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Yeah, this is the turkey’s dilemma - life on a farm is a lot better than life in the wild for 51 out of the 52 weeks of the year. Most of our modern economy an

Yeah, this is the turkey’s dilemma - life on a farm is a lot better than life in the wild for 51 out of the 52 weeks of the year. Most of our modern economy and systems are built to reduce redundancy and buffers - ever since the era of “just in time” manufacturing, we’ve done our best to strip out any “fat” from our systems to reduce costs. Consequently, any time we face anything but the most idealized conditions, the whole system collapses. The problem is that, culturally, we’re extremely short-termist- normally I’d take this occasion to dunk on MBAs, and they deserve it, but broadly as a people we’re bad at recognizing just how far down the road you need to kick a can so you’re not the one who has to deal with it next time and we’ve gotten pretty lazy about actually doing the work required to build something durable.

Slava_Propanei 1y ago
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maxerickson 1y ago
What are some examples of modern system collapse? We've had substantial disruptions, but they've not been particularly irrecoverable or sustained.
- exe34 1y ago
  For the people who died of normally preventable death during covid while the health services were overwhelmed, the damage is irrecoverable. The chips shortage lasted years. Every year we become more, not less, dependent on the supply chain working. Every year we become less, not more, resilient.
  - maxerickson 1y ago
    I don't think it's crass to separate the deaths that occurred from a novel disease from the impact it had in society. In the medium term, it's a blip, never mind the long term. There's a huge chunk of society that thinks there was a huge overreaction! The chips shortage has been difficult, but it's also been little more than an inconvenience when you look at it in terms of goods being available to consumers or whatever.
    - tehjoker 1y ago
      That chunk is heavily influenced by the propaganda that over a million dead people isn't a big deal. The propaganda is economically incentivized because slowing down the economy is bad for business even if it protects human lives.
      - maxerickson 1y ago
        Do you consider this significant failure a collapse? I fell into the other poster's trap, talking about something emotionally charged that isn't really responsive to what I said initially.
        tehjoker 1y ago
        Nearly all collapses are of limited temporal duration (except for extinction events....). I think it is fair to call a health system that failed to protect the nation and world a collapse. It failed to perform its function in a dramatic way. Now, the fact that most of us survived at least is being exploited to say it was no big deal and actually, why not trash every public health institution so the economy is never shut down again? Sad whomp whomp horn: the economy is going to be negatively affected by covid disability and death on an ongoing basis and a new pandemic will still cause so much fear the economy will shut down.
        LorenPechtel 1y ago
        We have plenty of small scale collapses that weren't of limited duration. It's just that such things are typically only noted by archeologists. We only see the survivors and thus conclude that collapse isn't an existential problem. I do agree on Covid disability. Early on we saw some pretty dire predictions, but since then it's mostly been an exercise in muddying the waters. Lots of wheel-spinning about what constitutes long Covid when they should have simply been collecting data on the various symptoms. Better to not see the problem than have to deal with it. Look at how we were handling AIDS before we discovered it was HIV destroying the immune system. Long Covid is still at that stage--we are seeing a slew of highly varied effects rather than the mechanism.
Xelbair 1y ago
"Just in time" is a phrase I hate with vehement passion. You aren't optimizing the system, you're reducing safety marigns - and consequences are usually similar to Challanger. This is a solution that teenager put in management position would think of(along with hire more people as solution to inefficient processes), not a paid professional. Systems like electric grid, internal water management (anti-flood) shouldn't be lean, they should be antifragile. What's even more annoying that we have solutions for a lot of those problems - in case of electric grids we have hydroelectric buffers, we have types of powerplants that are easier to shutdown and startup than coal, gas or wind/solar(which cannot be used for cold start at all). The problem is that building any of this takes longer than one political term.
- exe34 1y ago
  > You aren't optimizing the system Of course not, they're optimising shareholder profit.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  > Systems like electric grid, internal water management (anti-flood) shouldn't be lean, they should be antifragile. How do you make those systems antifragile rather than simply highly resilient?
  - shermantanktop 1y ago
    Step 1: read a book by nnt
    - Marsymars 1y ago
      Yeah, I have, that’s why I’m asking the question.
  - baq 1y ago
    Things which can’t self improve can’t be antifragile by definition. NNT alludes to this multiple times - systems together with processes and people running them can be antifragile, but just things cannot. I postulate the grid as a whole is antifragile, but not enough for the renewable era. We still don’t know what was the root cause of the Spanish blackout almost 24h after it happened.

