So I wrote about “communal-tragedies” , and other obstacles-in-communal-living, but I’d like to condense it all to one or a few root problems/solutions, from which the others all originate. Maybe that’s my scientific reductionist tendency. Or maybe it would be useful to prioritize these. It does feel like I’ve seen many ICs which repeat the same mistakes that cause them to break apart, or lose their potential as radical alternatives to the mainstream, either not attracting new people, or having a high turnover, with many people getting dissatisfied and leaving (while new ones come in). Elinor Ostrom already came up with 8 principles to avoid the tragedy of the commons, so do we need more principles?
Perhaps what I’m looking for is one or a few meta-principles to give a chance of success. Maybe the previous principles (including Ostrom) can be reduced to some higher level ones?
0. Ostrom These address mainly how to not overexploit common resources (land, people, houses, etc), which is also related to how not to be destroyed by free riders (or those who are looking out for their own individual and family good more than the community's).
1. Dynamic self organization. For example, many of the “tragedies” were about going too far in one direction or another and failing to achieve a balance. Living systems seem to be good at finding balance (homeostasis), and when they break down it is extremely difficult to maintain that balance from outside, as any doctor will tell you (or as I have experienced with my dad when he was dying, and many with serious illness or injury). So we need communities that allow for evolutionary processes to seek all these different balances, within individuals, and within the community composed of different individual needs. A rigid vision or dogmatic individuals will not allow for this to happen. Or maybe sometimes rigidity is warranted, when foresight says “this way lies disaster”, but not based on dogma. I’ve seen too much rigidity at the Brotherhood of Christ and other conservative religious communities like the 12 tribes or Bruderhof, and even the Possibility Alliance.
One of the main evolutionary mechanisms is competition, which happens both internally and externally. People inside the community must have a bit of friendly competition (too much would lower the community's fitness relative to the rest of the world) with each other in order to improve their contribution. And the community must have some competition with the outside word (and other communities) in order to figure out how to optimally deal with free riders.
Another (more recently evolved mechanism) is forsight/wisdom, the ability to learn from the past and somewhat predict the future based on different scenarios. Elders are usually better at this than youngsters, especially in their field of expertise.
In general the ability to have feedback from both other community members and outsiders/nature is what makes it possible to adapt and improve.
2. Isolation. Not complete informational isolation, because the community needs to grow or multiply, and at least in the beginning it is not even possible to not need stuff and services from the mainstream (also see the next principle). More about being able to produce and use what people need in a sustainable way. Otherwise, the unity and interdependence is diluted when people give energy in the form of jobs or money or getting their needs met from the mainstream. Emotional and cultural interdependence may not be enough to keep people together. Economic interdependence is needed as well. Not only is interdependence diluted without enough isolation, but the mainstream acts like a gravitational well, pulling the community towards it in many subtle ways, because the mainstream too is a living system that tries to maintain itself. This principle is also general to life, using cell membranes to achieve a unity, an energetic and informational focus that can synergyze with homeostasis (previous principle). Most communities I’ve seen are not isolated enough and end up mainstream-like. Either they don’t value isolation, or they don’t have the skills to achieve it. One of the Ostrom principles addresses having a clear boundary.
3. A mythical orientation that is striving for something that is not quite present in the community. Life is an open system needing something outside (mythically sometimes, not just physically) of the organism or ecosystem to strive towards. There is the need for more people (from outside, since we have an overpopulation problem) in order to grow and multiply, but there is also a need for inspiration. I think Twin Oaks, Eastwind, and Dancing Rabbit have lost their mythical orientation.
4. An orientation of the people towards the community, willing to consider what is good for the community, not just what is good for themselves as individuals and families. Even better if they want to achieve some sort of tribal consciousness. Most secular communities lack this, most religious or spiritual ones have it. And most liberal people are worst at it than conservative people. This principle is important to avoid the community braking apart due to free loaders, an alternative to Ostrom principles, but probably not sufficient. Ostrom is probably also necessary in the range of 6-200 people. One way to encourage this orientation is to build trust and commitment. Besides engineering interdependence through commuity activities and economics, it is useful to have what sociologists call costly signalling (such as religious rites) that show how much members value being there, by doing things that are not easy.
