Steve,
One of the consequences of using complexity babble is that it simply describes the behavior of the system, rather than accusing any one part of the system for that behavior. So the question boils down to, "How do we fill the basin?" My favorite way is to tax the bejeezus out of the rich and use it for education, etc., of the poor, because it nearly fulfills my particular sense of morality. (Actually, we would probably need the guillotines, for THAT purpose.) But others may think of less vindictive ways to reach the goal of continually filling the basin. You don't want to make me dictator. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 10:19 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Openness amplifies Inequality? Nick - Merle, I am sure we CAN'T figure it out without your help as a "emergentist". The damage done by discrimination is a great example of non-zero-sum losses. The problem is similar to the problem of inequality of opportunity generally. The attractor is for the children of better-off people to be better-off and for better-off children to become better-off adults and have better-off children. As an example I give you the Wood-Gormely [elementary] school here in Santa Fe, which has a richer educational program because the parents throw resources and time at it. And, I assume, simply because it has an aura of a place where Parents give a damn. Thus, despite being a Public School, it becomes by virtue of these investments of time and resources and energy, a "better" public school. To deprive all parents of the possibility of investing in the school their kid goes to is to deprive all schools of something essential; but the possibility of such investment leads inevitably to the genealogical flow of social benefits. Which is why we have to revive the notion of social Democracy in this poor sad country of ours. FRIAMMERS could be crucial to such a discussion, if only by virtue of having the conceptual tool of the "attractor" at our disposal. In complexity terms, what is it that social democracies do? Is it basin filling? And "preferential attachment" and "canalization" and "coevolution on fitness landscapes", et cetera... I was impressed that the original author in question, Astra Taylor even *referenced* complexity science topics. I'm not of the belief that sprinkling complexity science terms onto a problem will magically remove it's stains, BUT I do believe that many real-world, everyday challenges in the world *can be* and often *must be* modeled as the non-linear systems that they are, rather than fitting them to a simple linear system, then drawing totally undermotivated and usually bogus conclusions based on those models. When usually we hear "the Rich get Richer", it rings our bell of unfairness and abuse of power rather than being accepted as a truism about positive feedback (even in linear systems) and preferential attachment and canalization... While the rhetoric of equality politics may have been critical to break over from the old cultural hegemony into a new basin of attraction, I don't think that the challenge remains making the point that "power corrupts" over and over again, but rather seeking a dynamic which has the properties we (think that?) we desire. "Be careful what you wish for" being an entirely other question, I fear. Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron> " is a cautionary tale of one ultimate consequence of linear, brute force attempts at achieving "equality". "You Don't Always Get What You Want" - Stones - Steve
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