I spent this morning at the 2004 KickOff meeting of the company I work for (SMARTS: http://www.smarts.com/ ). As I may have previously said, the compnay makes very expensive software that pinpoints failure points in *very large* computer networks. The software is bought by some of the world's biggest multinational corporations and government agencies.... KickOff meetings always depress me, personally, so I was expecting to "take a hit". The theme of this one was how we are like NASCAR auto racing (last year it was how we are like Everest mountaineers...).
But the management presenters painted such a picture of our society (AKA economy) depending on the reliable functioning of MASSIVELY COMPLEX networks, that I realized the at least partially aitrogenic self-complexification of the computerization of our lifeworld has "advanced" much further than I generally have in mind.
As said, the company I work for makes software to manage this complexity, and, from what little I as one blind man trying to get a sense of the elephant can tell, the product performs well. (At least I don't work for a company that makes a product I am ashamed of.)
But no matter how well "we" manage the complexity, the underlying complexity remains, waiting for our software to hiccup at an inopportune moment --> not to mention the grievous exposure of the computer networks that are not monitored by "InCharge" (the product's name).
When I first went to work for the company 4+1/2 years ago, one of their slogans was
Minds over networks
[As an amateur archeologist/archivist, I even have some of the placards the company had this slogan printed on, including the one that once was the ofice's centerpiece.]
Minds over networks
No longer. In today's KickOff meting, the executives sayid that the networks are too big for human minds to manage -- that automated network management software is the only thing powerful enough to handle the complexity.
Now, of course, if you think about it, that's still saying "minds over networks", i.e., the minds the make the management software. And the original slogan "minds over networks" clearly was based on the problem that the networks were too complex for "unaided humans" to manage. Six of one, half dozen of the other.... But notice the shift in focus, from the minds as agents, to their product as an autonomous agent. Credo in unum deum.... Maybe I'm "reading something into it that isn't there"? --
The F-117 Nighthawk "stealth fighter" is an example of a meta-stable technological system. As long as the computers work, it's supposedly a "pussycat" to fly. But if the computers ever fail -- which, of course, they are not supposed to... -- then the pilot will be lucky to be able to eject from the maelstrom that ensues.
I am all in favor of network management software. But I think an even higher priority should be *social engineering* to reduce the complexity of the systems to be managed. I guess the company I work for is not "big enough" to do that. But certainly sombeody like MicroSoft should have a better shot at it???
It seems clear to me - Hello, Harry! -- that the free market does not accomplish this (the Invisible hand says: "Huh? Did somebody say something?"), at least in any humanly interesting timeframe, and without risk of "reducing complexity" by sending us back to a new "dark age" in which princes will, once again as in the second half of the first millennium of "the common era", have home heating less good than many welfare recipients have had during the past half century.
Are you ready to race????
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
