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Ask HN: Why are humanity's large systems failing?
Whether you're talking about the crash of '08, the inaction on global warming, antibiotic resistance, or the Syrian refugee crisis, it appears pretty plain to me that while humanity has many skills setting up large,sustaining human systems/organizations is not one of them.
I know this is isn't strictly IT related, but as an IT person systems of all kinds fascinate me and we build these software systems for use by humans so I always felt that understand people goes hand-in-hand with building good software/hardware systems.
Anyways, thoughts anyone?
- smt88 10y agoI think it's a big stretch to say that large systems are failing. We're still in the longest stretch of human advancement ever -- before the Renaissance, society would go into a "dark age" from time to time. Unnecessary death, disease, and war are also at a low point for human history. Just because there are existential threats doesn't mean the systems are failing.
- internaut 10y agoRead the Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter. It is the Bible on this topic.
- alistproducer2 10y agoThanks a lot for recommending this. I've been thinking a lot about this subject.
- internaut 10y agoI was just talking about this subject a couple of days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535146 Actually a lot of my posts are related to this subject in some way. Are you aware that contrary to popular perception, many of Silicon Valley's most influential people believe we are in a stagnation since the early 70s? This is called the Technological Stagnation Hypothesis. The essence is that outside of computation there has been a reduction in technological progress.