The complexity of modern life

…As Griffin points out, for complex, tightly coupled systems, failure is inevitable. This obvious statement is proved so often and dramatically it should be published as a universal law for all humans to consider every day. To clarify, every complex system — whether a drilling system, climate system, or bureaucracy — is destined to fail or shift states dramatically. This is particularly true when inputs are rapidly increased or decreased, such as with the after-effects of Peak Oil.

The point of this discussion is this: no isolated model of the economy, climate, or resource production can hope to completely capture the workings of any of these complex systems. Not only are these systems profoundly non-linear (and unstable) but they all interact with one another forming a much larger (and much more unstable) mega-system. That is not to say that we shouldn


As a controls engineer this is a terrifyingly intractable problem. The most we can hope to achieve is applying slight perturbations to systems in the hopes of pushing it to a more stable state. The Federal Reserve has been attempting this controls game in recent days with little nudges of cash infusion or interest rate bumps. Each move introduces another element of uncertainty and instability. The farther ahead they attempt to predict the consequences of their actions, the less clear it becomes, and the worse they