4 ms·

Society is full of positive (self-enforcing, runaway) feedback loops. It is not self-stabilizing. It tends to flip-flop between extremes. This applies to pretty

Society is full of positive (self-enforcing, runaway) feedback loops. It is not self-stabilizing. It tends to flip-flop between extremes. This applies to pretty much any field. It's the strongest argument against laissez-faire economics, yet it's amazing how many people are blind to it (well, that's exactly part of the mechanism that enables the aforementioned feedback loops).

liber8 13y ago
Can you provide one example of such a phenomena operating on anything longer than a very short timescale? I'm genuinely curious. Nearly every example I can think of is long-term negative. edit: I'd venture to say anything longer than 5-10 years could be considered long term for this question. Under that measure, I'd say government spending has exhibited positive-feedback behavior over the last 50+ years. Anything else?
- n6mac41717 13y ago
  Movies: Rocky, 8 million. Star Trek, Infinitum.
- mjfl 13y ago
  The population of New York vs. Philadelphia
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  Any decisive battle between two big kingdoms. The "share of the pie" for the upper class in the US in the last few decades.
- Retric 13y ago
  Religion. Fashion ex Louis chairs. Language ex regional accents and new words / phrases. Manners and other social protocalls. Operating systems, social networks, and computer languages.
  - mc32 13y ago
    In Japan, this is even more pronounced. MFGs seek to ride the wave of teen uptake of new fast-moving products. These products tend to enjoy a short-lived, but intense attention by consumers.
- yk 13y ago
  I wanted to argue originally that the original iPhone is a nice example, if you compare it to other 2007 high end phones like the N95, but a theoretically perhaps clearer example is the evolution of soccer formations, they evolve to beat the currently used formations. To pick a specific example, the 4-4-2 with diamond midfield is a formation which is good in two situations, beating itself and being perfectly suited to the 1998-2000 French international squad, which did win the World and European Championship. After this success suddenly everybody wanted to play a 4-4-2 diamond. Interestingly it is not very good against the dominant formation of the late nineties, the 4-4-2 with flat midfield.[1] The solution to this problem was the development of the modern full back, [2] and suddenly the best players are playing the position with the least influence. And this in turn leads to shifts in tactics, such that the full back position can more easily join the attack. [3] So I would argue, that if France did not have the specific players they had in the late nineties, then modern football would look very different than it actually does. Especially we would still see very unremarkable players at full back. [1] A flat midfield has two wingers on each side, a diamond midfield only one. [2] http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/01/19/twtc-the-advent-of-attacking-full-backs/ http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/01/19/twtc-the-advent-of-at... [3] http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/04/22/is-the-sweeper-set-for-a-return-to-prominence/ http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/04/22/is-the-sweeper-set-fo...
nickik 13y ago
> It's the strongest argument against laissez-faire economics, yet it's amazing how many people are blind to it If you actually would read free market economomics, for example market process theory. You would learn that actually free market economists do not belive that the market is this always stable thing that is pareto optimal. It is actually discribed much more as a lagging, thing where there are forces pushing the markets in the right direction in the longer run. Also if you for example look at public choice theory, that is economic analysis to democracy, you will see that just because the market is not stable does not mean you want the state to stabalize it. The state faces insentives that make unlikly to do the right thing, even if we know what that right thing is. There you have to problem that you often get unintended consequences, that is even if you assume that the state is all nice and only wants to help you, there is still a question if the have the knowlage and forsight to actually implment things correctly. So in the end it makes it very lickly that the intervention actually has negative consequences instead of positive ones. So, next time please inform yourself befor attacking a groupe of on the basis of what you think they belive. tl:dr; free market econmists are not as dumb as you think they are, they actually have spend the last 150 years thinking about these problems.
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  Right, and then they (X) go ahead and dismantle all control mechanisms that prevent the self-reinforcing loops from tearing the world apart. Sure they are "enlightened". :) (X) - By 'they' I mean libertarian politicians. They are the ones who actually matter, who can make a change. I don't care what anyone thinks in theory. All I care about is what happens where rubber meets the road, in the political arena - that's the stuff that could affect me. > So in the end it makes it very lickly that the intervention actually has negative consequences instead of positive ones. I'm not a big fan of folks who take their semi-religious, untested, views and use them to beat me over the head, under the pretense that they are well-informed and cultivated. The stuff you're repeating here is just the same ivory-tower circle jerk that you keep hearing in libertarian circles as if it's Gospel, yet it could not be more removed from reality. You people live in this fantasy because reality has been kind to you. You've lived through uninterrupted plenty and now can't distinguish between what's really out there and your own narrative. Some hardship would wake you all up really quick - unfortunately, there's no way to do that without affecting everyone else. :(

liber8 13y ago

Can you provide one example of such a phenomena operating on anything longer than a very short timescale? I'm genuinely curious. Nearly every example I can think of is long-term negative. edit: I'd venture to say anything longer than 5-10 years could be considered long term for this question. Under that measure, I'd say government spending has exhibited positive-feedback behavior over the last 50+ years. Anything else?

