the time, and the morale to imagine a different reality and start taking steps to create it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I vote for option 2
Your observation that inventing a new modus operandi is perhaps our best hope resonates with me. Several science fiction / futuristic novels have this as a theme. A Tesla type of radiated power (or something) could hugely empower energy independence in localities. We are seeing more solar and wind sources being collectively developed. Reduce the need for fossil fuels, improve the environment, etc. The notion of local energy co-ops can be expanded to include food, shelter, health care and etc. with communal effort. Not sure this is reductionistic, but is a potential on the path of survival.
The world as a whole
(not to mention the rest of the universe) is so very complex, that we humans are incapable of even perceiving its totality, let alone understanding it. We are able to perceive only that portion of reality that we are able to measure and to map -- and so to "understand". Reductionism is a mental tool, or technique that is essential for measuring and mapping the complexity of reality. But of course no map is identical to the territory it is meant to describe. Often a map is only vaguely similar to the territory, but can still be useful in spite of its being inaccurate.
Humans are natural-born map makers, and inventors of systems for measuring things. Whatever we are unable to measure, we tend to ignore. Which is an awful lot. And then we like to imagine that because we ignore something, it simply doesn't exist.
native