The Bureaucratic Singularity: when technology develops faster than governmental control.
Note: The image at the link summarizes this post.
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If government regulation grows arithmetically, while technology grows exponentially, there reaches a point where innovation happens faster than the government can control it. This is the inflection point of The Bureaucratic Singularity.
DarkWeb, Bitcoin/blockchain, Arab Climate Change, Anonymous, AirBnB, Uber, etc. I submit we are at the inflection point - now.
Existence Exists. Reality. Our friend. And, no respecter of persons or weakness.
Specialization creates efficiencies, which drive competition and innovation - exponentially - changing the competitive landscape of society. Wealth, intelligence, and skill begets more wealth, intelligence, and skill.
Predictable Result A. The opportunities/speed to benefit society and (in the process) create wealth also grow exponentially (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.), with producers on the cutting edge gaining lion's shares of larger pies.
Predictable Result B: Consumers gain larger absolute slices but smaller relative slices. Successful Entrepreneurs move from Millionaires to Billionaires, while the average joe moves from plays to Netflix, telegraph to iPhones, libraries to the Internet. 5% on 100 million is 5 million. 50% of 100 thousand is 50 thousand. The size of the relative gap between rich and poor is accelerating even as the poor get richer in absolute terms.
Predictable Result C: Competitors (and their employees) lose their place at the table, unless they can adopt/adapt/innovate in pace with the cutting edge. For them, cutting edge is bleeding edge. This displacement is not trivial, and requires increasing investment by companies and individuals in (self) development, without certainty of where to invest.
Predictable Result D: Populist rhetoric/media becomes increasingly effective at portraying disparity. Envy and anger at disparity grows, leading to increased government attempts/regulation to "correct" this "imbalance." Democrat/Republican alike succumb to this pressure. Lobbying intensifies as the Beltway Parasites feed on the frenzy. Government interference in economy causes increasing systemic failures.
Suggestions:
1. Prepare yourself to surf this wave. Make sure you are on the cutting edge, not the bleeding edge.
2. Teach yourself to focus on and promote absolute wealth, not relative wealth.
3. Promote positive adaptations to the rapid changes, using profit as a slipstream to fund the promotion in an upward spiral.
--
If government regulation grows arithmetically, while technology grows exponentially, there reaches a point where innovation happens faster than the government can control it. This is the inflection point of The Bureaucratic Singularity.
DarkWeb, Bitcoin/blockchain, Arab Climate Change, Anonymous, AirBnB, Uber, etc. I submit we are at the inflection point - now.
Existence Exists. Reality. Our friend. And, no respecter of persons or weakness.
Specialization creates efficiencies, which drive competition and innovation - exponentially - changing the competitive landscape of society. Wealth, intelligence, and skill begets more wealth, intelligence, and skill.
Predictable Result A. The opportunities/speed to benefit society and (in the process) create wealth also grow exponentially (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.), with producers on the cutting edge gaining lion's shares of larger pies.
Predictable Result B: Consumers gain larger absolute slices but smaller relative slices. Successful Entrepreneurs move from Millionaires to Billionaires, while the average joe moves from plays to Netflix, telegraph to iPhones, libraries to the Internet. 5% on 100 million is 5 million. 50% of 100 thousand is 50 thousand. The size of the relative gap between rich and poor is accelerating even as the poor get richer in absolute terms.
Predictable Result C: Competitors (and their employees) lose their place at the table, unless they can adopt/adapt/innovate in pace with the cutting edge. For them, cutting edge is bleeding edge. This displacement is not trivial, and requires increasing investment by companies and individuals in (self) development, without certainty of where to invest.
Predictable Result D: Populist rhetoric/media becomes increasingly effective at portraying disparity. Envy and anger at disparity grows, leading to increased government attempts/regulation to "correct" this "imbalance." Democrat/Republican alike succumb to this pressure. Lobbying intensifies as the Beltway Parasites feed on the frenzy. Government interference in economy causes increasing systemic failures.
