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What about the complexity that we create? The bureaucracies, the financial systems, the unintended affects of millions of interdependent but uncoordinated parti

What about the complexity that we create? The bureaucracies, the financial systems, the unintended affects of millions of interdependent but uncoordinated parties, etc. None of this is based in an increased understanding of nature, these are all problems we've created for ourselves. And nobody can see the problems coming (like the great recession), or convince all the disparate special interests to fix them (like climate change), until things blow up. As a programmer I've learned to be scared of too much complexity. I have the same feeling every time I have to deal with the government or big corporations, where they are complex that they are often utterly retarded. And it seems like everyone's first solution is more of the same :-(

fuzzfactor 6y ago
The polymath gentleman scholar who pursued & learned the key points in those fundamental subjects over a lifetime would be functionally becoming familiar with a much greater percentage of the total publications up to that point than we could ever accomplish today. A difference like night and day, or a significant percentage of academic literature studied versus an insignificant percentage resulting from the same intensity of lifetime study. Well this is just academic knowledge. Which is a tremendous advantage, but when you include everything else known about western civilization at the time, there's a much lesser percentage difference. And when you bring in the whole world, we're in the same state of confusion as 300 years ago. You have to go back a lot closer to the cave man for us to be much more fully baffled. Even though there sure are a lot more people now spending lifetimes making things un-necessarily complex, it's been pretty gonzo the whole time. I would also say we may now just be more aware of our complete misunderstanding. I think it applies to emerging complexity not much differently than it did in antiquity. Regardless of what you are saturated with, anything more is an overload. Note: it's just the greatest recession this century. So far. Well, probably until now. The century's still young. Plenty of people saw 2008 coming, even more knew it was inevitable, and way way more than that FELT a downturn like that was going to happen sooner rather than later.
- mikem170 6y ago
  I agree. And I'd add that it seems like in our modern more complicated/interconnected world that nation-state decisions that are implemented have vastly more far ranging consequences than in the past and are not as easy to predict. Mitigating that we have better information than ever, but it scares me that these enormous decisions are often made based on greedy influences.

fuzzfactor 6y ago

The polymath gentleman scholar who pursued & learned the key points in those fundamental subjects over a lifetime would be functionally becoming familiar with a much greater percentage of the total publications up to that point than we could ever accomplish today. A difference like night and day, or a significant percentage of academic literature studied versus an insignificant percentage resulting from the same intensity of lifetime study. Well this is just academic knowledge. Which is a tremendous advantage, but when you include everything else known about western civilization at the time, there's a much lesser percentage difference. And when you bring in the whole world, we're in the same state of confusion as 300 years ago. You have to go back a lot closer to the cave man for us to be much more fully baffled. Even though there sure are a lot more people now spending lifetimes making things un-necessarily complex, it's been pretty gonzo the whole time. I would also say we may now just be more aware of our complete misunderstanding. I think it applies to emerging complexity not much differently than it did in antiquity. Regardless of what you are saturated with, anything more is an overload. Note: it's just the greatest recession this century. So far. Well, probably until now. The century's still young. Plenty of people saw 2008 coming, even more knew it was inevitable, and way way more than that FELT a downturn like that was going to happen sooner rather than later.

mikem170 6y ago
I agree. And I'd add that it seems like in our modern more complicated/interconnected world that nation-state decisions that are implemented have vastly more far ranging consequences than in the past and are not as easy to predict. Mitigating that we have better information than ever, but it scares me that these enormous decisions are often made based on greedy influences.