sustainability/failure-of-scale.html
Topical outline
1. Perceptions of time
2. Pulsing time
3. Importance of scale
a. difficulty of working across scales
b. failure to account for scale
4. complexity and collapse
NOTES from redbook
2005.04.09
managing threshold systems
economics fails because it tries to put interchangable values across very different scales
there are distinct values that go with different scales
size
number -classical economics values scarcity
contemporary ideas show the value of sharing and participation (fax and network value)
time
discount reate - something will be cheaper beasue we can replace its current value with economic growth rate
natural capital growth rate is zero
inherent uniqueness of long term processes
2005.04.10
Graedel and Allensby
discount rate A = V e ^-(1-i)*t = V* (1-i)^-t
provides "incentive to use resources as soon as possible"
2005.04.17
Article in Technology Review about decision making and time
brains are "wired" to make decisions on short time differently than on long term
McClure et al Science October 15
what would an embodied metaphor be for this split personality?
The TR articlae also says that the theory of efficient markets are being replace by adaptive markets
Adaptive markets ...
Lo
Journal of Portfolio Management, 30th anniv. issue, 2004
links to:
Bateson - mismatch of nature and human mind
precautionary principle using long term vision
2005.07.14
collapse across scales
over-simplifiicity leaves room for unintended (bad) consequences
2005.07.15
discount rate
Is there an appropriate limit to growth rate or power input
so that it doesn't overwhelm the natural powers (Adams)
or eliminatge landscape for cooperativity in the future
Do civilizations collapse when "economists" evolve. Simple tools that discount and homogenize.
2005.08.14
infinite substitutability
How do you study the self-organizing characteristics of networks, that might be related to patterns that promote sustainability.
ascendency, feedback, health/beauty, multiple scales such as fast-slow
2005.08.21
Along the idea of how homogenization of the environment decreases its function, a predictable and linear growtrh rate leads to the homogenization of the future.
I wonder if there is any evidence that societies that "pulse" are more sustainable than those that try to stay stable?
example 1: Italy - see the book reference in Collander (Putnam, R.D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Traditions in modern Italy.
example 2: Easter Island - cultural elaboration
social learing creates unique value
"value" comes from within system from many trials
look for evidence of the stuff from self-organization with ascendent values
most management results into decreased resiliency
Collapse is caused by not realizing that the future will include pulses and from the fundamental misconception that time is linear and constant.
Miranda Berely-Whittemore 2005. The effects of light.
time isn't linear, it happens in patches
metaphor of a ??? causes from the interaction between humans and natureHarrison and Huntington 2000
pg 299 time orientation of cultures progressive cultures emphasize the future
2005.08.25
what if time is not linear?
constant discount rate would tend to warp the value of things
example: short term and long term bonds are the economic "traffic lights"
how do people thinkg about time
Wharf - psycho linguist
Dorothy Bryant The Kin of Ata are waiting. PS 3552.R878 .K5
failure in scale in economics
Niger famine
food cost too much
outside demand for grainglobalization
Aharunda (sp?) Roy
2005.08.28
failure to atend to scale
2005.09.02
importance of scale
Levin - across scale
Heal pg 20
The analytical framework for studying sustainability should look at time paths that can emerg
limit cycles
chaotic attractors
interation between economic variables
2005.09.03
Nadeau 2003
The wealth of nature
Why do we coordinate activities that are so destructive
How should we coordinate these to e sustainable
it depends on the relationship between whole and parts
????.??.??
Odum and Odum
pg 79 "Pulsing prevails because operations taht pulse transform more energy than those at steady state"
pulsing was one theory for the Maya Civilization
M. Harris 1977
Cannibals & Kings
discussion about how low energy restoration after downside of pulse
Heal's work migh contradict that (? what does this mean ?)
no path to the green golden rule
The green golden rule is "Do unto the Earth as you would have it do unto you."
http://www.faith-commongood.net/greenrule/index.asp
Nadeau
pg 80 "Absurd idea that market systems exist in a domain that is separate ... form other human activities.
"Appeals to blatantly unscientific assumptions about part-whole relationsips" are used to legitimate authority of WTO
pg 125 trying to value the environment
"the black box of human subjectivity is opened and economic decisions are examined based on individual criteria of rational decision making.
there is an infinite regress into the complexities of language and culture"
pg 145 "markets and price mechanisms in neoclassical economics are such that they cannot create appropriate incentive structures to achieve the goal of a sustainable global environment."
2005.09.17
Orr
Urban environment connect to an "industrial" information stream, linear time and orthoganal
our minds were fashioned during the pleistocene
we have innate skills at dealing with resources but maybe not at identifying scarcity
many cultures don'e have words to deal with this
and we may have to connect to environment to remain sane
what we learn from the environment takes time - it's not a quick lesson
Aldo Leopold or Wendell Beryy call them "habits of mind"
Orr pg 205 Reg Morrison
species without foresight to percieve point at which we exceed
species operates at two scales but only percieves the short term
Homer-Dixon - there is an "ingenuity gap" the problems we create are greater than our ability to solve them
2005.10.02
Reed 1996
time to contact
when negative acceleration is a factor
can lead to an overestimate in the time to contact
"may deviate from what is optimal or efficient"
educators special role is to re-educate people toward a sustainable civilizaiton
people need to be retrained because evolution has ingrained certain perception time scales. Economists work on these incorrect scales rather than retraining the agents.
2005.10.08
It is very difficult to maintain a sense of time.
years
what was at point X 2 or 5 years ago
it goes out of our memory
log time scale
inaccessibility of long times compared to space
walk 3 km hr^-1
bike 15-20
drive 100
fly (commercial)
but it's also easy to spend more travel (across a continent in 5 hours)
human tasks take about 10 minutes
log scale 1 min
10 min
2 hrs
24 hrs
week
season/quarter/term
yearlong term time perception is especially problematic with humans
developmental changes affect (effect) perception and happen faster than long term changes in the environment
self - child to adolescent to young adult to adult to parent
parent - watches child's development
post parent years may be most stable for observing the world
2005.12.03
Cultural views of time
Do cultures have a view of time as pulsing or discontinuous?
Bali - cyclical time
African - from Harrison and Huntington
pg 69-70
focuses on repeating the past
honor ancestors -progressive cultures have a future orientation
2005.12.05
Cultural views of time
Hall - monochronic vs. polychronic
past present future
Americans are near future
Asians are far future
Mexico/Latin past and fatalistic
Wolfgan Sachs - Wuppertal Institute
"American psyche is at grave odds with realistic environmental constraints"
2005.12.27
Complexity and collapse
There seems to be a controversy: does over complexity lead to collapse (Tainter) or is complexity required to deal with resource limitation that accompanies society growth? (ref Sawyer)
Antona et al 1998
Multi-agent systems and systems based simulations
James S. Sichmam - Springer
claim 1: it could be there are types of complexity that are bad and good.
high overhead complexity
but if the internal transactions are not rewared could lead to cannibalizing (ghosting out) the center and core
or
claim 2: metaphors aren't sufficient and the agents try to force a steady state equilibrium rather than be prepared for pulsing