n6mac41717 13y ago
Movies: Rocky, 8 million. Star Trek, Infinitum.
mjfl 13y ago
The population of New York vs. Philadelphia
Florin_Andrei 13y ago
Any decisive battle between two big kingdoms. The "share of the pie" for the upper class in the US in the last few decades.
Retric 13y ago
Religion. Fashion ex Louis chairs. Language ex regional accents and new words / phrases. Manners and other social protocalls. Operating systems, social networks, and computer languages.
- mc32 13y ago
  In Japan, this is even more pronounced. MFGs seek to ride the wave of teen uptake of new fast-moving products. These products tend to enjoy a short-lived, but intense attention by consumers.
yk 13y ago
I wanted to argue originally that the original iPhone is a nice example, if you compare it to other 2007 high end phones like the N95, but a theoretically perhaps clearer example is the evolution of soccer formations, they evolve to beat the currently used formations. To pick a specific example, the 4-4-2 with diamond midfield is a formation which is good in two situations, beating itself and being perfectly suited to the 1998-2000 French international squad, which did win the World and European Championship. After this success suddenly everybody wanted to play a 4-4-2 diamond. Interestingly it is not very good against the dominant formation of the late nineties, the 4-4-2 with flat midfield.[1] The solution to this problem was the development of the modern full back, [2] and suddenly the best players are playing the position with the least influence. And this in turn leads to shifts in tactics, such that the full back position can more easily join the attack. [3] So I would argue, that if France did not have the specific players they had in the late nineties, then modern football would look very different than it actually does. Especially we would still see very unremarkable players at full back. [1] A flat midfield has two wingers on each side, a diamond midfield only one. [2] http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/01/19/twtc-the-advent-of-attacking-full-backs/ http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/01/19/twtc-the-advent-of-at... [3] http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/04/22/is-the-sweeper-set-for-a-return-to-prominence/ http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/04/22/is-the-sweeper-set-fo...

nickik 13y ago

> It's the strongest argument against laissez-faire economics, yet it's amazing how many people are blind to it If you actually would read free market economomics, for example market process theory. You would learn that actually free market economists do not belive that the market is this always stable thing that is pareto optimal. It is actually discribed much more as a lagging, thing where there are forces pushing the markets in the right direction in the longer run. Also if you for example look at public choice theory, that is economic analysis to democracy, you will see that just because the market is not stable does not mean you want the state to stabalize it. The state faces insentives that make unlikly to do the right thing, even if we know what that right thing is. There you have to problem that you often get unintended consequences, that is even if you assume that the state is all nice and only wants to help you, there is still a question if the have the knowlage and forsight to actually implment things correctly. So in the end it makes it very lickly that the intervention actually has negative consequences instead of positive ones. So, next time please inform yourself befor attacking a groupe of on the basis of what you think they belive. tl:dr; free market econmists are not as dumb as you think they are, they actually have spend the last 150 years thinking about these problems.

Florin_Andrei 13y ago
Right, and then they (X) go ahead and dismantle all control mechanisms that prevent the self-reinforcing loops from tearing the world apart. Sure they are "enlightened". :) (X) - By 'they' I mean libertarian politicians. They are the ones who actually matter, who can make a change. I don't care what anyone thinks in theory. All I care about is what happens where rubber meets the road, in the political arena - that's the stuff that could affect me. > So in the end it makes it very lickly that the intervention actually has negative consequences instead of positive ones. I'm not a big fan of folks who take their semi-religious, untested, views and use them to beat me over the head, under the pretense that they are well-informed and cultivated. The stuff you're repeating here is just the same ivory-tower circle jerk that you keep hearing in libertarian circles as if it's Gospel, yet it could not be more removed from reality. You people live in this fantasy because reality has been kind to you. You've lived through uninterrupted plenty and now can't distinguish between what's really out there and your own narrative. Some hardship would wake you all up really quick - unfortunately, there's no way to do that without affecting everyone else. :(