System works best when there’s a number of options, fallbacks and safety measures

It’s not only robust but also agile. It’s antifragile indeed

 

System is appraised by how it works as a whole

How it’s subcomponents work can meaningfully inform how the whole works — or can be profoundly misleading (non-ergodic systems)

 

Competition, even sacrifice, of sub-components — is often the source of strength of the whole

 

This is how our best systems work:

-ideas are pitted against one another — the best ideas win. Some good ideas die. Sometimes bad ideas get scarily far

-many market players compete with one another wasting resources… but the ultimate product is still superior to stagnation in lieu of struggle

-institutions check and balance one another, getting in each other’s way — but this naturally makes the whole more organic, balanced, decentralised

 

Of course every now and then a strong centralised leadership is the most optimal

But it’s always a matter of give and takes

Centralisation always increases risk, it puts more pressure on a single point

But it also increases the reward, it magnifies the outcome, leverages it

We can trade some robustness for the exceptional

 

And of course every now and then the supposed balance and decentralisation covertly becomes more centralised and dominated by a low number of entities

At which point we begin to observe rot

Or perhaps it just collapses spectacularly, at some point

And we perhaps learn our lesson

 

Now, from theory to practice:

Pick your favourite SYSTEMIC problem,

and consider if it could be ameliorated by:

-more decentralisation

-more competition

-more exploration

-more exploitation

-more skin in the game

-more freedom

-more optionality

-more safety measures

 

Mind you, notice how some of those postulates are seemingly at odds with one another,

THAT’S WHAT COMPETITION MEANS

It’s not just competition inside the system

It’s EVEN competition of the principles of the system, it’s their BALANCE

E.g. safety measures naturally limit freedom

But they also add another layer of competition — for the more robust designs

Optionality of course adds more freedom — but it also invites more chaos and disturbance and instability and unpredictable bad actors

etc.

 

Again, look at a given system, and consider,

Could it be helped by more competition? More motivation, through more skin in the game?

Could it be helped by more rules? Promulgation of strong, very accurate rules throughout the system?

Is there a level of organisation that’s too centralised? That becomes a bottle neck for processes of the other levels? Or became inefficient, suboptimal, owing it it’s unbalanced power? Can it be put into a state of more nimbleness and accountability?

Perhaps DIVEST the organisation, reduce it in size?

Or perhaps consolidate? MERGE redundant processes, if they truly don’t differ, don’t compete, and don’t result in innovation or improvement or even greater safety

Maybe processes could be reorganised, redesigned? Maybe not a single long top-down command chain — but multiple independent teams each designated to completing their part flawlessly? And perhaps competing with one another too?

Are we observing glaringly suboptimal outcomes in some part of the system?

Is it caused by too much power on the side of one entity?

Can we balance that power, without creating another superpower? What’s the best way to liberalise that power? Can it be done without creating adverse effects elsewhere? Without creating perverse motivations, e.g. corruption or realisation of goals not aligned with the whole?

Can we follow the trail of power? What’s the centralised power behind the apparent power?

Or perhaps there’s too little power where it’s needed? Perhaps the system is TOO scattered, and the disparate entities are not even competing horizontally, but are merely a large vertical bottleneck

 

It’s not so complicated when you’re not so dogmatic

And when you understand how good systems work

 

You really usually will diagnose problems, flags:

-Spontaneous centralisation of one institution. Absence of competing, balancing force

-A trail of mutually benefiting, linked entities. Break it down, or perhaps just provide it with competing force, by removing the perverse causes which lead to this linkage

-Indeed sometimes it’s as simple as trail of money, or trail of shared benefits

-Law being too weak for a particular new emerging power

-Or perhaps law protecting existing powers

-Obvious one in small organisations, including individuals: lack of rules, lack of accountability

-Obvious motivation misalignment, poor skin in the game. Business seems to have learned it with all the stock based compensation going on. Employees become business owners

-Tyranny of the mass, tyranny of freedom, actually threatening the system. If system was perfectly free and liberal — it would no longer be a system, just chaos. Except from this chaos a new tyrant would spontaneously emerge. We tackle those tyrants by arbitrarily decentralising to the people… until they themselves become the tyrants, the mass becomes the tyrant

-Overemphasis on what works, vs what could work

-Underemphasis on what works, on what’s well tested and proven

-etc.

 

Answers are not easy

But those problems CAN be diagnosed in a NON-PARTISAN, NON-IDEOLOGICAL, SURGICAL WAY

And then considered