Thoughts…
Random bits of what I’m thinking about…
Systems: global vs. local optima
Why are so many things broken?
- Financial systems
- Proof: Government, corporate, personal debt
- Food & farming systems
- Proof: animals have to be given antibiotics because our methods farming foment diease
- Corporations & corporate management
- Proof: Many of the largest industrial and financial companies in the United States collapsed
- Governments
- Proof: making trillions of dollars in long-term committments (social security, Medicaid, Medicare) w/o providing a means to pay for them (or, in the case of social security, corrupting the means that was put in place)
Q: What is the root–or a root–cause?
A: Optimize the local (local optima) rather than the global. Serving ourselves rather than serving one another.
Only global optimization results in sustainable systems.
This is related to…
Debt…
What kinds of debt can we incure?
- Financial debt: earn $100, spend $110
- Health debt (aka, sickness): ‘enjoying’ smoking cigarettes and suffering with emphysema debt
- Technical debt: In software development, making decisions to speed things along now that will result in more work later (e.g., bug fix, refactoring, re-writing, etc.)
- Relationship debt: Using people rather than building them up.
- Time debt: wasting time instead of investing it.
Q: What do these things have in common?
A: Short-term verse long-term thinking and acting. Giving up what we want most (long, healthy life) for what we want now (bad-for-us-but-great-tasting-food).