Slava_Propanei 1y ago

[dead]

maxerickson 1y ago

What are some examples of modern system collapse? We've had substantial disruptions, but they've not been particularly irrecoverable or sustained.

exe34 1y ago
For the people who died of normally preventable death during covid while the health services were overwhelmed, the damage is irrecoverable. The chips shortage lasted years. Every year we become more, not less, dependent on the supply chain working. Every year we become less, not more, resilient.
- maxerickson 1y ago
  I don't think it's crass to separate the deaths that occurred from a novel disease from the impact it had in society. In the medium term, it's a blip, never mind the long term. There's a huge chunk of society that thinks there was a huge overreaction! The chips shortage has been difficult, but it's also been little more than an inconvenience when you look at it in terms of goods being available to consumers or whatever.
  - tehjoker 1y ago
    That chunk is heavily influenced by the propaganda that over a million dead people isn't a big deal. The propaganda is economically incentivized because slowing down the economy is bad for business even if it protects human lives.
    - maxerickson 1y ago
      Do you consider this significant failure a collapse? I fell into the other poster's trap, talking about something emotionally charged that isn't really responsive to what I said initially.
      - tehjoker 1y ago
        Nearly all collapses are of limited temporal duration (except for extinction events....). I think it is fair to call a health system that failed to protect the nation and world a collapse. It failed to perform its function in a dramatic way. Now, the fact that most of us survived at least is being exploited to say it was no big deal and actually, why not trash every public health institution so the economy is never shut down again? Sad whomp whomp horn: the economy is going to be negatively affected by covid disability and death on an ongoing basis and a new pandemic will still cause so much fear the economy will shut down.
        LorenPechtel 1y ago
        We have plenty of small scale collapses that weren't of limited duration. It's just that such things are typically only noted by archeologists. We only see the survivors and thus conclude that collapse isn't an existential problem. I do agree on Covid disability. Early on we saw some pretty dire predictions, but since then it's mostly been an exercise in muddying the waters. Lots of wheel-spinning about what constitutes long Covid when they should have simply been collecting data on the various symptoms. Better to not see the problem than have to deal with it. Look at how we were handling AIDS before we discovered it was HIV destroying the immune system. Long Covid is still at that stage--we are seeing a slew of highly varied effects rather than the mechanism.

Xelbair 1y ago

"Just in time" is a phrase I hate with vehement passion. You aren't optimizing the system, you're reducing safety marigns - and consequences are usually similar to Challanger. This is a solution that teenager put in management position would think of(along with hire more people as solution to inefficient processes), not a paid professional. Systems like electric grid, internal water management (anti-flood) shouldn't be lean, they should be antifragile. What's even more annoying that we have solutions for a lot of those problems - in case of electric grids we have hydroelectric buffers, we have types of powerplants that are easier to shutdown and startup than coal, gas or wind/solar(which cannot be used for cold start at all). The problem is that building any of this takes longer than one political term.

exe34 1y ago
> You aren't optimizing the system Of course not, they're optimising shareholder profit.
Marsymars 1y ago
> Systems like electric grid, internal water management (anti-flood) shouldn't be lean, they should be antifragile. How do you make those systems antifragile rather than simply highly resilient?
- shermantanktop 1y ago
  Step 1: read a book by nnt
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    Yeah, I have, that’s why I’m asking the question.
- baq 1y ago
  Things which can’t self improve can’t be antifragile by definition. NNT alludes to this multiple times - systems together with processes and people running them can be antifragile, but just things cannot. I postulate the grid as a whole is antifragile, but not enough for the renewable era. We still don’t know what was the root cause of the Spanish blackout almost 24h after it happened.