Again, another interesting conversation was raised in a client session this morning, and it was one that is close to my heart - Decentralization. Which I prefer to write as decentralisation with an "S", but I suspect Americans might not be able to understand. ;)
It is actually a bit weird at times because I use US English for Hive and at work, but I use Br English for my personal stuff and I assume I am sometimes slipping up and using the wrong forms, especially these days. But you see, this is what happens through globalization, as nuances are slowly weeded out and homogenization (homogenisation) increases. This reduces the variation and diversity and will impact on many aspects of our culture and process.
For another day perhaps?
So, what we were talking about was actually the building crisis in China, where there are all sorts of debt issues with massive building companies owing hundreds of billions of dollars. And, because they are unable to finish the buildings, owners are refusing to pay their mortgage, so the debts keep piling up, the buildings still aren't getting completed. Not only this, the incentive in the past was to buy real estate to become wealthy, so the middle class did - and there are now between 50 and 70 million empty apartments, enough to house about 20% of all the people in China.
And this is where the discussion turned to decentralization. Well, actually, it went into centralization instead, but it is one of those "via negativa" conversations, where you describe what is not, to leave what is. Kind of like chipping away at a slab of marble to reveal the statue beneath, that was always there.
The problem with centralized decision making is that it is impossible for it to suit everyone simultaneously, so there are always people who are going to be somewhat left out. And, because of the complexity and dynamics of the system, there are no perfect rules anyway, so they are all off by some degree. However, because they are being applied at such a grand scale, it takes time to get the ship going, but once going, there is a massive amount of momentum, making it very difficult and time consuming to change course. It is like taking a very long flight and going in the wrong direction by half a degree - the desired destination might be quite far away. Off by a degree on a 1000 kilometer journey, and you are almost 20 kilometers away.
And then of course, we have to think about what incentives are being driven by the centralized authority, where human nature being what it is, it is generally going to favor the ones making the decisions. This is why a major city can be thriving, while satellite locations are starving. There is no way for the central authority to know everything every node needs, let alone find a rule that creates optimal outcomes for all, so it falls back onto what it can see and what benefits it.
There aren't many starving dictators.
And then of course, because a single source can't se or make all of these decisions, the powers are delegated out to those who are "trusted" by the authority, which inevitably ends up as you'd expect - where they are incentivized to maximize themselves over their purview, cutting corners in order to increase their resources of wealth and power.
And, over time, no matter how good the intentions were to begin with, any rules created will get increasingly unsuitable, because changes affect all the original variables that were considered and dynamics shift. This means that everything gets out of balance with increasing speed, so a stable society that is seemingly working well, will eventually fail, unless it continuously course corrects.
For instance, after the war in Finland, there was a strong push to industrialize away from primary industry and in order to do this, a very good education system was built from scratch that brought the nation very quickly into the knowledge work areas we are today. However, as always, economic incentive is going to be a driver of decision making, and no matter how even the education system, people are going to excel at different areas of life. And since we highly value money, those who are able to generate wealth are of course going to have more power over those who aren't as good at generating it and as that power grows, more maximization decisions are made, creating growing wealth gaps.
And inevitably, there comes a time where the gaps are so large and the peak so narrow and high, that there is barely even a semblance of reality in the decision-making process, which is where we are now. The books just don't balance. And ultimately, it is going to cause conflicts that will tear that society apart from the inside out, like a cancer, festering away in the body. Again, which is what we are seeing now in relation to politics and the economy.
China is a good example of this as back in the day when their economic growth was very, very strong, all of these various inefficiencies were manageable, because they could be absorbed into the economy, much like a startup company that has a lot of investor cash. However, the ore optimized they become through their processes to maximize wealth, the more efficient they have to become, but they are not. If they were a company and they haven't built a business model that is sustainable so they can stand on their own, investors will eventually stop throwing their cash at them and cut their losses. People not paying their mortgages in China is the investor response. If I am not getting an ROI, I am not going to invest.
And, this is what is happening at a global scale, where "investors" in society are no longer happy with the returns, meaning that they don't feel that they are being appropriately valued. As a result, there is a rise of populist politics that are leveraging a broken economy to garner the support of the people it is failing, using all kinds of emotional triggers to amplify the message. It will tear down community, culture and economy
This is very disruptive, unfortunately we don't seem smart enough to realize that in order to stop this from happening, we need to be inclusive. Not "inclusive" in the sense that every variation of identity is included, but economically inclusive, where there is opportunity for every to build an adequate life for themselves. The problem is of course, that we have an economy that is driven my monopolization mechanisms, not value mechanisms, so those who can make the most money regardless of the human value of the activities to do so, win.
And, it is exactly because of this increasingly small group winning that eventually, all centralized authorities fail, because they become increasingly less relevant, and increasingly expensive to maintain, so that eventually, the people they govern, revolt.
There are many facets to this conversation and a lot of complexity, but in a simple sense, we have to come to terms with the fact that homogenization of thought and practice holds us back from innovations to solve our problems. And, the diversity needed to innovate is going to cause continual conflicts. We have to accept that there is no perfect way, there is no way to cater for everyone, but it is also unacceptable to only cater for some, because that is going to lead to disenfranchisement and rebellion.
The problem is, the economic practices we employ to maximize will always lead down that path, and no one is ever going to want to give up control once they have it. So, rather than being able to appropriately distribute resources across populations, a few control the most and will use them to control more.
The only way out of this is to decentralize the control and allow people to make their decisions that best suit them. This would ultimately lead to collaborative efforts much like what we have today, except instead of a centralized authority having the power, the decision-making authorities will be dissolvable quickly and easily, with them having no recourse. This means that it is not in their best interest to maximize themselves to stay in power, because to say in power they would have to maximize the group they are making the decisions for. Get too greedy, and they are gone.
All centralized authorities collapse.
It is only natural.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
