For those who haven't read from my work in the past, there is a difference between complicated and complex problems. The simple explanation is that complicated problems are difficult to solve, but once there is a solution, it can be applied systematically, cheaply and repetitively. A complex problem however can have possibly simpler solutions, but no solution is going to solve for it, because the dynamics of the problem will keep changing the conditions, meaning that any applied solution that works today, will not necessarily work for tomorrow.
It is simple.
We live in a complex world.
And unlike my more philosophical article yesterday about us all being dead, the differences between how we treat complication and complexity have practical implications for our daily lives. This is because there is both a lot of complication and a lot of complexity that we as individuals can't handle, and therefore outsource the solutions to other systems, like government, industry, or medical. We didn't have to do this in the past, because we worked largely independently or in small groups, so we not only had less complication and complexity, we had more visibility on who we were dealing with.
Now though, we have largely faceless centralized decision makers, working in an array of areas, with a wide range of problems, limited insight, with their own agendas, pushing solutions out to the masses to solve one issue, without any understanding of how it will affect into the future, or on any other system or problem. Essentially, it is like when we read of some celebrity overdose where they had a "cocktail" of drugs in their systems, so they don't know which one caused the death, or whether it was a reaction to multiple.
They might try for a line of best fit, but ultimately the line they end up taking is the one that best fits the decision makers, not the masses. This is the same with industry, which is meant to cater to demand with a supply, but they system is geared to drive us to demand what we want, not what we need. Sure, we "know" what we need, but we do not demand industry to supply it, we demand government to legislate for it. We want better quality of life, but we expect it to be given to us, while we pay for all the vices that take away our quality of life.
It is and isn't our fault though.
Because we have been socially and emotionally hacked to want what just happens to make the most money for industry, which leads us into a condition of we are what we eat, which is overserved, undernourished, and reliant. Even when it comes to our natural skill of entertaining ourselves, we are no longer capable and need a tool of some kind to deliver content of some kind to us, because we don't have the creative ability to invent for ourselves. We demand a complicated solution, to what used to be a simple problem of,
I'm bored.
The universe is complex and everchanging, because there is a lot of random interaction or at least, unknown to us interaction. We however try to tame the random and bring certainty, by developing increasingly complicated solutions to our problems, which ultimately are going to fail because they are being applied to complex systems. For instance, we might see climate change as something we need to deal with, which is a complex issue that impacts us all and includes multiple macro as well as millions of micro systems, so we create complicated rules, as if driving electric cars, or swapping carbon credits is the answer. Even if legislations have best intentions, they are utterly insufficient at dealing with the complexity of what is actually required.
A pat on the back and saying "there there" doesn't treat a heart attack.
Our rules of engagement with finding solutions in a complex world are inadequate for purpose, because they are incentivized by monetary profit. Making more money is not the solution to social inequality, environmental destruction, or improving global health conditions, because making more money as the algorithm leads to the reverse outcome. This is because the easiest way to make more money, is to reduce costs, and ultimately that will lead to a reduction in standard of living, doing the bare minimum by law to protect the environment, and bypassing social good in favour of corporate profit. The more complex the system becomes, the more loopholes form to take advantage of to increase wealth, at the expense of wellbeing.
Governments are great at making things complicated, but the ones who benefit from the complication aren't the people who should be benefiting the most from the government, but those who are able to best take advantage of the loopholes. The average person doesn't benefit from tax loopholes that a corporation can take advantage of in order to reduce their taxes drastically, even to the point tax payers are paying them for making more money.
I was talking about some of this with a friend over lunch today, and then an hour later, another friend sent me an article that looks at a narrow part of the poorly applied complicated solution to a complex problem, through the lens of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion practices. It is an interesting read and brings up many points, even though I don't agree with some of the assertions. What is missing though is the biggest problem of all, which is that centralised decision making always leads to poor result and will eventually create catastrophic events which will ultimately destroy the system. The larger the central authority gets and the more it tries to implement complicated solutions to complex issues, the more it will error.
But as said, this affects us, because we are reliant on these decision makers to bring us much of our lives, whether it be at the governmental level for things like social security and healthcare, or the industry level which delivers us everything from our entertainment, to our food supply. We have developed such a dependency, that we can no longer practically survive outside of the system. Yes, it is possible for some to go "off grid" but just imagine what happens at scale.
It is impossible to go back to tribal communities, without one of those cataclysmic events that wipes out half the global population and pushes us into the dark ages. However, relying on increasingly centralised systems of government and industry are going to make that disaster all the more likely. With the increasing ramp-up of artificial intelligence however, it is possible to make better decisions that don't have a narrow agenda for a result, but one that is made for wellbeing of humanity. And, this can happen at many points, with many specialised AIs, that are still able to talk to each other, and adjust on the fly without all of the red tape and complication that governments have. A network of human improvement focused AIs, essentially create a DAO for wellbeing.
And they can do it for close to free.
This is important, because industry will not. This means that it takes the potential for profit from governance out of the equation, but will still incentivize for profit by making business for wellbeing the most profitable course of business activity. While this is not the kind of world I am keen on, relying on humans to do what is best for humanity, seems to be an losing position. Humans are far too complex and flawed to be "trusted" to make the right decisions, and at scale, the decisions made get increasingly worse, and the impacts more severe.
Perhaps when no human can be trusted to make large scale decisions, we will learn how to build localised trust again, and return somewhat to the days where being a good person in the community has value, instead of a valuable community member being the ones who make the most money.
Simple.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]