Some systems look like one-way roads. Here I’ll call one-way system roads those which seem inclined to move in one direction, even if the endpoint is difficult to predict, and where it is difficult to return to the earlier state. In some cases an intervenor slows movement down the one-way road or lengthens the road itself.
Let’s look at depletion of forests to make charcoal, the search for oil, the possibility of world wars, opioid and social media addiction, and presidential election cycles.
Forests, Charcoal, Iron
1500s England had a growing problem: producing enough iron for horseshoes, nails, building materials, and weapons. The demand for those items created another problem: collecting fuel to produce the heat needed to smelt the iron.
That fuel largely came from charcoal, which was made by slowly cooking wood in a low oxygen kiln. That cooking removes water and volatiles and produces charcoal that burns at higher temperatures than wood and produces little smoke, which were qualities needed to keep impurities out of the iron.
With rising demand for iron, people cut large areas of forest to make charcoal. That demand for charcoal outstripped tree regrowth and started to impact availability of wood for building houses and ships. The growth in demand made the volume of trees — an otherwise renewable resource just needing sunlight, good growing conditions, and time — behave like a nonrenewable resource that the country might eliminate in the short-term.
The problem became severe enough that there were multiple attempts by local populations to prevent deforestation through top-down intervention. The 1548 Sussex “Portsmens’ Complaint” appealed to the king to stop iron blast furnaces from operating.
But it wasn’t until years later, when the coking process was developed as an alternative to charcoal, that the need for wood decreased. By then, large areas of forest had already been cut.
Forests: A renewable resource that under high demand for wood behaved like a non-renewable resource. Intervenor: The king or local elimination of suitable trees.
Oil, Fuel, Manufacturing
A different type of one-way march occurred with oil extraction. As petroleum became more important as a fuel source for vehicles, electricity generation, and to manufacture products, people prophesied the end of oil multiple times. While this seems similar to the forest depletion example, oil extraction behaved differently. From my article on the Self-Defeating Prophecy:
“The end of oil as a resource has been predicted many times over the past century, including 1909, 1937, 1945, 1966, 1972, 1980, and 2007. Each time, the end was paired with attempts to move industrial use to other fuel types. But with the exception of a few price shocks, the adjusted price of oil only slightly trends upward over the last 70 years. This, in spite of demand that definitely trends upward over the same period. Where is the end?”
In the case of oil, knowledge of the resource constantly expanded through discoveries and new extraction technology such as now used in fracking. Oil is a limited resource but its volume is so much greater than demand that we operate as though it is unlimited (as with the charcoal section I’m not considering effects of pollution and climate change).
Oil: a non-renewable resource that behaves like a renewable resource. Intervenor: new discoveries and production tech.
WWI to WWII
Another march forward was that of legacy warfare to modern warfare. The transition to military technologies first deployed in WWI had massive unintended consequences. A problematic peace followed, with German reparations, financing national arms industries, development of larger militaries, as well as other effects like carving up countries in the Middle East. Many terms of the peace led to an even bigger war just a generation later.
If the future state is inevitably another world war, is it better to have one earlier rather than later? The (terrible) argument for an earlier war is that the more time passes, the more likely it is for new destructive technologies to be developed. Imagine WWII fought years later when all sides might have developed atomic weapons but might not yet have developed ways to avoid using them, as with later Cold War nuclear détente.
The direct appreciation for how harmful WWI and WWII were and how quickly situations can spin out of control led to the creation of the United Nations. More cynically, major conventional wars evolved into smaller unconventional and sometimes proxy wars.
WWI and WWII: “An armistice for 20 years” led to another major war in a generation. Intervenors: Organizing bodies including the League of Nations and United Nations.
Opioid and Social Media Addiction
Opioids and social media present more one-way roads. Both have at their core good intentions: for example, pain relief and information.
But things end up differently when pain relief turns into opioid addiction. With opioid addiction we have the positive feedback loops of pharma rep bonuses, the reps’ influence on doctors (to prescribe OxyContin in a famous case), the addictive timing properties of how the pills are administered, the formation of pill mills and pill resale value, all leading to people in a state worse than the pain that got them started down the one-way road.
With social media addiction, information spread can turn into consuming biased accounts, quickly spreading misinformation, and even intentional disinformation being created to sway opinion. Social media functions as a game with notifications, constant updates, and other behavioral tricks that keep people returning even as they believe they spend too much time on those platforms.
Opioid addiction: Usage starts for pain abatement, continues because of addiction. Widescale use results in lower social outcomes. Intervenors: Social and government action.
Social media addiction: Usage started for connections and information, continued because of addiction. Widescale use results in more extreme social outcomes, spread of misinformation, disinformation. Intervenors: Few.
Presidential Election Cycles
In the case of political campaigns we have another one-way systems road.
In a 1958 interview with Mike Wallace, Aldous Huxley mentioned that presidential candidates were starting to be coached by advertising executives on style.
Wallace: “Do you think that men like Eisenhower, Stevenson, Nixon… were trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public?”
Huxley: “No… But they were being advised by powerful advertising agencies who were making campaigns of a quite different kind than what had been made before. And I think we should see all kinds of new devices coming into the picture.”
Presidential elections come every four years. We should expect that tactics continue to evolve, including the best techniques from advertising. That’s certainly happening in this campaign, as it has in campaigns of the past generation.
Presidential election cycles: These proceed every four years but change in tactics. Intervenors: Few with influence related to the tactics used until future regulation may have some impact.
Consider
- Are you on a one-way road? At what speed are you moving down the one-way road?
- Who are the intervenors? Do they have the capability to change the direction? How fast do they act?
- Which one-way road have endpoints and which continue, seemingly without end?