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Musings Report 2025-1 1-4-25 Six Dynamics That Will Shape Our Future
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Six Dynamics That Will Shape Our Future
Last week I listed 12 conditions that will shape our future, much to the surprise of those projecting a largely unchanged continuation of the present.
1. The system is optimized for infinite growth / expansion. If expansion falters, the system crashes.
2. The system is optimized for infinite substitution of whatever becomes scarce as the means to continue expanding essentially forever.
3. These optimizations only function in a narrow envelope. Should the system stray outside this envelope, it crashes.
4. The fundamental principle of the system is "no limits": there are no limits on human ingenuity, and so there are no limits on technology and growth.
5. There are intrinsically contradictory dynamics in the system.
6. Scale and asymmetry are the core contradictory dynamics. Two ways to summarize this are 1) math and 2) "too big to care."
7. The system's optimizations mis-diagnose problems, so it selects "solutions" that accelerate its own dysfunction / demise.
8. The system lacks the values, subsystems, feedback and institutional structures to adapt to changing conditions.
9. As a result, the preferred "solutions" are all forms of play-acting, i.e. the notion that controlling the narrative / framing the "problem" as solvable with existing policy adjustments is actually solving the problem.
10. The system's core mythology is Technological Progress is unlimited and unstoppable and so it will solve all problems by its very nature. We can remain comfortably seated and watch as Technology solves whatever problems arise.
11. This belief blinds us to the fact that technology also generates Anti-Progress. Since accepting Anti-Progress undermines our core faith in Technological Progress, we deny the existence of Anti-Progress.
12. As a result, the system is involuted: no matter what option we choose, nothing changes systemically. Real change is only possible at the micro-level of our own lives.
This week I'll add six more dynamics that will shape our future.
1. Over-optimization. If optimizing a process is good, then more optimization is even better, right? The flaw in this "more is better" assumption is invisible until it's too late: what's been stripped out by optimization is precisely what's needed to save the system from collapse when conditions veer outside the expected envelope of normal operation.
The core dynamic in optimization is to eliminate unnecessary / inefficient steps and costs. For example, "just in time" manufacturing eliminates the costs of warehousing parts by optimizing delivery of parts to align with assembly processes.
Consolidating facilities near major transport hubs lowers costs by reducing the number of facilities. For example, 6 million of Costco's rotisserie chickens are raised and processed in one facility in Nebraska. Many industrial chemicals are stored in large centralized facilities.
The vulnerabilities and fragilities created by centralization and other forms of optimization are not apparent until something goes awry: a poultry virus spreads through the mega-farm, a fire consumes the vast chemical storage complex, the sole source of critical components is shut down, the one route is disrupted, etc.
The erosion of resilience and adaptability is the penumbra of optimization that few even see until the system breaks down, much to the surprise of everyone who assumed normal over-optimized operations were rock-solid in all conditions.
Consider the systems that supply cities with food, fuel and other essentials. Cities have been a feature of civilization for thousands of years, and pre-industrial supply chains managed to provide wood for cooking, food, etc., to great metropolises. For example, Rome's population in the Imperial zenith (circa 100 A.D.) is estimated to be in the range of 1 million inhabitants.
Given the reliance on sailing ships and animal-pulled carts, most supplies delivered to cities were locally sourced. Cities themselves contained distributed food production. In the 19th century, it's been estimated that major cities still supplied as much as 50% of the food supply within or adjacent to city limits.
For example, the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" features a man going to a house to buy one of the resident's geese for Christmas supper. Small urban orchards and gardens were core features of many cities.
Supply chains were diverse and decentralized: food and fuel arrived by various means and from a wide variety of courses. This diversified, decentralized supply system was adaptable by its very nature.
Compare this system to the over-optimized supply chains delivering essentials to today's megalopolis urban centers: the majority of essentials come through a small number of facilities and are sourced from highly centralized and often distant suppliers.
The surrounding areas produce little to no essentials; suburbs and lawns predominate. Urban planning has favored reducing multi-use zoning, as factories, farms, etc. have been eliminated as nuisances or developed as "under-utilized" land for multi-story housing.
Just-in-time optimization limits the amount of essentials warehoused as backup supplies, so any disruption quickly strips the city of supplies. Human nature's predisposition to respond to perceived shortages by hoarding accelerates this dynamic.
In summary, the supply chains feeding and fueling the enormous populations of urban centers have been over-optimized, generating risks few see due to the complacency generated by recency bias and an ungrounded confidence that over-optimized systems are rock-solid because nothing untoward has happened to date.