Suggestions:
1. Prepare yourself to surf this wave. Make sure you are on the cutting edge, not the bleeding edge.
2. Teach yourself to focus on and promote absolute wealth, not relative wealth.
3. Promote positive adaptations to the rapid changes, using profit as a slipstream to fund the promotion in an upward spiral.
SOURCE URL: http://rationalspirituality.com/bursing.jpg
There is no short cut for the hard philosophical work that needs to be done and proper government is necessary for long term technological growth.
I know - It is an optimistic idea, but I am voting for it anyway!
Which we appear to be witnessing.
I'm confused, though, if gov't grows slower than technology, how in Result D does it cause systemic failures?
BTW, I agree completely that technology is simultaneously democratizing information and indirectly leading to envy and anger. I'm not clear what the outcome will be. I see this as a crossroads where it could break either for or against liberty.
Government intervention is both blunt and cronyist.
It's attempts to catch up with technology will be industry changing in terms of what is allowed and what is incentivized. These interventions will cause profound shifts in the industries affected (and those that are dependent on them) AWAY from optimal.
In fast growing industries, this will cause displacement and shortages. Everything that is dependent on these industries will be affected by the shortages. The solutions that private industries come up with to deal with this and to take advantages of the perverse incentives will ripple, interfering with other critical products/services.
The bigger/faster growing the industry, the more dependencies of that industry, the bigger the problems.
This will combine with additional intervention and create failures of entire systems.
Think healthcare. As one piece falls, the next piece gets weak, which causes more out of control spending, which causes prices to go up, which changes consumer behavior, which requires more intervention etc.
make sense?
My suggestions/conclusions:
The government is only going to fall farther behind every day. The responses to Uber, Google's self-driving cars, and many other inventions only demonstrate this. My fear is that instead of enabling these trends, governments will face this control crisis and instead crack down to slow the pace of innovation to fit their ongoing management. This is going to result in a struggle where either freedom wins out and these tyrants are shoved to the side, or it will result in the extermination of the inventor, Atlas Shrugged-style.
The government quickly lost or refused control and Gates commented on that as well.
Some of the government faults were stealing designs and patented materials that had been submitted for purchase considerations and refused then later claimed to have been developed by the government. One was the bolt action of the Springfield Rifle of WWI fame (Mauser received payment some years later by order of the Supreme Court) and a combined load bearing harness and back pack system where every part had at least three uses. the LoCo Pack designed, manufacrtured, and sold around the world including private sales to US military personnel but not to the US Government. The blame there fell on Picatinny Arsenal. Never did find or hear about the outcome...maybe a a deal was struck .....However the Lo and Co came from the son of the owner of Lowe Alpine systems and Tom Cook a former US Special Forces trooper and the factory was in Emoryville, CA.
One of the hugely funny results was the internet scandal when VP Gore claimed to have invented it. He promptly received a man of he year award from the USA porn industry. Still an uncontrolled and very lucrative part, from all accounts, of that field of business endeavor.
One particular area was attacked by our own federal law enforcement,, one studio was shut down and everything they produced is still available on the net but now free of charge while the business went to other 'studios.' Zero arrests, zero cooperation but 100 percent. success claimed.
In summation let's hear a standing Oh Shit for Al Gore..Porn's man of the year and probably by now a life time achievement awardee. He did something right after all - according to some.
HW has just put in writing, something I have said for years. He/she said it better. In Russia, my grandfather did beautiful leather work, mainly sword and dagger scabbards. In America, he worked in a factory as a manual laborer. But he didn't complain because even though he went from craftsman to laborer, he lived better than he could even aspire to in Russia. He even was able to have caviar every now and then. (Not beluga, but the cheaper stuff.)
And secondly, doesn't technology that has significant impact, occur at unpredictable intervals, ie EM uses, transistor, maser/laser?
While it's true that technology grows on technology, but so does regulation.
Although, http://rationalspirituality.com/pages...
