Systems Theory and Electrified Networks

After reading the Salon article from Alternet I am struck by their surprise at the rise in the ratio of debt to GDP. It seems to me that there would, I believe, be a great deal more understanding of what is occurring in the global financial system if economists would read the works of Fritjof Capra. And then throw in a good dose of Marshal McLuhan.

What we have now is a mind boggling network of information flow, and the translative nodes that depend upon that flow. A system that self evolves to increase the rate of flow because of the spiral of global competition, mutated within the linear accelerator of technological advancement. You need only tick off some the consequences to see why this cannot be a Dissipative Structure.

1. Translative production always challenges consumptive capacity.

2. Feedback systems are inherently constrained by the necessity of node net gain; as each node must limit what it puts out into the network of information flow in order to accumulate future translative power.

3. Accumulations of counters are also a commodity and therefore must be rushed into net gain translations.

4. As ever increasing knowledge makes for an ever increasing rate of gain of new knowledge, new technique flows into possible new modes of translation. These can't be applied, however, without first making use of existing nodes, and counter accumulations, to make new node types. This then feeds into the already existing dynamic expressed in number 3 above.

5. All of this rapidly increasing flow of information, and translation, becomes ever more impossible to understand, let alone control. Any attempt to mitigate for whatever reason, whether for human need, or operating environment, become increasingly problematic for precisely this reason. Things either become more inhuman, and and/or anti-environmental if nothing is done, or even worse if changes are attempted with vastly incomplete understanding.

Of course debt is blowing the doors off of normal. Money and information are the same thing, and Debt creates more Money, which creates the need for more to be consumed, which creates more debt, and so on...

It is as ridiculous now as it is uncontrollable, or sustainable. In terms of holistic thinking it is a nightmare made incarnate. The sooner we recognize that the better off we will be.

The perfect financial storm: Why we’re headed for future global economic crises