Undeniably, we are now living in a world that is exceptionally complex. Although the world may not be any more complex and dynamic than it was a few centuries or millenia ago from a physical perspective, it seems clear that from a social perspective the world has skyrocketed in its complexity, especially since the industrial evolution and the process of "globalization." It also seems clear that this trend will almost certainly continue exponentially in every sector of life. From the personal and social connections we make to financial markets and international governance, the world is getting bigger and more interconnected.
In general, I find this to be a pretty hopeful and beautiful thing: knowledge is being democratized (by the internet, as well as big-minded projects like PLOS and One Laptop Per Child) and I think for the first time we are really able to actually imagine the solutions to problems that are fundamentally international in nature (e.g. the drug trade, hunger, poverty, and especially global environmental issues).
This new kind of world, though, is also going to bring about a whole new set of problems. This was highlighted for me recently during the beginning of the economic shitstorm when I was listening to an NPR interview, which was actually about artificial intelligence. What stuck with me about the interview was the discussion of the computer programs that determine what happens in the financial markets. Obviously, the financial markets are too complex for anyone to predict in their specifics. And so, lots and lots of shareholders (which i think include private, small-time investors, although I could be wrong about this, I know embarrasingly little about the world of money) put sort of preset "sell" mechanisms on their holding. So, if the values of certain stocks fall below these setpoints, it can start a sort of wave of selling, which then can sort of reveberate out through the market. What was amazing, and sort of shocking to me, was to hear that not only is this very complicated (and apparently important) system being run at least in part by a bunch of computers, but that the effects were so complicated that nobody could figure out what happened, so that they had to write other computer programs to figure out what the other computer programs were doing!
So, this is scary because (a) the machines are taking over (huge vindication for all the sci-fi nerds), but also because (b) it represents how we've created mechanisms in the world that can themselves gain complexity and then sort of go beyond our ability to easily understand and control.
So, long introduction, but this got me thinking about how things like innovation, regulation, and control are going to have to change in this new way-too-complex future. In particular, I think we're going to have to come up with "smart" systems for understanding and controlling these very complex global systems.
One model for this that I find very intriguing is called "evolutionary computation," from computer science. From what I understand, evolutonary computation is a name for lots of different styles of computation that involve creating iterative programs that will progress slowly towards a "fitter" solution through many generations of calculation.
One example is from architecture. Imagine there is some leeway in how you can arrange some structural elements (maybe "struts") spatially in a building, but you want to find the best arrangement. And you know that you want to maximize some aspect of the building, let's say "toughness." People are creating programs that will randomly generate a whole variety of different arrangements of struts (the parallel of mutations in a natural population), and then they test all these different arrangements for "toughness." The specific arrangements of struts that perform best get to have "offspring," or new arrangments that are roughly like them but with some more mutations, and then the whole process is repeated. The result is basically that the program roughly imitates the smart processes of evolution and designs something all on its own.
Although this is a rough example, I think it still points to a useful direction in how we can sort of "decentralize" the analytical thought process. I think the same kind of thing can apply to societies. If we can figure out ways to bring innovation and analysis away from central "brains," such as centralized policies or governments, and out into the rest of the world, this opens up tons of new possibilities. And, it may even be the only way to move forward as the mechanisms of the world (such as financial markets and the internet) become too gigantic for a centralized brain to handle easily.
So, as a final endpoint, I want to bring this around to what I've been getting really interested in recently: local farms. I've recently started volunteering at a local organic farm, and I've been incredibly impressed with the innovative and dedicated work that is being done with basically no resources and very little overhead support from either a government or an academic institution. They're working on projects to build a solar-powered kitchen, expanding the visibility of good food by bringing it to impoverished communities for very cheap, having a roving biodiesel delivery system for their crops, and tons of other stuff. My point is that this is what we need more of: small-scale, decentralized innovation and problem-solving. In the spirit of Thomas Friedman, I think the best way for us to stay competitive in the modern world is to decentralize the system of innovation and encourage people to make change on the grassroots level (something that would seem especially appropriate in the age of Obama). There's lots of smart people out there with ideas that could make swift and effective change. Let them do their thing.
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"If we can figure out ways to bring innovation and analysis away from central 'brains,' such as centralized policies or governments, and out into the rest of the world, this opens up tons of new possibilities."
This is certainly true, but in this case the form might not determine the content. The rise of local innovation as a means of understanding increasing social and technical complexity has evolved as a necessary compliment to centralized state power. Two examples.
1) The Chinese Communist Party has increasingly de-centralized power and decision-making over the past twenty years (give or take some retrenchments). The state, being as unable to regulate environmental degradation as it was impotent to set rational (market) prices, devolved certain powers to local governments in a similar fashion that it sold off state assets to private companies (as such companies did not exist at the beginning of reform, politically connected individuals had to substitute). Indeed, now equipped with a disaggregated political apparatus, the state is better able to respond to certain social problems, while at the same time this administrative disaggregating has been accompanied by a localized and hierarchical system of rights and privileges. In other words: in China, at least, with the destruction of the universal state, so goes universal civil rights. What remain instead are rights for some, and not others.
2) Local actions are certainly laboratories for new techniques and strategies, but for whom and toward what? During the 1970s, New York City underwent a horrific budget crisis, nearly going bankrupt in 1975 (by defaulting on its loans, the city government would, as I understand it, be handed over to the state, and many assets sold for parts to banks). New York, prior to the crisis, spent robustly on health and human services, welfare, and education. Banks used their leverage in the budget crisis to force economic restructuring (liberalization), while the Federal government stood by and let it happen ("FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD"). This was essentially the testing ground for the Reagan take over of the federal government a few years later: cut government income, increase the debt, create a budget crisis, and then slash social programs to the bone. Then blame unions.
What I think is notable about these two cases is that, more than showing that localized decision making can play into the hands of power, they demonstrate that local innovations are always interacting with larger political realities. New York City might have avoided significant cut backs in social programs if President Ford had not refused any bailout. In China, the very existence of disaggregated political systems allows for a system of surveillance over labor migrations created by the uneven distribution of capital.
The issue is certainly not whether local innovation is desirable, because such innovation will occur in any case, and I think it is clear that new social technologies can be used in a number of ways good, bad, and neither. Such technologies, however, will continue to be co-opted by centralized state power and capital. This is the actual political question, one which must involve the centralized decision making of the state. Ford was acting as the evolutionist when he refused to lend New York City the funds necessary to retain a decade of progressive policies -- instead of propping up the established regime, he let new political tactics create a new policy regime, one of less social spending, lower taxation, and economic liberalization. You could argue that such evolution made the city more fit for survival -- but "survival" trumps considerations of political will only when the political terrain is conceived of as a kind of a-political "nature," itself not subject to political intervention. This is essentially the conservative argument on the economy -- conceived of as a kind of state of nature, its vicissitudes are not properly political; they are natural and necessary. With such a point of view, it is possible to conceive of certain options as "better" (or at least more viable) because they can better survive the socio-economic reality. And so the possibility of judging local initiatives as "innovative" or socially productive is a political question, one which depends on influencing the machinery of the central state itself. Obama is likely to see adaptations of industry to energy efficiency as more innovative, and less so letting the states go bankrupt and cutting funding for infrastructure so that local governments are forced to privatize public assets. If the Other Guy had been elected, I do not know that he would have shared this opinion.
Yours,
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