In terms of unpredictable intervals I argue that the democratization of technology and the number of fundamental breakthroughs that exist but have yet to be integrated/applied will lead to creativity unlike we have ever seen. It will be unpredictable in moments, but the trend will be relatively smooth.
And - They are still working on Net Neutrality (arithmetic) , while the internet has grown exponentially. (he says, hoping this carries water)...
I hope. :-)
Elon Musk defies the dictum of specialization, making his fortune with PayPal, and striking out in multiple technological directions, with space launchers, solar energy, electric vehicles, and high speed transportation (Hyperloop).
Right now we appear to be engaging in a battle between results B and D. If B wins, we will see the world's first trillionaire, most likely a space entrepreneur who mines asteroids. If D wins, we may see the end of the American experiment, collapsing in violence.
And, as Smith pointed out - it is not to the benefit of the humanity of the worker that he becomes a cog in a machine - it is the benefit of the society as a whole.
Specialization also need not be "insectual" (sorry, incest puns are a habit of mine). We each specialize in Ayn Rand - which doesn't suck. :-)
To challenge you - isn't it precisely because so many people specialize so profoundly that allows Musk to dream and invest - while other people figure out the details? (I won't mention the government cheese involved).
I vote B. :-)
I have to wonder what you're doing being associated with Ayn Rand followers, when you quote Smith's observation that subordinates individual benefit to the "benefit of society as a whole." Altruism and sacrifice for others is in direct contradiction to Objectivist principles.
There is an aspect of this that I think of as 'virtual Australias'. When you engage in interactions that are beyond the sphere of control, you have the freedom of a 'new land'. When we discuss the union's demands for increased minimum wage leading to robotization of fast food, we are talking about this. (The Maker movement is another example.)
I am very aware that Louis XIV, Kublai Kahn, Alexander the Great...none of them had or could have had HVAC or the Internet. "Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph through [a personal virtual Persepolis on the Internet]?"
Jan
This is why the focus on income disparity. The lifestyle, at least by international standards, of America's 'poor' is pretty impressive. You need a 'cause' to get power.
Louis XIV had an awesome MySpace page for a while...
Jan
My point in this thread is that as soon as technology gives us a place that has protected borders (via distance or force fields, as in the Gulch) and is self-sufficient, we have independence. This is why technology can determine culture.
Jan
Jan
refers to the "edge" of a black hole, and it's an odd
choice here. . and inflection refers to the point where
a curve changes from positive to negative slope, or from
increasing 1st derivative to decreasing 1st derivatve --
or vice versa, in both cases. . I can see the black hole
analogy, kinda, but the word inflection??? -- j
.
As a professional mathematician, I must disagree on the use of terms argument. "inflection" means "the point on the curve where it starts to look different in an important way."
Then again, maybe I am making up terms and you are right. Yeah, that's it.
What do you call the "knee of the curve" point?
Or, is it even more difficult than that, because the equation "Y= -1/x" always looks the same at each order of magnitude, and the "knee of the curve" "inflection point thingy" is an illusion of distance?
equation, with y going to minus "infinity" at x=0 . . it's plain
that it wasn't a mathematician who chose the terms for
the source article.
it is, of course, the point of intersection -- maybe that's what
they meant to say. -- j
.
Should had you guys around when they screwed up the millennium fiesta
The government can simply do what it wants now, like forbidding any profits over $xx, or forbidding any income over $xx by making it subject to 100% tax.
There is directive 10-289 stuff too. All bets are off with government these days. There seems to be nothing off the table now.
Or, I hope you are wrong and I am right.
Government will certainly try to make it difficult - and may even succeed. We will still find a way around those punks. Damnit!
Will it always find some way to create laws to attempt to regulate (as much a s a mis-nomer as that term is)? Sure. However, the technology will change the game, and they will adapt themselves to it. The faster this happens, the more difficult it will be for them to do so.
