Systemic Issues abound

From my March 2006 brief entitled "Big Bangs" that is an exact description of the current global crisis (although in the financial context it would have been called "Big Bubbles"):
To increase performance (of a system) you have to ADD instability to the system's design. Unfortunately, this means that a high performance aircraft with a large percentage of instability built into its design occasionally wants to careen into oblivion -- the feedback from the system's interaction with the environment can create feedback loops that tend towards infinity (which of course means catastrophic failure). To compensate for this, dynamically unstable systems have computer augmented control systems that dampen these feedback loops. For example, a plane of this type of design has computers (with double back-up) that constantly compensate for instability by moving control surfaces (at a much faster rate than the pilot can). Without compensation, a plane like the F-16 will go catastrophic in 3 seconds. With some of the forward swept wing designs, the time to instability is measured in fractions of seconds...

If we look at today's global environment we see a relatively high performance system driven by real-time global markets and rapid technological progress. Its performance explains why it is spreading so quickly. However, it is also moderately unstable. In our drive towards higher levels of performance we pursued a path of rampant global interconnectivity that has quickly outpaced our ability to dampen excess. The old dampening functions of borders, distance, government, etc are quickly fading. The result is a system vulnerable to rogue feedback. Even a small amount of it can cause global reverberations....

This conclusion also calls into question the efficacy of the idea that merely increasing connectivity is an answer to our problems. Increasing connectivity too fast, in a system without intrinsic dampening or control systems that work, will only accelerate the chaos (human nature doesn't change as fast as technology).... Also, the complexity of this system puts the lie to the idea that we know how to actively dampen its behavior through centralized systems of control. We neither have the scale nor the collective intelligence to pull it off. The only real solution rests on redesigning the system itself, to enable it to become more tolerant of rogue feedback...


From Brave New War on the potential success of government solutions to a systemic crisis in the global system:
The common thread that dooms these “solutions” to failure is that they both rely upon the nation-state as the primary actor. Given the speed and complexity posed by the black swans we face, the nation-state would need instantaneous responsiveness, infinite resources, and God-like insight in order to be effective. It has none of these attributes.