Feedback

This can be used creatively. At a historic performance in 1969, legendary guitarist [[Jimi Hendrix]] gave a great example of the artistic use of feedback. It’s a mixture of science, art - and social commentary. The tune he plays is the Star-Spangled Banner, commenting on the Vietnam war, its blowback into US society, the feedback loops between different registers of violence and alienation.

– [[How systems theory can help us reflect on the world]]

harnessed feedback

A great applications of systems thinking is the work of [[James Lovelock]], and here too, feedback is a central theme. For example, global cooling could trigger the expansion of polar ice-caps, making the earth whiter and hence reflecting more heat and making it colder still. But the earth-system, like Hendrix, can play creatively with its feedback, maintaining some equilibrium and regulation. This is what we risk losing today, if there’s a tipping-point leading to global warming feedback.

– [[How systems theory can help us reflect on the world]]

[[Accumulation]] is in essence a feedback loop: grabbing portions of nature (land, resources) permits a minority to accumulate wealth, which in turn becomes an entitlement to accumulate more wealth.

And from a social angle, [[laissez-faire]] typifies a dangerous manifestation of the principle of feedback. Wealth is an entitlement to accumulate more wealth, leading ultimately to its concentration in fewer and fewer hands.

– [[What is wrong with a system of laissez-faire economics?]]