Feedback Loop

Politics is getting a bit acrimonious for me lately, so allow me to wander if you will.

The everyday world is a number of overlapping systems of frightening complexity. If you isolate any small part of the system, the rules that govern it are simple and straightforward, but when allowed to run, the system made up of these small parts is intricate and difficult to predict. For instance, the flight capabilities and patterns of a bird can be quantified easily enough. However, when placed in a flock, the mechanism of collection movement is still being studied and understood. The simple rules that govern an individual's reactions collaborate to form a flock of birds that appears to move as a single entity.

This is all pretty basic stuff, allow me to move on before I bore you. The question at hand is: why I have a blog called Applied Punk and have thus far filled it with political rumblings from a liberal business perspective?

When you introduce the ability to adapt into a system, you have a complex adaptive system (CAS) as you might expect by simply adding "adapt" to the list of words used so far. However, this is a profoundly more complex type of system to study. A CAS will possess a number of feedback loops, behaviors which in response to stimulus create modified or amplified reactions within the system and feed further loops. For a simple example, think of how social feedback affects you as a single actor in the system of interpersonal relationships. A sunny mood can turn sour based upon interaction with one dour acquaintance and your now less-than-cheery attitude can and does influence others. Based upon the pitch of circumstances around them, a group of individuals will settle into a collective mindset. Panic spreads, mobs turn ugly, altruism makes its rounds, and populist movements swell.

The specific study of information systems and feedback is called cybernetics, a term many would be interested to know was actually far older than metal arms and techno-music. The Greek kybernetike relates to ship steersmen and art. In short Plato stated governing, ie social control, was less about accumulated knowledge than it was responding to the mercurial conditions of populations. An art is less about what is known, but what is done with knowledge. This term was later used in the study of mechanical, biological, and information systems but became heavily tied to the growing use of computers and study of computer systems.

Computer hackers of the future sporting metallic cyberarms a la Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, and many others firmly cemented the term "cyber" in many minds to robotic parts, computers, and the internet. The genre was not simply science fiction though. Heavily influenced by the punk rock subculture, much was to be said about the DIY ethic, anti-establishment, anti-capitalism, nihilism, primacy of freedom, and a slew of other often-conflicting and often-cooperating political and social views. I have unkind words for anyone who is against everything and professes nothing, but the core of punk values, and the perceived injustices of the world that punks reacted so strongly to are valid, even if never explored with sophistication.

When one is part of a CAS, it is difficult to describe and accurately predict the system, much less affect purposeful change. When system theory is applied to psychology, one can begin to see the futility in forcing any major change on a social system. Control can only be exercised with any hope of success on subsets of the system separated in some way from the main. Memes must be incubated by the dedicated and generalized in obviously advantageous forms. Societies, cultures, and disparate ethnic groups must have the freedom to be themselves while receiving pressure to be positive actors in the wider community. Some behaviors are harmful and pressure should be applied by a greater portion of the system to quash what harms the greater community, but a live-and-let-live attitude fosters the competition of ideas and methods that is a net positive for the system as a whole. The punk attitude suggests changing yourself and giving up on the establishment. Perhaps that goes too far, but the most effective change an individual can make is personal. Communities of individuals working for a more efficient and just society can add up to more than the sum of their parts.

It puts a new spin on cyberpunk.