systems | complexity | second-order effects
If you want to get in an argument when you travel (especially internationally), talk about history.
There isn’t a single, correct history. For multiple reasons, places around the world treat history differently than other subjects. The ways we deal with uncomfortable topics include suppressing, not learning, and biasing others. Continue reading “A Very Different Funeral (for Deng Xiaoping)”
We are in an early transition period of omniscience. We are transitioning from some personal actions that are recorded only through our memories to many events being recorded, re-playable, and shareable. By “personal actions” I mean anything from what content you consume to where you go to how you act. By “re-playable and shareable” I mean that some device or system collects data that can be stored for any length of time and then easily sent to others to observe.
Continue reading “The Emergence of Omniscience (Part 1 – Images)”
When I started this project to learn about unintended consequences, my first post to go viral (top page of Hacker News) was about the Cobra Effect. The Cobra Effect is another name for “perverse results,” or how when we want more (or less) of something, we sometimes instead create the conditions that produce the opposite of our intended outcomes. In that post I took three well-known examples of the cobra effect and invented antidotes for them.
Those well-known Cobra Effect examples all involved animals (cobras, rats, and pigs) and so my antidotes were based around the animals’ reproductive cycles. I made the claim that those animal examples had the solution built into the problem. Readers loved it (creative look at an old topic!) and readers hated it (you can’t stop the Cobra Effect!).
Since the Cobra Effect is a type of unintended consequence that keeps coming up, I decided to write part two. Continue reading “The Cobra Effect (Part 2)”
How much context is the right amount of context? When we necessarily choose a section — a clip — of a story on which to focus, how do we know we have chosen well?
How far out do we need to zoom? Further to that, what problems are caused by our choice of the clip?
Continue reading “The Clip (What’s the Right Amount of Context?)”
This is a continuation of the Universal Basic Income (UBI) discussion, mostly focused on the impact on entrepreneurship and personal choice of what work-related activities to pursue. (If you missed it, here’s UBI Part 1.)
As in the previous posts, I think we should pause in the face of large top-down decisions. While things can look good in theory, these large-scale changes often bring unintended consequences. How should we look at the systems we will replace? Might there be second-order effects in the case of UBI as well? What system changes will emerge?
What are some entrepreneurship-related unexpected results we could see from top-down UBI in the US? Continue reading “Universal Basic Income (Part 2)”
I’ve avoided discussing unintended consequences from one of the big policy debates of today — Universal Basic Income. Until now. This is a big topic so I preemptively titled this post as part one.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a general term that describes mostly government programs that distribute a periodic sum of money to citizens without otherwise considering their income. UBI has been proposed as everything from a tool to reduce poverty to a way to guard against the social impact of job loss caused by automation.
Each group outlines ways UBI could work a little differently. But many questions remain, including how will a particular country’s overall social system change? What are the second-order effects? Could UBI work in one place and not another? Could UBI work at one time and not another? Let’s first look at some UBI experiments and their initial pros and cons.
This is a piece about the loss of skills — even ones that are marks of great beauty and mastery — due to a change in environment.
It’s an extreme example but a fun one to think through: who would play a Stradivarius violin in interstellar space?
As a way to think through an extreme environmental (not meaning climate here) change, I make the assumption that in coming centuries, whether one, five, or 10, humans will become an interstellar or extrasolar species. That is, some part of humanity will cease living in this solar system, and will instead live on other planets, space ships, or other artificial homes. I count that assumption as the less interesting part of this post and instead focus on the unintended consequences caused by a dramatic change in environment.
Let’s think through what happens to a specific type of human mastery (and by extension, a framework to apply to many others) as humans make extreme choices (like leaving earth).
Q: Who will play the Stradivarius in interstellar space or on extrasolar planets? A: No one. Longer answer below. Continue reading “Who Plays the Stradivarius in Interstellar Space?”
Part of my writing is an exploration of themes in unintended consequences and second-order effects. Today’s post is a first introduction to the broad phenomenon of emergence. This topic is something I’ll return to again, so we’re just introducing the term today.
Emergence occurs where the parts of a system interact to form something different from what each part contributes independently. It’s a concept that takes some time to understand at a basic level, though emergence happens all around us. Some common examples include the way hydrogen and oxygen atoms combine to form water (very different in combination from the individual atoms), how water molecules combine to form drops (again different from individual molecules with properties like surface tension), and how drops of water combine to form rivers and oceans (different again with their currents and waves). There are many other examples, from individual birds (or fish) forming flocks (or schools) that move differently than the individuals would by themselves, to consciousness emerging from our physical brains… Continue reading “What is Emergence? (Part 1)”
When it comes to changes, especially in technology, it’s common for people to have beliefs for what should and should not be. But where do these beliefs come from? How easy are they to change? What makes one person, or generation, or place, have a problem with something new, while another sees nothing wrong?
Where do these differences lead to second-order effects? How can we be aware of these effects and guard against them when we see new tech?
I believe that reflecting on these questions will help us figure out where there are opportunities to benefit. This is the start of exploration of this topic. Continue reading “Against the Natural Order of Things (Tech Change)”
I tend to stay away from current events in writing about unintended consequences, but I’m weighing in on the recent college admissions scandal. After all, I’m a professor at the school with the most involvement. And the story isn’t really all that new. But it might play out differently than you expect.
tl;dr Is college too expensive? Short answer: yes. Longer answer: it depends. Point of the post: it will get more expensive. Continue reading “College Admissions Scandal”