5. An orientation of the community towards the individual and the family. Understanding that these subunits have their own needs, and tending to those needs. For example, individuals need to have some autonomy in their work, to feel productive and creative and appreciated for what they bring to the community, to have a sense of belonging to the community (and bigger forms of organization sometimes), to have good relationships with others in the community, to have good relationships with the natural world. Families need to feel like they have some autonomy with their children, and a sense of prioritizing members of the family at least emotionally.
A list of communities I’ve been at, been told about by people who have been there, or studied from history, along with which principle(s) they fail at (binary for now, later we can make it analog):
Dandelion (now defunct, a secular community in Ontario, Canada)0,2,5
Twin Oaks 2,3,4
Acorn 2,3
Eastwind 2,3,4
Cambia 2,5
Sikh community near Boston whose name I forgot 1,2
Bruderhof 1,2
12 Tribes 1,2
Possibility Alliance 0,2
Dancing Rabbit 2,3,4
Sandhill 2,3
Red Earth 2,4
Bear Creek 2,3,4
Skalitude 2,4
Kripalu 1,2,3,4
Earthaven 2,3,4
Wild Roots 2
Dancing Deer 1,2,3,4
Blue Heron 2,3,4
Vinelands 0,1,2,4, 5
ONeida 1,2
Amana 1,2
Brook Farm 1,2,4, 0
Camphill 1,2,5
East Lake Commons 1,2,3,4
Open Space Church 2,3,0
Ganas 2,3
Catholic Workers 0,1,2,5
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Monday, June 24, 2019
The Coordination Problem
What if we need to do something radically different than the status quo that requires the coordination of many people? There are several ways to coordinate people or cells or other parts into a coherent whole, each part with its own needs. The most common ones are persuasion, coercion, hierarchy, market (or evolutionary forces for biological systems in general), religion/ideology, rules and social norms.
There are costs to coordination sometimes. Whether the task at hand is building something, organizing an event, or sprouting a new economy. Liberals (including myself) are wary of giving up individual autonomy in favor of group security. They are wary of gurus that get corrupted by power and abuse their disciples. Liberals are also wary of advertisers trying to persuade people to buy a product. Conservatives are wary of governments trying to control people with too many laws. Nowadays everyone is wary of enslaving people or more generally coercing them to do something. And most people today don’t have patience for long dialectic discussions, where the two sides don’t initially agree. In modern day society we have minimized transaction costs and coordination in general. It still happens with cultural norms, government laws, and market mechanisms such as being paid, or even buying and selling. But in most of these cases people accept the costs because the benefits are not too distant in the future and they are more or less certain. It is no wonder then that people have found ways to try to evade coordination when the benefits are in the far future and/or uncertain. Here are some that I’ve come across.
The Mystic Evasion
God, or Spirit coordinates so we don’t have to. We can also avoid giving up our individuality if we align with God’s purpose, get out of the way, lose our egos/wills, etc.
Or, just meditate and introspect. And somehow the barn will get built, the economic network will magically sprout, the complex folk dance will be danced because from a place deep within, everyone can agree.
The problem with this view is that even if the ontology is roughly correct (it may be instead that we have a biological need to be part of a tribe, or something bigger than our egos), people still need to coordinate, because we are not puppets in the hands of a benevolent God. Historically, communities with this view have coordinated through a charismatic leader (who supposedly represents God), and/or some other hierarchy. The charismatic leader usually gets corrupted by power and abuses people in some way. Or he dies and people wake up as if from a dream wondering why they are there. Or the hierarchy stifles people's sense of spontaneity and creativity. It might have worked in the past, before the newfound sense of freedom ushered in by the industrial revolution and Enlightment (a rare moment where I praise the industrial revolution). Now totalitarian (meaning in all parts of life, not only work) hierarchy is not very popular.
