re: #29 No Malarkey!

Just like every one of us alive today can trace ourselves back to the very first free-dwelling cell on the planet, every society can also trace itself back to the first one. One of the important things current complex societies can do is destroy themselves as they remake a new society to deal with a new cultural environment.

We are seeing that today, as the societal organization that produced a successful society for the last 80 years or so collapses because it can no longer provide a selective advantage. Today’s IT-driven cultural environment moves information around much too fast for that oder structure to remain successful. Without a replacement, humanity would also collapse.

But simultaneously a new society is rising, based on a new organizational structure that can deal with rapid information flow of the IT-driven cultural environment and make wise decisions. It reduced hierarchy, enhanced democratic processes and pushed power to the edges.This makes it much more adaptive to complexity.

In many ways humanity has solved most of the problems facing any animal on the planet. Our complex social structures have allowed this Now we are left with some of the most complex problems ever - climate change and human health. I expec that in many ways these will be solved in the next 100 years,

These periods of creative destruction have happened several times in the last 250 years. They always result in turbulent periods when the declining society and the rising one have roughly equal power and come into conflict. And each time we ave seen a new polirical party system arise, just as we are seeing today.

It is easy to tell which society will eventually win - the losing side always makes what are obviously stupid decisions because its organizational structure does not allow the right information to get to the right people at the right time in order to make a wise decision. The decisions it makes are maladaptive. Easy examples are Gettysburg, opening a 2nd front by the Nazis, the offensive that produced the Battle of the Bulge, and, most recently Dobbs).

I think we are almost over this current turbulent period. Many bits of information suggest that this year will be a watershed as the old society final collapses too far to maintain any real power.