Pattern and Shape

I have been reading Philip Ball's trilogy on nature's capacity to generate patterns, and found an interesting observation in the second book, "Flow". The author had just finished a discussion of how points in a vortex or eddy (think rushing stream), are related to one another. If they weren't related to one another, it wouldn't look like an eddy.

He notes that researchers had investigated whether Van Gogh's "Starry Night", which shows a turbulent night sky, might technically match the metrics of turbulence found in other flows, like rivers. Lo and behold, the painting does! Other paintings, particularly ones done during his times of greatest mental disturbance, also accurately match mathematical models of turbulence.

system disruption

There are two threads in the web of systems disruption ideas and news on the internet. One thread is the study of insurgencies, and the other is the development of defensive prescriptions. For example, John Robb has been working on understanding how insurgencies successfully undermine states, and simultaneously, he has developed a concept of "resilient communities" as the best social form for resisting insurgencies. In fact, as John has noted, there is a deep similarity in the approach to life of a super empowered insurgency and a resilient community.While purposes differ, both forms of social organization are driven by constant and iterative strategic innovation. 

I have worked as a systems disrupter since 1967, in a wide variety of settings, including medical clinics, schools, substance abuse centers, advocacy programs, state government, and even the US Army. I have carefully observed, and participated in, the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 60's, the de-institutionalization of persons with developmental disabilities, and more recently in the Recovery movement with person who have severe mental illnesses, the independent living movement of people with chronic disabilities, and the rise of identity movements across many marginalized communities.

A few things I've learned:

  • Purely oppositional strategies (like insurgencies and counter-insurgencies, or Republican and Democratic parties) are co-evolutionary and tend to drive each other toward behavioral and value sinks that suck up resources at the expense of other strategies (read possibilities). Nonetheless, western societies, most especially the United States, tend to pick oppositional strategies as a first choice. This is true in politics and the internet. Partisanship sucks up resources and viewers, and drive out non-oppositional approaches, making them, harder to find. Competitive approaches that don't have a cooperative element in their core become oppositional. Think two whirlpools rotating in opposite directions with a superficial interface. The interface consists of the issues that drive both.
  • System change arises out of Disruptive Innovation, not out of mutual competition, which only improves the parties abilities to play the current game, or exhausts the ability of one or both parties to play the game. Disruptive innovation can change the system even when most resources are being sucked up by the competition.
  • Disruptive innovation is capacity building. Oppositional competition narrows skill development and focused higher and higher levels of resources on a narrower and narrower set of skills. Disruptive innovation invalidates this narrow set of skills over time.
More later....