Anther problem with the mystic evasions is spiritual bypass, where people do not want to admit that they have indvidual needs, because that would make them egoic. Isn't it possible to have individual needs, yet at the same time want the best for other beings? And not only in a quid pro quo way, or reciprocal altruism as the sociologists call it, but in genuine caring ways? Once we get beyond the dichotomy of selfishness and egolessness, it is possible to have conversations about how we can all get our needs met, or even sacrifice some of our own needs for others.
The problem with this view is that even if the ontology is roughly correct (it may be instead that we have a biological need to be part of a tribe, or something bigger than our egos), people still need to coordinate, because we are not puppets in the hands of a benevolent God. Historically, communities with this view have coordinated through a charismatic leader (who supposedly represents God), and/or some other hierarchy. The charismatic leader usually gets corrupted by power and abuses people in some way. Or he dies and people wake up as if from a dream wondering why they are there. Or the hierarchy stifles people's sense of spontaneity and creativity. It might have worked in the past, before the newfound sense of freedom ushered in by the industrial revolution and Enlightment (a rare moment where I praise the industrial revolution). Now totalitarian (meaning in all parts of life, not only work) hierarchy is not very popular.
Anther problem with the mystic evasions is spiritual bypass, where people do not want to admit that they have indvidual needs, because that would make them egoic. Isn't it possible to have individual needs, yet at the same time want the best for other beings? And not only in a quid pro quo way, or reciprocal altruism as the sociologists call it, but in genuine caring ways? Once we get beyond the dichotomy of selfishness and egolessness, it is possible to have conversations about how we can all get our needs met, or even sacrifice some of our own needs for others.
The Cornucopian Evasion
Machines can help us become independent of others, (except when there are only benefits and no costs, in which case we WANT to coordinate). The problem with this approach is that we are wired to need each other and without that constraint we become anomic (Durkheim’s term, roughly meaning alienated). Sociology research has shown that suicide rates are correlated with lack of social connection and constraint. Social psychology research has shown that the interdependence gained by producing for each other creates stronger social bonds and stronger character than the dependence on a market for consumption. And system theory research into emergence shows that consciousness itself depends on constraints such as being embedded in an intersubjective social system. Much of our values and sense of each other come from material interdependence, producing goods and services for each other, not from having these things produced by machines alone. This can be generalized to our connection to and coordination with nature. If we don’t need nature (e.g. because of machines), we feel disconnected from her and she does not coordinate with us, with such outcomes as floods, hurricanes, dust bowls, and loss of resources.
The Gandhian evasion
Lead by example. It only works when the project in question requires no coordination, only imitation, or at the next level of organization (see below). If I am able to grow some vegetables and 100 people imitate my strategies, it won’t help to build a barn, or dance a complex dance. If I protest, and a million others protest, it can get the British out of India, but it won’t help rebuild the village economy destroyed by the British Empire. Imitation can work at the next level however, once a village has been built, other villages can possibly imitate it. The village was not built by imitation/example—the coordination happened through some other means. Once it has been achieved, the coordination strategies can be copied.
The anarchist evasion
Things get ”self-organized”. This could be true in a sense, but it doesn’t mean “organized by magic”. It means organized without outside help. If one looks deeper at examples of self-organization, one always finds one of the mechanisms mentioned above. For cells organizing into a multi-cellular organism, beyond a certain level of complexity, there is a hierarchy mediated by the brain at the top (or other simpler structures) and levels of hormones and other signaling molecules. For people, if there is no hierarchy or outside direction, there are negotiations, consensus meetings, trade, etc. I think this can work well enough for tasks where everyone agrees on what is to be accomplished already, but I don’t know if it can work for a case where there are many ideas floating around and one must be chosen.
