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.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
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
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).
Jan
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
scientists liberal, engineers conservative.
before 30, not liberal = no heart. after 30, not conservative = no brain.
more money earned = conservative ...
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Should had you guys around when they screwed up the millennium fiesta
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