AND, while they shut down napster and piratebay, dozens of other sites took their place. The key, as I understand it, is that more people are learning how to use the technologies. As the next 3 billion people come on line, the game as we have known it is forever changing.
I admit, it is a bit optimistic. However, I believe warranted.
Now if we could only outsource government...
The ethics of science includes, but is not limited to reporting the data accurately (What is evil is reporting the data incorrectly). It also includes the ethics of following the data to its logical conclusions (What is evil is not following the logical conclusions). These are huge moral values and rarely followed by very many people.
The engineer's code of ethics is to perform responsibly to meet the needs of the client, delivering a product that achieves the goals requested. The moral side is a dilemma, when the client wants instruments of destruction, and some engineers make the decision not to participate.
I do not think it is an engineer's Ethics to responsibly meet the needs of his client. First of all-who determines "responsibly"? Second, why is the client the mission of the engineer first and foremost? If you are working a contract, you have a moral obligation to meet your part, up and until, the client breaks their side of the agreement. For vast numbers of engineers who are inventing, their Ethics remains the same as with science and to themselves first and foremost. They are creating and inventing things that initially have no clients-so no "to serve" concept ever required. No one asked Edison to build the light bulb or Carrier to develop air conditioning. They saw a problem and they designed solutions. Then the client came.
Conservatives (and for this purpose we fall in that realm) look at the world as having virtually infinite possibilities for wealth creation. Invention and effort can make wealth where none was found before. We are concerned with making sure the system produces the environment where wealth creation is enhanced.
This explains the scientist/engineer split. Scientists are trying to understand the rules of the universe. There is a real universe and it has real rules. This IS a zero sum game. Engineers, on the other hand, create new things. They view the world as having endless possibilities. That mindset difference predisposes their political views.
When I get into conversations with people around this, getting the plus sum frame is the central goal I aim for. I want to check/challenge their premises that open up the larger conversation.
And, I like like Reisman. I am less interested in whether things are recycled than whether they are cost-effective. :-) Recycling is only valuable when it adds value (aluminum) not when it wastes resources (plastic).
scientists liberal, engineers conservative.
before 30, not liberal = no heart. after 30, not conservative = no brain.
more money earned = conservative ...
Responsible execution should be obvious: to create systems that provide the solution to a problem/need in a fashion that's affordable, reliable, and safe. To engineer something that doesn't fit those requirements is either pointless or reckless. Dealing with an amoral client is another issue entirely.
I disagree. Science absolutely has an ethics and to see what happens when that ethics is ignored you need look no farther than man-made global warming.
The ethics of science includes, but is not limited to reporting the data accurately (What is evil is reporting the data incorrectly). It also includes the ethics of following the data to its logical conclusions (What is evil is not following the logical conclusions). These are huge moral values and rarely followed by very many people.
Can there by other motives as well? Certainly control enters in as an ideological goal. We've seen governments institute tracking and monitoring programs in the effort to control their populations (NSA). We've seen governments collude with "scientists" to promote policies of control (climate scare tactics). We've seen governments scare their own people into betraying their own friends and family to be executed (Stalin, Mao, etc.).
I think we delude ourselves if we think to ourselves that there are no morals behind scientific discovery. Every choice we make is based on comparative values: one thing versus another in pursuit of some goal. And it is the goal we select that determines our moral compass.
Reason requires a reason to use it. :-)
http:12z.us/purpose.jpg
My teen-age answer was similar: I would rather try to discover things about an objective world than spend my life arguing about an artificial set of rules constructed by man.
That being said, concepts such as 'justice' and 'mercy' are constructs of intelligence. It is a worthy goal to try to bring the mish-mash of Law into alignment with such principles - it is just not 'my thing'. I want to deal with physical reality, not a second or third hand filtrate of same.
Jan
Question - for fun. Is "filtrate" somehow different than "justice" or "mercy" in being a construct of intelligence? (IOE).
I hope I am right and the future belongs to the desert/scientists.
Used to spend a lot of time around Wickenburg.