On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Ray Evans Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>So I would pose the question: Is it possible for humans to design a
>system or systems that
>1. build maximum social efficency without creating "losers" as the food
>to energize the system's successes.
>2. creates a reasonable freedom,
> including the freedom to work,
> the freedom to develop one's talents
> the freedom from ignorance
> the freedom from avoidable illness
> the freedom from incompetance
> the freedom from physical oppression
> the freedom from unreasonable abuse by both public and private
>systems.
>3. create resonable social welfare design,
>4. create an environment that is beautiful, balanced and that
> -respects heritage
> -lives in the moment
> -stimulates and develops creativity.
> -that leaves a world that does all of the above for our
>descendants as well.
>
>What do you think? The opposite of the above is "let it be." I'm an
>Indian I never have believed in the virtue of "wildness."
This exactly the sort of problem which I claim is appropriate to
pose to systems engineers, freed of any historical economic baggage.
I believe it is not only possible, but fully within the range
of current systems engineering practice, given finite state automaton
computer modelling, and modern systems feedback theory. Managing
people will always be akin to herding cats, but syseng is robust
enough to cope with that. Good engineers love nothing more than a
challenge, and can keep their eyes on the pragmatic solution without
being blinded by sociopolitical agenda.
It has occurred to me recently that there is a closely allied problem
which may already have attracted the recreational attention of such folk.
There is a fair sized community of divers technical folk who are
keen to see colonization of space, and to that end have postulated
the development of free orbiting colonies the size perhaps of a city
including suburbs, called O'Neill colonies after the physicist
who first wrote of them. These would be fully autonomous ecosystems,
outside earth's gravity well, and therefore energetically proximate
to the resources available from astroids and other debris. The
enthusiasts envision these colonies multiplying throughout the
solar system, creating a spacefaring culture with potentially
a much higher eventual population than earth can sustain. The
thing is, each of these island colonies would be completely sealed
in a relatively small vessel (envisioned to spin gently with the
inhabitants and their ecology centrifugally held against the inside
surface of the hollow structure), and so the social structure of
the colony would have to be something between that of a city and
a ship's crew, or perhaps more pertinently a submarine crew. O'Neill
wrote two books about his concept, complete with lots of hard numbers
addressing the many technical problems to be overcome in developing
such colonies. A society was formed around the concept and has
continued the elaboration of his ideas. I wonder what thought they
have given to social organization, particularly when a small ecosystem
means there is hardly any time delay between imprudent actions
and serious widespread environmental consequences, and a similar
concern could be expressed for rash social behaviour. It may
be that this is an arena where engineering solutions to economic
issues will first be exersized, ideas which may be scalable to
our world.
-Pete Vincent