It would be good if we faced this head on instead of evading, and were willing to adopt one of the strategies above to coordinate for projects with far future and uncertain benefits, because they benefits might just be worth it. I'm thinking in particular about building a local economy/technology, and idea shared by the likes of Gandhi, Peter Maurin (founder of the Catholic Worker) and Schumacher. It's notsomething that can be led by example, it's not something that can be done by a bunch of homesteaders. It requires at least 100 people skilled in pre-industrial crafts and farming techniques. Coercion can be ruled out because there is too much individual freedom that is sacrificed. Persuasion is wasted on most people, given the Zeitgeist. Instead, it can be focused on one wealthy funder. Hierarchy and market forces (appealing to individual initiative and/or group fitness) can be used once the project is funded. I don’t consider it ethical to use people’s spiritual emotions to coordinate them. Rather, such emotions, of partaking in something greater than one’s self, can provide a glue once coordination has been achieved. So we form a non-profit, we pay people to develop their own skills and network with others, and then we see if this is selected for, but not in the capitalist global market. Instead we see if people can be happier this way than in the mainstream. How else could we coordinate people to do this? If you have any ideas, let me know.
The only coordination needs to happen on a family homestead. We need to find new ways of producing basic necessities more sustainably, with less labor and then trade with our neighbors for surplus. The problem with this is that it’s not a viable model but for a few people who can afford (or who can inherit) lots of land, while continuing to depend on the global economy for most other things but food and the labor that goes into building shelter. Also, though innovation is great, people had known how to produce food and shelter sustainably before the industrial revolution. So innovation in food production is less of a priority than networking people with already known technologies and skills.
The permaculture evasion
The only coordination needs to happen on a family homestead. We need to find new ways of producing basic necessities more sustainably, with less labor and then trade with our neighbors for surplus. The problem with this is that it’s not a viable model but for a few people who can afford (or who can inherit) lots of land, while continuing to depend on the global economy for most other things but food and the labor that goes into building shelter. Also, though innovation is great, people had known how to produce food and shelter sustainably before the industrial revolution. So innovation in food production is less of a priority than networking people with already known technologies and skills.
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Global warming can't be stopped within industrialism
These plots represent the fraction of
20 Gt carbon equivalent emission/year reductions target (from first reference) that can be reached with individual high impact actions (from second reference), starting with 2019, and going till 2030. The time evolution of the high impact actions are assumed to follow the logistic form:
f[t]=(Sum_over countries[population*impact per capita]/(1+Exp[a+b(t-2019)], a (unitless) is assumed to be 7 which
makes the initial adoption of high impact actions (except 1 less child, which will never happen except in places like china who value national stability over individual freedom) about 0.1% of population,
and 2 values of the rate of adoption b (unit=1/years) are shown: b=-0.5 and b=-1.0. We see that
we can’t reach the target no matter how fast the population gets infected, with just US, Australia,
Canada and the EU. For comparison, the AIDS epidemic has b=-0.8.
Other assumptions:
1. only the adult population matters. Children under 18 are either guaranteed to adopt high impact
actions or are compensated for by dying adults (all developed nations have pretty stable populations).
2. Third world is not going to make things worse with more population and energy and carbon intensive lifestyle
But, this is only individual action! What about government action? It doesn't help. Even if we combine the two, we still can't get to 2C. I am assuming that the drastic (and unrealistic, but let's be generous) "CO2e minimizing" scenario simulated in: https://us.energypolicy.solutions/scenarios/home# is correct, that the reduction predicted for the US is proportional to the impact*population ratio relative to US, Australia,
Canada and the EU combined from the first reference below, and that we can get separate gains from individual and govt action (which is not true, they're overlapping, but let's be generous and pretend like we are not double counting).
Here are the results:
There are also a bunch of suggestions for carbon sequestration, but if we actually do the numbers for say, acreage involved, cost involved, food sacrificed and risks due to GMOs we see that they are all evaporate on closer examination (some call it vaporware).
