Society May Be Better But Is It Also More Fragile?

By Ed Gibney

For the final 5 posts, we now have been discussing the query of whether or not the world is getting higher or not. I’d like to present Ed Gibney the final phrases (for now?) on the subject:

Thanks for gathering these feedback collectively (together with mine) and briefly replying to them. They elicited one other thought from me as I used to be studying this. Throughout my MBA research, we basically have been educated to *optimize* the operations of organizations. Take away all of the fats, redundancies, waste, and poor processes. All this rationalization makes issues run higher. And that is definitely what we now have executed to human tradition as effectively. However (!) this additionally makes issues extra fragile.

Within the enterprise world, this reveals up when hiccups occur (consider the provision chain issues throughout Covid) and there’s no additional stock (aka “waste”) sitting round to fill within the short-term gaps. If issues get optimized an excessive amount of, these organizations change into extraordinarily fragile and collapse with issues that nobody would have realized forward of time can be sturdy sufficient to trigger this. Bankruptcies come on in a short time when money circulation and funding are optimized an excessive amount of. And, by the best way, this can be a frequent drawback in environments characterised by increased and better ranges of competitors. You might be pressured to “optimize” to remain alive within the brief time period. However at the price of being sturdy for the long run.

In simply the identical method, we’re eradicating “redundancy” and “waste” from the ecological techniques of the world. That is extraordinarily harmful! Issues really feel higher within the second, however as Nassim Taleb wrote about in The Black Swan, this leaves us very weak to “low likelihood however extremely damaging” occasions. Many people see this fragility in society and are apprehensive. The techno-optimists are ignoring the lengthy historical past of issues going bust.

I’ll say that I agree with you that expertise and rational enhancements are the best way out of this. We will determine to be extra sturdy somewhat than extra fragile. It requires extra cooperation and limits on competitors. However till I hear techno-optimists begin utilizing that language, I’m going to be very apprehensive concerning the type of progress they suppose is occurring. One is short-term and really harmful.

This jogs my memory of one other lesson I discovered from change administration concept. Consider a 2×2 matrix with one axis being if issues are being executed “effectively” or “poorly”. The opposite entry is that if issues are going within the “proper” or “unsuitable” path. The perfect state of affairs on this 2×2 matrix is clearly to be within the quadrant the place issues are going “effectively” within the “proper” path. However, the worst end result is stunning. It’s going within the “unsuitable” path, however doing issues “effectively”! That is mainly working in the direction of the cliff. It’s falling sooner and sooner and pondering “That is nice! We’re transferring so rapidly!”

Which field are we in?