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The illusion of conrol, a conferrence in Sweeded in May
Thoughts about the illusion of control.
We tend to think of systems as opening out with more and more consequences with time. Human activity weaves the web of inner connections that are increasingly filling up the entire space of human possibility until we run into the brick wall, a little like the bacteria in an agar, agar solution eating and breeding until they run up against the glass rim of the dish. It Is the difference between us all standing in a circle and us all standing in a circle with locked elbows. The resulting structure is impervious to action. A society of increasingly interconnected relationships is like that.
It just might be that all human activity is web weaving, which constrains us like the mile-wide nets that are used to fish the bottom of the ocean, our own activity traps us.
My impression is that most system thinkers are rather conventional in their vocabulary. In a seminar at INET on. Myth and Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces. we thought to try it and what we came up with was that the economy is devouring the earth, and the new heroes, the thoughtful economists, must go out and slay that Dragon.
The West goes from startups to rapidly expanding un-inclusive circles of activity that rapidly produce a few rich who have no goals beyond more profit. whereas China has gone from the initial activity of broadly expanding activity intertwined with broadly rising income. This produced a situation somewhat like that in the United States, but with better distribution. China goes on to a cleaning up project of coping with the corruption both societies have experienced with rapid development and China further extends inclusion, thereby creating a virtuous arrow for the future.
Two. Quotes from a paper that are terrific systems perceptions:
The Chinese have yet to codify lessons from system reform into something that would resemble a Washington Consensus,
Today, the world has 8 billion population and the 1 billion rich West is struggling to persuade the 7 billion Rest that we should work together on climate change.