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It's sort of a "Tragedy of Systems." It's very easy for negligent or malicious actors to make bad decisions in a system context, but to have the consequences of

by ellius 7y ago

It's sort of a "Tragedy of Systems." It's very easy for negligent or malicious actors to make bad decisions in a system context, but to have the consequences of those decisions not manifest in the same time or place as where the decision occurred. This makes it really easy to screw things up without suffering the consequences in complex systems, and people often make decisions for their personal benefit ignorant of or willfully ignoring the consequences.

heymijo 7y ago
I like how you phrased that and take it to the system level to think about it. It reminds me of Indianapolis, Cleveland, and their metropolitan areas. In 1969 Indianapolis created a "Unigov" merging with its surrounding county, and all of the suburbs within it.[0] The Unigov concept has been studied a lot. General view is it was a net positive, with one of those benefits being a shared vision, shared tax base, etc. Contrast that with the city of Cleveland and its metropolitan area. The city and its suburbs are distinct places. Suburbs on the east side and west side compete with downtown to give economic incentives to draw businesses away from each other. For example, American Greetings (the card maker) moved its long-time HQ from Brooklyn, Ohio (a Cleveland suburb) to Westlake, Ohio (another Cleveland suburb). Westlake lured American Greetings with incentives that Brooklyn could not match. The net benefit to the region is likely nil, but the benefit to Westlake, and the loss to the other suburb is demonstrable. [0] https://www.cgr.org/consensuscny/docs/CaseStudies_ec-unigov514.pdf https://www.cgr.org/consensuscny/docs/CaseStudies_ec-unigov5...
khawkins 7y ago
I think all of the above comments hint at this but don't state this explicitly: One of the general problems with growth is that it always and necessarily plateaus, and the growth stage has different dynamics compared to the plateau stage. When your town/business/country is growing it is easy to leverage the future because there is more wealth to spare. In the growth period, investing in a new park/office space/spending program is totally rational if it helps improve growth and quality of life now, given that repaying that debt will be easy later. But once growth slows down, our expectations of progress must also wane. This is hard for many people to accept because they think that past growth was paid for with past success, when the reality is that it was paid for with current success.
- heymijo 7y ago
  > because they think that past growth was paid for with past success, when the reality is that it was paid for with current success. Wow, great contribution. I appreciate so much when anyone can pull a nugget out of my ramblings and explain it back to me in a clearer way. To add on to what you said and to bring this back to infrastructure, I think another challenge in the plateau phase is that you either need to spend a lot to keep old infrastructure working or massively reinvest to upgrade the infrastructure. If you've plateaued without expectations of future success, where do you get the funds to do either?
m463 7y ago
I think "externalities" are the tragic part of many systems. It would be interesting to have a "simcity" or "simearth" that a democratic society could run before making decisions about taxation or climate laws or policy. It might also be good to implement policies with an expiration date, and update the model as things play out. Then cancel policies that haven't met the promises. (Of course this is all probably nerd fantasy)

by ellius 7y ago

heymijo 7y ago

I like how you phrased that and take it to the system level to think about it. It reminds me of Indianapolis, Cleveland, and their metropolitan areas. In 1969 Indianapolis created a "Unigov" merging with its surrounding county, and all of the suburbs within it.[0] The Unigov concept has been studied a lot. General view is it was a net positive, with one of those benefits being a shared vision, shared tax base, etc. Contrast that with the city of Cleveland and its metropolitan area. The city and its suburbs are distinct places. Suburbs on the east side and west side compete with downtown to give economic incentives to draw businesses away from each other. For example, American Greetings (the card maker) moved its long-time HQ from Brooklyn, Ohio (a Cleveland suburb) to Westlake, Ohio (another Cleveland suburb). Westlake lured American Greetings with incentives that Brooklyn could not match. The net benefit to the region is likely nil, but the benefit to Westlake, and the loss to the other suburb is demonstrable. [0] https://www.cgr.org/consensuscny/docs/CaseStudies_ec-unigov514.pdf https://www.cgr.org/consensuscny/docs/CaseStudies_ec-unigov5...

khawkins 7y ago

I think all of the above comments hint at this but don't state this explicitly: One of the general problems with growth is that it always and necessarily plateaus, and the growth stage has different dynamics compared to the plateau stage. When your town/business/country is growing it is easy to leverage the future because there is more wealth to spare. In the growth period, investing in a new park/office space/spending program is totally rational if it helps improve growth and quality of life now, given that repaying that debt will be easy later. But once growth slows down, our expectations of progress must also wane. This is hard for many people to accept because they think that past growth was paid for with past success, when the reality is that it was paid for with current success.

heymijo 7y ago
> because they think that past growth was paid for with past success, when the reality is that it was paid for with current success. Wow, great contribution. I appreciate so much when anyone can pull a nugget out of my ramblings and explain it back to me in a clearer way. To add on to what you said and to bring this back to infrastructure, I think another challenge in the plateau phase is that you either need to spend a lot to keep old infrastructure working or massively reinvest to upgrade the infrastructure. If you've plateaued without expectations of future success, where do you get the funds to do either?

m463 7y ago

I think "externalities" are the tragic part of many systems. It would be interesting to have a "simcity" or "simearth" that a democratic society could run before making decisions about taxation or climate laws or policy. It might also be good to implement policies with an expiration date, and update the model as things play out. Then cancel policies that haven't met the promises. (Of course this is all probably nerd fantasy)