The Collapse of Complex Systems
Solving one problem may create ten more problems
I’m a sucker for articles like this and can’t get enough of positive people and facts. I’m an optimist, I have faith in humanity, and we’re living at the best time in history. But I think we’re grossly underestimating the risk of climate change and food chain/ecological collapse.
The history of human development, compiled into one data set, represents a giant repository of optimism. Life is hard, brutal, harsh, and unforgiving. But it’s also free, fun, joyful, sublime, and beautiful. People solve problems.
Sustainability, though, is much harder to define … and much harder to solve. Life is more complex and interdependent than we appreciate … and we’re facing consequences before we have the knowledge and will to do anything about it.
We may consume less in absolute terms, but we’re still consuming resources we can’t renew. The food chain is resilient but collapse in one place creates cascading collapses in others.
In the late 90s the Y2K bug was a thing and I was adamant people would figure it out. By contrast, mitigating and adapting to environmental threats / climate change is a collective action problem that’s embarrassing to talk about much less solve.
In 2002 my brother Chris Mikolay gave me a t-shirt with the word OPTIMIST on the front. I wore it proudly for years. People are ingenious and will figure out what’s in their own enlightened self-interest.
What about complex systems? “In the 80s, spelunkers entered a deep cave in Romania that had been sealed off from the outside world for a long period and found 33 species of insects and other small creatures … all blind, colorless, and new to science.” (Bill Bryson)
On the internet we marvel at the ingenuity of others. We underestimate the number of people who are curious, engaged, creative, enterprising, resourceful, and persistent. Humanity finds a way … life continues to improve … things get better on the whole.
Today will be the best day in human history, tomorrow will be better. Stories of creative triumph will emerge. But what can we do in the meantime – and will it be enough?
