📕 subnode [[@ryan/20210714203700 designing_freedom]] in 📚 node [[20210714203700-designing_freedom]]

Notes

Part 1

Stafford Beerbelieves that our society (as of the late 70s that is) is breaking down.

Stafford believes that the world is not suited to understanding the world as a system He gives the example of waves on a beach, which are the visible result of a complex system.

Stafford says that the wave is itself in crisis, as it will eventually destroy itself. The goal for cyberneticians is to see beyond the crest of the wave etc. and to understand the underlying system that produces waves, so to speak. (A wave's destruction is built into its structure)

Stafford says that our current social institutions are adaptable, which is why they don't necessarily destroy themselves. Stafford says that they must adapt to continue to survive, to handle change.

Stafford believes that institutions do not, currently, sufficiently handle change.

Society is not a fixed entity.

Stafford believes that society is a dynamic system that produces the outputs we see all around us.

For Stafford the goal is to examine systems and understand how they can stay adaptive and handle change.

Stafford believes that an org chart is an exercise in finding fault. He says you can look at a diagram for how a car works but nowhere will you find information about speed, "which is what the automobile is all about."

However complex a system is, there is one crucial output state that defines it: performance.

Systems that have too many internal configuration states will perform poorly.

The number of possible states of a system is called its variety.

  • variety:: the number of possible states of a system.

All major institutions in society are high variety systems.

Variety can be reduced by subordinating freedom to efficiency.

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