Over-optimization also works regionally. The system may retain some reserves that can be drawn from nearby cities / hubs, but these reserves are limited: one modest emergency quickly consumes the reserves and exhausts the labor force rushed in. Should a second emergency occur in the region, there will be no response, as all available resources were poured into the first emergency.
In other words, the system only functions as long as the minimal reserves are only tapped for low-level, limited emergencies. Once the available resources have been committed regionally, there are no resources left to fight the next fire, which will then burn uncontrolled.
That Plan B is threadbare due to over-optimization--why pay good money for unnecessary backups, redundancies, warehousing spare parts, and emergency stores--is invisible until some crisis quickly unravels the entire system and everyone wakes up to discover there's no food or fuel left, and no way to bring in enough fast enough to restore "normal life."
Firefighting offers an apt analogy. To cut costs, the number of trucks and stations are pared down, and multi-tasking is the order of the day, so staff and equipment is doing other work as well as firefighting. The system is optimized to deal with a very limited number of fires of limited scope. Should multiple fast-moving fires emerge, city resources are quickly overwhelmed, and regional resources may not be able to respond fast enough, or they may have been committed to another regional fire.
What no one thought possible--a city burns down--is not only possible, it's the only possible outcome due to over-optimization.
Over-optimization is a systemic dynamic, and so the fragilities and vulnerabilities it generates are also systemwide, and will manifest in all sorts of situations once the system veers out of the "normal" envelope.
Over-optimization doesn't lend itself to either quantification or visualization. It appears to be a "good thing" until it's too late.
Here are the other five dynamics that will shape our future. I will explore these further in this series of Musings Reports.
2. Cycles of war and debt renunciation.
3. The iron logic of obsolescence and addiction.
4. Jevon's Paradox writ large: we consume all resources we generate from all sources.
5. People share tacit loyalties and values that no longer align with traditional ideological / political camps, "binding agents" as yet unrecognized and "unbranded."
6. Under-competence: we know enough to keep the machine running but not enough to reconfigure it, adapt it or de-optimize it. Skills are lost and expectations have reduced our willingness to do essential work.
As mentioned last week, the core theme for 2025 is this question: what responses to these conditions will likely serve us best going forward?
Changing course before we hit the iceberg is preferable to whatever actions we choose after we've hit the iceberg. We can't count on the system adapting in time and at the required scale; we have to do the adapting ourselves.
Highlights of the Blog
The System's Self-Destruct Sequence Cannot Be Turned Off 1/3/25
' Too Big to Care' and the Illusion of Choice 12/30/24
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Made breadfruit (ulu in Hawaiian) patties, which can be frozen for those occasions where there's no energy for anything but an easy-to-prepare dinner. I realize few people have access to breadfruit, but potatoes and sweet potatoes lend themselves to the same process.
The ulu is first steamed or boiled, peeled, the core removed and the cooked ulu is sliced into chunks.
Onions and garlic are diced and pan-fried with minimal olive oil, then the ulu chunks are added.
The ingredients are then mashed and formed into patties, which can be frozen or lightly pan-fried.
What's on the Book Shelf
The Culture of Make Believe
by Derrick Jensen (via Michael M.)
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
Iran’s Energy Crisis Hits 'Dire' Point as Industries Are Forced to Shut Down
'Small is Beautiful' Revisited 50 Years On
What is neijuan, and why is China worried about it? --an interesting translation, involution....
Enrollment in colleges nationwide dropped 5% in 2024 (via Tom D.)
Yoshio Taniguchi, Architect for MoMA's Expansion, Dies at 87
Japan’s Business Owners Can’t Find Successors. This Man Is Giving His Away. An owner's struggle in Japan’s northern dairy region illuminates one of the potentially devastating economic impacts of an aging society. (via Richard M.)
Japan's 'cat island' falls victim to demographic crisis: Famous for felines that outnumber its humans, Aoshima is also emblematic of a deeper trend afflicting the country’s rural and island communities.
The rise and rise of Maye Musk: China’s love affair with Elon Musk’s mother.
How & Why Government, Universities, & Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists & High-Tech Workers (via Cheryl A.)
As more Americans go 'no contact' with their parents, they live out a dilemma at the heart of Shakespeare’s 'King Lear'
IPBES: Tackle Together Five Interlinked Global Crises in Biodiversity, Water, Food, Health and Climate Change
‘We need dramatic social and technological changes’: is societal collapse inevitable?
"The wavelike movement affecting the economic system, the recurrence of periods of boom which are followed by periods of depression, is the unavoidable outcome of the attempts, repeated again and again, to lower the gross market rate of interest by means of credit expansion." Ludwig von Mises
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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