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Sunday 1 July 2012

Who knows?



Does excessive complexity lead to anarchy?

Because surely rules which are not understood are much the same as rules that don’t exist. In other words, there is little practical difference between life where there is no guide and life where no guide you can trust - or afford.

If things are too complex for us to even formulate reliable rules, then any action we take is just a throw of the dice. A gamble where worse is more likely to occur than better simply because there are more worse outcomes than better.

So what will it be like, anarchy-as-complexity, if it really takes hold? Nobody knows – that’s the point. Things are too complex to be knowable, it’s everyone for themselves and the devil take the hindmost as always. Not quite yet though – these things don’t happen overnight. At least I hope not.

Let’s find a guy who knows.


Okay, so here are our three main political leaders, Dave, Nick and Ed, all educated at great expense. All largely uncontaminated by previous experience......

Hmm............

Surely at least one of them must be a reliable guide to help us with the complexity. These are the guys to disperse some of the fog, to pass wise laws leading to greater transparency. If they understand things sufficiently well to make them simpler......

Hmm.......

Okay Dave, Nick and Ed aren't the team a sane person would choose......

Hmm.......

Okay - so it's anarchy. Was that always the plan?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Planned anarchy! A delicous oxymoron to go with the three political morons above. Thanks, made my morning!

A K Haart said...

David - it takes a special kind of talent to plan anarchy and I think those three have it (:

Woodsy42 said...

The essential difference might be that complex rules imply an authority to impose them, the very complexity and confusion cowing people into being scared of breaking those rules thus enhancing the power of authority. So it's a deliberate policy.
Plain chaos or anarchy is without coercion, people's behaviour will be free and self dircted.

A K Haart said...

Woodsy - I suspect the policy of creating complexity is deliberate because those on the inside benefit. What tends to be overlooked is the problem of control, so anarchy becomes a real risk.

James Higham said...

Woodsy has it here.