Re: do we need a master game manager?

["Laurence J.Victor" <nuu@azstarnet.com>]

Self-Organization of nu order from chaos is messy and cannot be
controlled. But, success depends often on the initial selection of
participants and the tools and supportive scaffolding they have -- the
latter which can be designed.  I recently discussed this in
commentaries to Meg Wheatley's A Simpler Way in a few essays on my
website: http://www.azstarnet.com/~nuu/META/meg_commentaries_menu.htm

I am now reading Oliver Sacks' The Island of the Colorblind.  He tells of
the history of boom/bust in Micronesia, where humans (not reindeer, and
without game managers) exhausted their commons and eventually ate themselves.

Larry


--------------------------------------------------------
Laurence J. Victor / Larry / et 
<http://azstarnet.com/~nuu>http://azstarnet.com/~nuu 
NUU / ABC_EARTH_2002 

"What we all need at this point in human evolution 
is to learn 
what it takes to learn 
what we should learn 
- and learn it." 
-- Aurelio Peccei, No Limits to Learning 


At 10:35 AM 1/5/99 +0000, you wrote:
>>Jay Hanson wrote:
>>#1. Be managed like domestic pets.
>>#2. Dieoff like individual wild animals.
>
>I presume you are proposing that we allow ourselves to be managed like
>dogs and cats by a world government guided by science and religion
>which will presume it knows what is good for every living being in the
>world. This is the idea of a "master conductor" who makes sure that a
>complex system works well.
>
>I will add a third option (and a way out):
>#3. Work it out like the intelligent human beings that we are, at the
>    local level: identify the flawed rules of behavior which we've
>    allowed to take over our lives in the past few centuries or so,
>    and locality-by-locality, replace them with better rules of
>    behavior
>
>>In 1944, 29 reindeer were moved to St. Matthew Island. The reindeer
>>thrived by "exploiting" (making the best use of) their rich "commons".
>>(A commons is any resource used as though it belongs to all. In other
>>words, when any animal can use a shared resource simply because it
>>wants to use it, then it is using a commons. Remember that a  commons
>>is destroyed by uncontrolled use -- ownership is not a factor.)
>
>Animals, in their natural environment, use their commons all the time
>without destroying it, in dynamic balance with other species. Your
>reindeer example is flawed for at least two reasons:
>- we are not reindeer
>- the fault lay not in the reindeer, but in the game manager who took
>  them away from their natural environment
>
>>population of reindeer it may never occur. Transgressing the carrying
>>capacity of St. Matthew Island reduced its carrying capacity by at
>>least 97.5 percent. It is facts like these -- repeated over and over
>>again in game management experience -- that justify the ecolate game
>>manager in viewing carrying capacity as partaking of the sacred.
>
>It is those engaged in so-called "game management" who transgressed
>the reindeers by moving them out of their natural environment. This is
>the experience that is repeated over and over: some "master conductor"
>wants to play God (or is it game manager?) and globally manage the
>system -- in the process working against the laws of self-organization
>and complexity which, minus the "master conductor", manages very well
>by itself. Please do not close your eyes to these relatively recent
>developments in the systems sciences or you'll keep wasting your time
>trying to work out based on an old science how a "master conductor"
>can manage a complex ecological system. I'm afraid reality doesn't
>work that way.
>
>>You have simply restated your assertion.  You tell me: what do
>>these studies have to do with real world animals (us) who have
>>overshot the carrying capacity of their planet (Earth)?
>
>These studies imply that we should abandon attempts at global
>solutions or faith in a "master conductor", but to redirect our
>efforts at the local level: local variables, local interactions.
>Strengthen communities, and modular networks of self-sustainable
>communities (modular: relatively independent of each other and
>interacting through a well-defined set of interfaces).
>
>This is why the Y2K crisis is such an opportune occasion for systemic
>transformation: it forces communities to stop relying from the top
>(the master conductor or game manager), and to become self-sustainable
>once more, as human communities were a long time ago (and still
>basically are among many indigenous peoples). For a year or two, the
>global structures superimposed on local communities and local
>interactions will be weakened if not in disarray. The Y2K crisis makes
>possible this necessary condition for systemic transformation: a shift
>back to a local mode, minus the "game managers". If people were
>unaware of this opportunity, or wasted their time convincing some
>would-be "game manager" to take over, this one and only opportunity
>for a relatively painless systemic transformation will be lost.
>
>I agree with many of the other things you posted, but this debate
>between global/top-down/game manager approach and
>local/bottom-up/self-sustainable communities approach is one area
>where I think you should completely rethink your position, because it
>is based on old science.
>
>>Physics incorporated thermodynamics - moved from "production" to
>>"circulation" - over 100 years ago. But modern economic texts such as
>>McConnell & Brue, 1999, and Samuelson & Nordhouse, 1998 still do not
>>discuss thermodynamics or entropy!
>
>I am equally critical of neoliberal (ie, gain-maximizing) economics,
>so this is not the issue. The issue is your ultra-pessimistic,
>dead-end, dieoff, heat death, "we've lost all metals", "we've lost all
>energy sources" scenarios.
>
>These dark scenarios are based on the First Law of Thermodynamics, and
>on the increasing entropy in the universe. This is precisely what I
>mean by the way out that the new systems sciences give us: it is true
>that entropy is increasing in the universe (ie, there is a general
>movement towards greater disorganization and randomness). But it is
>equally true that in the universal ocean of increasing entropy and
>disorganization, there are islands of decreasing entropy and
>increasing complexity. How this can come about is the topic of the new
>sciences I am trying to convince you to become more familiar with: how
>self-organization comes about; how complexity comes about; how life
>emerges. It is your overemphasis in the increasing entropy and
>disorder while missing the islands of increasing complexity that gives
>you these dark ultra-pessimistic scenarios.
>
>Once you're convinced that self-organizing complex systems can emerge
>out of disorder, without need for any "game manager", and I'm sure
>you'll feel somewhat more optimistic about the possibilities of
>survival and reemergence of human societies and civilizations.
>
>
>Roberto Verzola
>