Michael wrote: "As stresses increase, both history and current events show increases rather than decreases in superstition, greed, xenophobia and confrontation."
This viewpoint seduces me to bring up the following possibly bold statement: "To avoid further drift of humanity towards a more 'selfish, indifferent and less communal' stance towards our common interests in our common future (as pointed out by Michael), we must choose either to follow the path of peace as laid down by the movement led by The <http://www.earthcharter.org/> Earth Charter Initiative and similar communities (like TSI) or follow the path of conflict through 'natural' cut-throat competition where the strongest shall survive and reap the harvests of their accidental head-start and/or 'better survival skills'". This is an essential element of our charter (SHEW Basic Starting Point 5) and is to be addressed in our group TSI - COSMOS <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shew-init> @ Yahoo!. Michael wrote: "I am pleased to see you mention control systems. The technology of control is enormously advanced in the half century since Norbert Weiner and his crowd first advocated its application in policy. The capacity for applying these ideas to governance has advanced, I think, hardly an iota. At least one reason is that control systems need an objective function. It seems to me that to apply the ideas of control systems to governance the first issue is to obtain such a quantitative objective. We seem to defer to economists for this, and I'd like to see some discussion of why we do and whether we should. My impression is that their consensus objective (maximizing commercial activity) has multiple flaws for the purposes at hand. I think that one main idea that you propose, that we must seek an optimal balance between adaptation and mitigation, is generally accepted. Unfortunately, we don't seem to know where to start on identifying such a balance. The quantitative complexity of making such complex interactive decisions under complex coupled uncertainties has not, to my knowledge, been addressed with the mathematical rigor it deserves. It may in any case be that our social structures would be unable to cope with such a result if the rather large requisite effort could be made. We should, nevertheless, start by asking the right questions." Michael, you just hit the nail we're holding, right on the head! TSI has a strong background in project management and chemical and systems & control engineering with specific experience in the chemicals processing industries. Many of our engineering and consultancy colleagues and friends with a strong affinity towards our worlds social and environmental problems, like myself, have been wondering why humanities control systems are so ill-conditioned and mal-functioning with respect to the control objectives we ought to have, those that ensure Sustainable Human and Ecological Well-being. Bad design process? Possibly, so what's missing? Clear objectives, design starting points, boundary conditions, knowledge of system behaviour (fuzzy / black box & rigorous descriptive), learning functionality, blabla . and a sound functional description = the basis of proper design. All these aspects may sound straightforward, but as any designer (of any discipline) will know . the design process itself most often is never as straightforward as thought beforehand. So how would we want to take off? From scratch! Then we'd know where to start on identifying the design challenge: by asking the right questions. It'll take time and incredible well-structured efforts by combined forces of academics and experienced professionals in systems & control engineering, mathematics, ICT, macro-social disciplines, econom(etr)y, earth sciences and politics. A tall order indeed, with patience being the most important virtue. We need all the help we can get. Care2join? Sustainable regards! The SHEW Initiative <http://www.shew-init.2ya.com/> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Namens Michael Tobis Verzonden: zondag 21 januari 2007 19:07 Aan: [email protected] Onderwerp: [Global Change: 1178] Re: The unconvenient prospect: withstanding climate change On 1/20/07, TSI Founder < <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ... Whatever is the root cause of climate changes, Humanity should prepare for their sudden impact and lasting effects and ensure our governance systems, on any imaginable scale / level, are sensitive, adaptive and robust enough to minimize the negative effects these changes may have on our well-being and that of the systems we depend on. If not, humanity may have to prepare for long lasting conflict over essential renewable and non-renewable resources, which may even result in more damage to the systems we depend on, resulting in more Earth rearrangements ... etcetera. We can choose to fully anticipate on possible loss of resources like arable and inhabitable surface area, geographical and climatic features essential for infrastructure and shifts in essential ecosystems. If we wish to be successful we may soon need to get rid of numerous cultural and historical burdens in our 'control' / governance systems that prevent us from taking appropriate preventive, pro-active, and re-active measures. A tall order, but there is a good deal to what you say in my opinion. The limiting factors to our adaptation are far more social than they are technical. Acknowledging this doesn't make it any easier. As stresses increase, both history and current events show increases rather than decreases in superstition, greed, xenophobia and confrontation. If we are responsible, to whatever extent, for the root causes of climate change, we must act immediately to minimize the impact of related pursuits and technologies. But as change is slowly gaining momentum (Earth has started to rearrange) it is questionable whether the focus should be on the cause or on the effects. Let's take care of both ... and embed this in our 'control systems' in a more structural manner. I am pleased to see you mention control systems. The technology of control is enormously advanced in the half century since Norbert Weiner and his crowd first advocated its application in policy. The capacity for applying these ideas to governance has advanced, I think, hardly an iota. At least one reason is that control systems need an objective function. It seems to me that to apply the ideas of control systems to governance the first issue is to obtain such a quantitative objective. We seem to defer to economists for this, and I'd like to see some discussion of why we do and whether we should. My impression is that their consensus objective (maximizing commercial activity) has multiple flaws for the purposes at hand. I think that one main idea that you propose, that we must seek an optimal balance between adaptation and mitigation, is generally accepted. Unfortunately, we don't seem to know where to start on identifying such a balance. The quantitative complexity of making such complex interactive decisions under complex coupled uncertainties has not, to my knowledge, been addressed with the mathematical rigor it deserves. It may in any case be that our social structures would be unable to cope with such a result if the rather large requisite effort could be made. We should, nevertheless, start by asking the right questions. mt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
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