Given what the numbers say, it seems to me that the best response to our predicament is to not waste energy and time trying to stop global warming, but to spend all of our time and energy figuring out
1. What is the root problem where we messed up and
2. If I'm correct that the root problem is a system with insufficient local (in both time and space) feedbacks (which relies on global feedbacks like global warming, and peak oil), then we need to figure out how to build a system with sufficient local feedbacks. Most people won't adopt it, but if it's a better system, with a higher fitness in its local environment, the ones who don't will die out eventually (not because of global warming, but because they will be outcompeted by the adopters, who stop competing in the global economy), while the adopters will survive, and hopefully thrive.
The situation is similar to people who come up with perpetual motion machines. We don't have to inspect every one of these designs to know that they are not going to work, unless they somehow violate the first or second law of thermodynamics (which are pretty basic). Unless a technology, a policy, or some other intervention addresses how to have a culture with local feedbacks, we can disregard it as a waste of time. It's not like pre-industrial civilizations did not sometimes destroy themselves and a few other species, but they DID NOT IMPACT THE WHOLE GLOBE. Local feedbacks lead to environmentalism as a consequence, instead of an external intervention. Of course there are benefits to a global economy, such as global communications and increased efficiency of production, otherwise it would have never evolved. Perhaps we can trade off some of these benefits for the benefit of avoiding flooding, pestilence and famines? It's not clear to me how to do this without abandoning the industrial mode of production. Maybe we can just keep global communication and abandon global production/consumption? But communication has a material basis! Computers take a lot of energy and materials and so do servers. A compromise may be possible.
Of course I could be wrong, and it would be nice if someone showed me my error. Perhaps this is too complex to figure out if I'm right or wrong, and we need to try as many strategies as possible? I think this strategy-diversity is a great meta-strategy for random Darwinian mutations, but we can do better with our evolved capacity for reasoning and forethought. We can test some ideas in our heads and with computers before we try them in real life, and eliminate many of them thus. And then unite around the few strategies that remain, instead of dissipating our energies and wasting our time on the random meta-strategy.
There seems to be a general resistance to fundamental change, not surprisingly. Most people can't even conceive of an alternative to industrial production, despite the fact that our species has used other modes for most of its existence.
Here are a few analogies that are not useful:
1. we are going to get hit by an asteroid and we need to figure out how to blow it up. No--the asteroid in this case is not something external, we have created it and continue to create it with our industrial mode of production.
2. (This from Greta Thunberg) We have a child in the middle of a highway and we need to go save it from the cars and trucks. No--we are the child and we are the cars and trucks, by how we produce and consume. It is not something external.
Here is a useful analogy: We're on the Titanic and we just hit the iceberg. We can choose to stay on the ship till the last minute trying to fix it, or we can try to get on the lifeboats while there is still time, and maybe even redesign the boat so the same thing doesn't happen again.
Local feedbacks:
1. I have rain from my rain barrels. I need to take care of that water, filter it, store it away from sun and insects, keep it warm in winter and not waste it. I need to poop in something else besides water, since it is so precious. People who get city water waste it and pollute it (e.g. by pooping in it). The money feedback is too weak to do otherwise.
2. Our fields are plowed by horses (well not yet, but hopefully soon). I treat them well unlike the slaves that work in the tractor factory whom I know nothing about because they are too far removed from my grain.
3. I cut, split and stack my wood for the winter heat. I make sure that I do it from dead trees or replant trees so this heating can continue in future years. I have a relatively clean wood burning stove so I don't get lung cancer (and same for my friends and neighbors). I don't burn more than I need because it is too much work to process all that wood. The natural gas in my parents boiler might have unknown nasty effects on those that extract it, and on global warming. (I still use propane for much cooking because it is so much faster and more convenient in winter than using rocket stove.
4. I mass produce milk (not really, this is for illustration purposes). In order to stay competitive in the global market, I therefore use all kinds of machines, materials and energy that can have negative global consequences on people and nature. The negative (as well as positive, but this is non-sequitur) impacts/costs of the mass production are global (to others, in other places and to future generations), but the incentives/benefits (money) are here and now. In contrast if I have a cow and don't treat her well, use bad hygiene or bad pasture practices I feel the impact to myself, from my neighbors who drink the milk (or eat the cheese, or share the pasture) and pretty quickly.
