Joop,
Well I guess it means getting used to the question. It really is hard
not to take familiar things for granted. There are lots and lots of
things which get into trouble from uncontrolled growth. I thought I’d
get more of a response. Growth in most systems begins as a run-away
process, like fire, and a sign of lacking either external or internal
limits is something that grows so fast that it blows itself out, kills
its host or rips apart and stops functioning. It’s also called
‘overshoot’.
‘Good’ bombs are designed to consume all their explosive, and bad bombs
scatter their parts before the ignition is complete. Some of the ones
I made as a kid were that way. Sometimes when you strike a match it
starts off with a bang that blows the match out. There are lots of
species, generally in what’s called the ‘r-selected’ group, that
multiply furiously, like locusts and grasshoppers, way beyond
sustainable population limits, as a general practice. They die back in
the extreme, rest a little and try getting to infinity again, and again.
There’s the growth of human populations among people who don’t have a
habit of learning, who see their self interest in having large families,
expediting it to make them more secure. They multiply toward the point
of making their lives quite insecure for exploding numbers of reasons
when they hit the wall of confusion and disorder at the end. There’s
also cancer and all the other diseases that kill their host by
uncontrolled growth. Cancer isn’t smart. It’s only definition of
good is multiplication, which is bad for it.
Generally the economists and businessmen of the last couple centuries
have thought there would be no limit to economic growth because the
earth and our imaginations were thought to be limitless, and so our only
definition of good became multiplying wealth. I’m one of what seems to
be a considerable majority of global systems thinkers who expect the
limits of economic growth to be exceedingly hazardous for us. Why the
people driving the growth toward overshoot and collapse, some of the
most aggressive learners on the planet, are not aware of what’s
happening seems to have to do with competitive advantage. They’re
absorbed in a game, and there’s no one to tell them how it ends.
With a global consensus on where to draw the line, and there is one, we
could change that, but it’s not likely to happen.
You could add to the list lots of other things. It’s a very broad
phenomenon. Anything that ‘gets out of control’ generally can be
traced back to excessive multiplication of what was originally well
ordered and stable. Party’s get out of control sometimes, for example,
as to arguments. Some people, well probably most people some times
anyway, get pleasure out of skirting the edge of control and ‘playing
dangerous’. One thing I’ve never figured out is where chain letters
go. They multiply explosively, but there must be some sort of message
that builds up as they spread that ‘this is not real’ and they probably
collapse abruptly and vanish at their largest point of expansion.
Growth is also the process by which everything that becomes stable gets
its start. Things that are going to end up reaching and holding a
higher level of development do something different. Finding that
difference is really the question. We need to find useful and
practical ways to enable self-control for things that are vital to us
and seem to be heading beyond.
Does that help?
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
explorations: www.synapse9.com
>From: Joop van de Swaluw
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 7:19 AM
To: pfh@synapse9.com
Subject: Grow.
Hello Phil,
Interesting question. But I don’t fully understand what you mean. There
are many systems which can determine the rates of growth. Your bank will
tell you how your capital will grow, the same as insurance companies do.
But they really don’t care about if your money will grow; they only want
your money to re-invest again so the bank can profit from your money.
The Pentagon expected that only 1000 soldiers would die in Irak, now the
total is 3000+. By the birth of your son son you were told that he
would become 6+ feet tall but he only managed to grow 5 feet 8 inches
tall. There are many other examples to mention, but I don’t know what
you really mean! All the best Joop.
>>
from Phil to Pianka group,
Can anyone offer other examples of growth systems that get into trouble
from being unable to control their own limits? People don’t seem to
understand how the best of intentions lead human systems to overshoot,
so looking at natural ones might help us understand the problem.
Here’s an interesting one that can’t be studied in detail. It was a
long time ago and this is all the data there is, a plankton species
transition that went through overshoot and partial collapse 4 or 5 times
as it evolved from one to the other…!
http://www.synapse9.com/G.tumida.pdf