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Your point that existing systems tend to conceal complexity and embody tested strategies is well taken. I would just point out that incrementalism is not at al

Your point that existing systems tend to conceal complexity and embody tested strategies is well taken. I would just point out that incrementalism is not at all guaranteed to converge to sustainable solutions. Decisions which at one point in time appear unambiguously good often lead to ambiguous outcomes. Industrial ag caused yields to skyrocket, for instance, but it also hooked us on expensive fertilizers, damaging pesticides, and land use practices which destroy long-term soil viability. Before someone calls me a luddite this is coming from someone working on crop optimization. I'm not saying technology is bad, just that it nearly always has unforeseen consequences, and that we can better judge risks vs. benefits if we're mindful of the presence of unknown unknowns.

jbay808 6y ago
Indeed. I'm all for more literacy, but that shouldn't be just blind appreciation of the status quo. Imagine if we still depended on tetraethyl lead to keep society rolling. Instead, it should be the level of detailed understanding that is a prerequisite for figuring out how to do better. That's not quite as easy as the article suggests though, I think.
ekianjo 6y ago
> Industrial ag caused yields to skyrocket, for instance, but it also hooked us on expensive fertilizers, damaging pesticides, and land use practices which destroy long-term soil viability. It also solved human starvation, and enabled a lot less people to work in farming and therefore increase their level of life and in the end increase the technological level of the whole human race. We need not to forget the long reaching tail of agricultural improvements.
- walleeee 6y ago
  It did not solve human starvation. That is a problem of distribution as well as production. It did allow us to feed far more people, temporarily. Meanwhile we will face mass starvation on a level never before seen if we can't figure out how to render agriculture viable in the context of rapidly eroding soils and changing climates within the next half century. "Increasing the technological level of the human race" is not unambiguously good if that technology levers us even further over the entropic abyss (to use Joscha Bach's term).

jbay808 6y ago

Indeed. I'm all for more literacy, but that shouldn't be just blind appreciation of the status quo. Imagine if we still depended on tetraethyl lead to keep society rolling. Instead, it should be the level of detailed understanding that is a prerequisite for figuring out how to do better. That's not quite as easy as the article suggests though, I think.

ekianjo 6y ago

> Industrial ag caused yields to skyrocket, for instance, but it also hooked us on expensive fertilizers, damaging pesticides, and land use practices which destroy long-term soil viability. It also solved human starvation, and enabled a lot less people to work in farming and therefore increase their level of life and in the end increase the technological level of the whole human race. We need not to forget the long reaching tail of agricultural improvements.

walleeee 6y ago
It did not solve human starvation. That is a problem of distribution as well as production. It did allow us to feed far more people, temporarily. Meanwhile we will face mass starvation on a level never before seen if we can't figure out how to render agriculture viable in the context of rapidly eroding soils and changing climates within the next half century. "Increasing the technological level of the human race" is not unambiguously good if that technology levers us even further over the entropic abyss (to use Joscha Bach's term).