Russell Huntley forwarded an article from ZeroHedge, prompting the following question.
With a declining innovation premium, will innovation only be able to exist as "open source"?
Wrong, question, really. This is just a belated restatement of Walter Shewhart's famous axiom about the statistics of complex systems.
"The highest cost, by far, in any complex system, is the cost of coordination." Walter Shewhart
The inescapable corollary was considered so trivially obvious that it was left unstated by Shewhart, Deming, Shingo, Boyd and the entire statistical process management field: "The highest return, by far, in any complex system, is the return on coordination."
That's simple system dynamics. Call it auto-catalysis if you want, but the simplicity of the logic remains the same. What's the innovation premium on writing the US Constitution, going off the gold std in 1933, or launching NASA?
With a steady source of uneducated beginners, however, it's absolutely necessary to restate the obvious, every day. Yes, it's rather comical to see how it takes these ZH guys to catch on, but they simply reflect the average situational awareness of students coming out of our schools. Face it, 99% of the electorate is about 4 decades behind logic, just in the field of computer software alone.
The innovation premium has always been this way! For about 3.5 billion years, just for life on planet earth!
It's called optimal "recombination" - quite literally
ZH is just defining "return" as personal return - to components in a supposedly organized system - in the form of personally hoarding static assets. Once they grow up enough to recognize the far greater return as group return-on-coordination, they've at least approached the logic of primeval biology. Social species invented alternate hoarding strategies: distributed hoarding of dynamic assets, i.e., the methods for tapping return on coordination. That's how social species and organized teams leave Libertarian hermits in the dust. EVERY organized system is based on the principle of optimizing recombination. Every coach or instructor tries to teach the value of teamwork, but apparently mostly in entertainment areas like sports, music, dance & drama. Once grown up, of course, we also practice organized war.
Sheesh!
Something is terribly wrong with our education system. Are we purposely TRYING to dissociate? Or is distributed situational non-awareness just a coincidental byproduct of growth in numbers?
We better hope that that temporary group-clumsiness post rapid group-growth is a transient phenomenon, or else we'll find ourselves a cliff to clumsily fall off of.
This is not so different from any adolescent going through a growth spurt, and getting clumsier before they can get agile again. The only difference between one growing adolescent and one growing nation is that growing systems, including human cultures, are ALWAYS going through a continous growth spurt. Subsequently, they are ALWAYS desperately trying to re-establish group agility, and keep it within shouting distance of group growth.
This ain't rocket science, just simple system dynamics. There's no reason why every kid shouldn't have completely absorbed this by age 10, as their fall-back habit.
The innovation premium has always been this way! For about 3.5 billion years, just for life on planet earth!
It's called optimal "recombination" - quite literally
ZH is just defining "return" as personal return - to components in a supposedly organized system - in the form of personally hoarding static assets. Once they grow up enough to recognize the far greater return as group return-on-coordination, they've at least approached the logic of primeval biology. Social species invented alternate hoarding strategies: distributed hoarding of dynamic assets, i.e., the methods for tapping return on coordination. That's how social species and organized teams leave Libertarian hermits in the dust. EVERY organized system is based on the principle of optimizing recombination. Every coach or instructor tries to teach the value of teamwork, but apparently mostly in entertainment areas like sports, music, dance & drama. Once grown up, of course, we also practice organized war.
Sheesh!
Something is terribly wrong with our education system. Are we purposely TRYING to dissociate? Or is distributed situational non-awareness just a coincidental byproduct of growth in numbers?
We better hope that that temporary group-clumsiness post rapid group-growth is a transient phenomenon, or else we'll find ourselves a cliff to clumsily fall off of.
This is not so different from any adolescent going through a growth spurt, and getting clumsier before they can get agile again. The only difference between one growing adolescent and one growing nation is that growing systems, including human cultures, are ALWAYS going through a continous growth spurt. Subsequently, they are ALWAYS desperately trying to re-establish group agility, and keep it within shouting distance of group growth.
This ain't rocket science, just simple system dynamics. There's no reason why every kid shouldn't have completely absorbed this by age 10, as their fall-back habit.
3 comments:
ST wrote to me:
"We have, atop our society and nation and world, a rentier class to whom about 90% of all profits from productivity and innovation flow.
What possible interest or value could they see in raising a generation of cooperators, team players, system-thinkers?
Hence our educational system, and out mass media, both of which tend to generate citizens whose deepest inward vision for themselves is to join the super wealthy themselves someday. Perhaps through the lottery, or paying basketball or baseball, or working on Wall Street, or rap music or something. Everyone is trying to make it to the top all by themselves, thus guaranteeing almost no one will.
The easiest thing in the world would be to see to it that everyone had food, a roof, a bed, medical care, and as much education as they could stomach. We have the wealth and resources to do this five or six times over. But for the rentier class, the hoarders of fiat wealth, we would already have done it."
Return on coordination is wildly in the rentier's own interest as well. It's called evolution and Adaptive Rate. Problem is, literally, that most of them simply don't see it .. plus there's more than a steady trickle who do, but simply Do Not Care. Too many of those we prematurely admire as "entrepreneurs" and "politicians."
~1 to 3% sociopaths out of 315 million, or 7 billion, makes a LOT of sociopaths
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
Part of the solution will always be tightening the tolerance limits on our own education and development methods. Google OBT&E, and start promoting it and similar coordinatede feedback, before it's too late.
Roger, they are parasites, and history reveals how they eventually kill the host, that is, their society.
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