The situation is similar to people who come up with perpetual motion machines. We don't have to inspect every one of these designs to know that they are not going to work, unless they somehow violate the first or second law of thermodynamics (which are pretty basic). Unless a technology, a policy, or some other intervention addresses how to have a culture with local feedbacks, we can disregard it as a waste of time. It's not like pre-industrial civilizations did not sometimes destroy themselves and a few other species, but they DID NOT IMPACT THE WHOLE GLOBE. Local feedbacks lead to environmentalism as a consequence, instead of an external intervention. Of course there are benefits to a global economy, such as global communications and increased efficiency of production, otherwise it would have never evolved. Perhaps we can trade off some of these benefits for the benefit of avoiding flooding, pestilence and famines? It's not clear to me how to do this without abandoning the industrial mode of production. Maybe we can just keep global communication and abandon global production/consumption? But communication has a material basis! Computers take a lot of energy and materials and so do servers. A compromise may be possible.
Of course I could be wrong, and it would be nice if someone showed me my error. Perhaps this is too complex to figure out if I'm right or wrong, and we need to try as many strategies as possible? I think this strategy-diversity is a great meta-strategy for random Darwinian mutations, but we can do better with our evolved capacity for reasoning and forethought. We can test some ideas in our heads and with computers before we try them in real life, and eliminate many of them thus. And then unite around the few strategies that remain, instead of dissipating our energies and wasting our time on the random meta-strategy.
There seems to be a general resistance to fundamental change, not surprisingly. Most people can't even conceive of an alternative to industrial production, despite the fact that our species has used other modes for most of its existence.
Here are a few analogies that are not useful:
1. we are going to get hit by an asteroid and we need to figure out how to blow it up. No--the asteroid in this case is not something external, we have created it and continue to create it with our industrial mode of production.
2. (This from Greta Thunberg) We have a child in the middle of a highway and we need to go save it from the cars and trucks. No--we are the child and we are the cars and trucks, by how we produce and consume. It is not something external.
Here is a useful analogy: We're on the Titanic and we just hit the iceberg. We can choose to stay on the ship till the last minute trying to fix it, or we can try to get on the lifeboats while there is still time, and maybe even redesign the boat so the same thing doesn't happen again.
Local feedbacks:
1. I have rain from my rain barrels. I need to take care of that water, filter it, store it away from sun and insects, keep it warm in winter and not waste it. I need to poop in something else besides water, since it is so precious. People who get city water waste it and pollute it (e.g. by pooping in it). The money feedback is too weak to do otherwise.
2. Our fields are plowed by horses (well not yet, but hopefully soon). I treat them well unlike the slaves that work in the tractor factory whom I know nothing about because they are too far removed from my grain.
3. I cut, split and stack my wood for the winter heat. I make sure that I do it from dead trees or replant trees so this heating can continue in future years. I have a relatively clean wood burning stove so I don't get lung cancer (and same for my friends and neighbors). I don't burn more than I need because it is too much work to process all that wood. The natural gas in my parents boiler might have unknown nasty effects on those that extract it, and on global warming. (I still use propane for much cooking because it is so much faster and more convenient in winter than using rocket stove.
4. I mass produce milk (not really, this is for illustration purposes). In order to stay competitive in the global market, I therefore use all kinds of machines, materials and energy that can have negative global consequences on people and nature. The negative (as well as positive, but this is non-sequitur) impacts/costs of the mass production are global (to others, in other places and to future generations), but the incentives/benefits (money) are here and now. In contrast if I have a cow and don't treat her well, use bad hygiene or bad pasture practices I feel the impact to myself, from my neighbors who drink the milk (or eat the cheese, or share the pasture) and pretty quickly.
References:
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