Examples of public administrators and policy makers of measuring and defining "tipping point" successfully and then taking positive action, please?
Perhaps I'm too pessimistic, but I recall more failures than successes. e.g. In the '50s, when urban planners apparently decided some cities had passed the tipping point on SOR (single occupancy residences: flop houses) and ordered them razed in San Franciso's South of Market neighborhood and in downtown St. Louis. The result: a whole lot of poor people literally put on the streets. Or in the '70s when Calif. gov Jerry Brown decided there were too many people in mental hospitals, so he ordered them closed. Result: more incapable people dumped to the streets. I think Pamela is right about Complexity in this century, but the concept has a ways to go before it reaches general understanding by the public and or public administrators. So we must keep on keeping on. -tom On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Nicholas Thompson < [email protected]> wrote: > Pamela, > > By applying money at the tipping point, we guide society toward favorable > attractors and away from unfavorable ones. > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([email protected]) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Pamela McCorduck <[email protected]> > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<[email protected]> > *Sent:* 4/14/2009 9:15:21 AM > *Subject:* [FRIAM] Complexity and Institutional Philanthropy > > In a talk with an historian of philanthropy the other day, he told me how > early 20th century philanthropy was driven by a metaphor derived from the > germ theory of disease, very new and exciting just then. Thus the most > forward-thinking philanthropists expressed ambitions to "cure" evil at its > source; to "cure social ills," to get at root causes, to prevent the spread > of social ills. > In the early 21st century, surely the right metaphor is complexity. How > would such a metaphor be applied? How would institutional philanthropy > organize itself to take advantage of what we now know about complex systems? > > Pamela > > > > > "To measure the abundance of positrons in cosmic rays, the team used > data from the instrument PAMELA > <http://pamela.roma2.infn.it/index.php>(Payload > for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics), which > launched aboard a Russian satellite in June 2006. Unlike previous > antimatter-hunting instruments, PAMELA can pinpoint not just the type of > incoming particle but also its energy." > > > WIRED Science > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com [email protected] "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ==========================================
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
