Geological forces move mountains, but now people do bigger things faster. Bigger is not always better. Continue reading
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Blog 16. The Money Feedback Loop
Only profits?
Business fails without profits. Profits make business work. But should business be concerned only with profits? Milton Friedman, winner of a Nobel Prize in economics, said yes in an article that has now become famous. Continue reading
Blog 15. The B Team Has Plan B for Profits, People, and the Earth
Frustrated by change?
As Blog 1 discussed, society is changing faster every year, with the rate of change driven by the accumulation of prior changes. My frustrated colleagues issue complaints like this:
- The print and broadcast news media are becoming slanted because they are controlled by a few companies with political agendas.
- Commercial TV now fills 30% of its time with advertising.
- The news is no longer investigative journalism, but panders to spectacular events and personality displays.
- Politicians focus on making the other side look bad rather than solving problems.
- Blame and fear instead of facts and analysis recently dominate government.
- CEOs make tens of millions while outsourcing jobs.
- As soon as they are elected, congressmen invest half their time in fund-raising and politicking for the next election.
- Big businesses like oil and corporate farming get subsidies.
Blog 13. Models and modeling
What’s modeling?
A model is an abstraction, a physical abstraction of an object or a conceptual abstraction of a situation. An architect might use a cardboard physical model to illustrate a proposed building. Conceptual models can represent complex systems like population dynamics, economics, or schooling fish. By “complex systems” I mean the things described in Blog 2 and Blog 3, situations with many independent agents governed by nonlinear rules of interaction among the agents and their surroundings. A conceptual model often takes the form of a set of equations with which the system can be simulated by computer, thereby becoming a “computer model.” Note I said simulated by computer, not solved by computer. Continue reading
Blog 10. Economics and Carrots and Social Security
Political arguments.
Political arguments whirl regarding the solvency of Social Security, the enduring recession, the inability of congress to pass a budget, and the monetary loans intended to postpone the collapse of Spain and Greece. The arguments don’t address the sisgnificant question. In the absence of war or pestilence, why do economic systems collapse even though the physical methods to produce food, clothing, and shelter exist unchanged?
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Blog 7. Briefcase-carrying bureaucrats
A friend wrote, “…I have soured on what can really be done. The EPA and the state Environment Department are easily bought out… .” Sounds like a rabid tree-hugging environmentalist. Actually, I think he votes with the conservative cause.
Citizens are everywhere discouraged, feeling that their governmental agencies and the people in those agencies lack integrity. “Briefcase-carrying bureaucrats” Continue reading
Blog 6. The RCRA exemption, an emergent phenomenon?
The RCRA exemption: an example.
RCRA (reckra) exemption? Sounds like the Shawshank Redemption. But this is no movie. It’s a story with few evil villains and handsome heroes, but plenty of villainy and heroic struggle. It’s an illustration of how a self-destructive behavior emerges in our supposedly-free society. Continue reading
Blog 3. Complex Systems—including you, me, and weather
A social fix = new regulation (nonlinear rule) = new problem?
In our society, we create new laws (e.g. Medicare) by legislation as done by congress, state legislatures, county supervisors, or town councils. We create new regulations (speed limits and plumbers’ license requirements) through agencies who get their authority from higher legislation. Each law or regulation is intended to fix a previous problem, and sure enough, each law or regulation generates at least one new problem. Continue reading