Introduction to Chaos Theory and the Superorganic

The complexity of life on this planet and in our universe is a wonder of infinite possibilities which the human mind has yet to comprehend. Businesses startup and then fail, stock markets go up and then down, all the while governments muddle along trying to maintain some sense of order and security for their members. Yet even these best of intentions are overwhelmed by chance. The human tendency for linear thinking is very useful for solving the routine problems of daily life, but a total disaster in uncertain times and circumstances.

Linear thinking is the process of thinking that If A happens, then experience teaches us that B follows. Linear thinking is based on the assumption that there are universal truths which explain the world we live in. It is a form of thinking which is the hallmark of the ideolog and partisan. That is, "there is my way or no way."

Yet beyond the circle of our immediate experience, the truth of such thinking quickly disappears and complexities fog our judgement and ability to coop with the new or unusual. The Superorganic is a level of social organization beyond the individual and beyond the immediate family where we first encounter the limitations of linear thinking applied to human behavior. As the recent movie, It's Complicated, shows even the simplest of human relationships can become unpredicably humorous and sad when the linear thinking of one party fails to account for the linear thinking and circumstances of others.

How do we understand the world when it is becoming more and more complex by the minute? How do we understand and deal with the chaos in our lives?

The following video may help you to understand how Nonlinear thinking gives us an alternative way of thinking about the Chaos in our lives.





Chaos theory is the way to begin to understand how the superorganic behaves.

The Smart Grid by 2015 -- is it realistic?

The complexities of going green by 2015 are being driven in part by the limitations of the current electrical grid and the demands that it is being asked to meet.

The video from GreenBeat 2009 via FORA TV below offers an insight into these problems.

TOO BIG TO FAIL: Systematic Pragmatism or Moral Hazard

The Economic crisis of 2008-2009 is summarized in the PBS program, Frontline's February 17, 2009 "Inside the Meltdown". This crisis threatened to bring down the American and global economy and lead to the popularization of the phrase "Too big to fail."

"Too big to fail" means that a superorganic entity, "Corporation," is so complex and so intertwined with the other elements that make up the many levels of the superorganic entity known as the "Nation", that the failure of the former could result in the fatal failure or death of the latter.

As the Frontline report makes clear -- when it comes to the superorganic, human moral principles come up against the question of systematic pragmatism. When the survival of the whole depends upon the survival of the one critical part that is TOO BIG TO FAIL, then how do we, as individuals, justify and come to an accommodation with the paradox of personal responsibility vs the greater good?

The questions it raises for us are two-fold:

Should the greed and selfishness which fostered the systematic breakdown of Wall Street's investment banks be punished by letting the individual and institutional immorality be punished by letting them fail regardless of the collateral damage to the nation's financial system? (Moral Hazard)

Or, Should those responsibility for safe guarding the United States' financial system as a whole, step forward and take over the failed system, and, in effect, reward greed and stupidity in order to mitigate the collateral damage and to save the system? (Systematic Pragmatism)

As we come out of the depths of the crisis, it is time to take stock.

Here is the paradox we now face, what was TOO BIG TO FAIL, is today MUCH TOO BIG TO FAIL.

For example: As part of the Bush/Obama solution to the crisis -- big investment banks that failed have been allowed to fail in the case of Lehman Brothers, or forced to merge with stronger ones, i.e. J.P. Morgan/Bear Sterns and Bank of American/Merrill-Lynch. In either case, where there were 5; now there are 2.

Financial innovation such a credit default swaps are sold with no regard to the "product liability" concerns that innovators in other sectors of the economy are held to. Should there be an FDA or CPSC to oversee the manufacture and marketing of "toxic" assets. Should the stock analyst be held accountable for false advertising? Where are the trial lawyers and regulators?

Should the fund managers for the nation's retirement funds, the major investors in Wall Street, be held accountable for their failure as fiduciary agents to safe guard the long term interests of their clients. Should there be special rules for fiduciary capitalism to distinguish it from entrepreneurial capitalism?

Do the survivors of the crisis represent a healthy new heart for our financial system or are they part of the same cancer in the system?

Are the moral ideals of a "free market" and "capitalistic political system" still philosophically valid principles for government today in a global, instantaneous economy where private corporations are free to move assets anywhere at any time without any responsibility to anyone for the consequences?

If governments are the courts and banks of last resort for their people (citizens), can a republican democracy limit their exposure to financial failure while maintaining a principle of moral hazard applicable to its citizens and institutions equally?

Or, Does a systematic pragmatism require a redefinition of the principles of republican democracy and a formal differentiation in the role of government toward different segments of its citizens?

Should any corporation be allowed to become TOO BIG TO FAIL?

These are the questions the American people and their representatives must address in the remaining months of 2009 and will answer in the election of 2010.

Citizen’s United vs. FEC: America in the Balance .

The United States is about to become a republic of corporations, and not the States nor the people. If the Supreme Court decides in favor of Citizen’s United in the case now before it, the voice of the people will be silenced by the wealth of corporations.

The Supreme Court has within its power to declare human citizens null and void as the owners and source of government power. It will proclaim the CORPORATION as the true citizen of this once great nation founded on the principle of individual human freedom.

This is what is at stake in the case of Citizen’s United against the Federal Election Commission. The case will be argued on the narrow bases of length of the “commercial” as a movie (entertainment) protected under the “free speech” principle, or as political propaganda subject to McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Yet the underlying principle is between the priority of individual human rights over the rights of class privilege and economic power.

The conservative members of the court are reported to have signaled that they would invite arguments to challenge the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold. Over turning McCain-Feingold, would grant to the CEO’s of American and foreign corporations uncontrollable power to buy the government regardless of the wishes of the citizens of this country.

I find this strange. These are the “strict constructionists” and “libertarian” members who should be pro-individual human being and who respect the only contract that counts, the US Constitution. The purpose of that contract, the only purpose, is set forth in the Preamble, which states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

That contract is between the people of United States and one another, not between people (humans) and corporations (fictitious persons). Instead these justices appear to be taking the side of the corporations against the true citizens of the country -- born biologically individuals.

The preamble says “ We, the people,” they did it then for ourselves and now we are their “ Posterity”, They “ ordain[ed] and establish[ed] this Constitution of the United States of America” for this purpose.

Human beings are born as an act of nature, or God. Corporations are fictional creatures invented by government and born of state law. When government can create its “fictional citizens” and those “fictional citizens” in turn can buy the government, who needs the people?

Who represents the people’s desire for a more perfect union, justice, tranquility, common defense? Who promotes (much less determines) the common Welfare? And how are the people to secure the blessing of liberty?

Under current McCain Feingold campaign finance law, the individual’s constitutional right is protected and individuals are free to act in a collective fashion to express their preferences. There is no need or reason to grant special status to the corporation when the owners, workers and management can act as individuals already.

Corporations already enjoy special status -- they are allowed to live in perpetuity and those responsible for the corporation are granted limited liability for their actions. No human citizen is granted such special status.

If the Supreme Court sides with the Corporation and empower it to act like a real person without being held accountable as a real person would be, then they will have broken their oath to defend the Constitution. Instead, they will have rewritten the Constitution.

These Strict Constructionist will be legislating. They will be saying that the Corporation is allowed to use its resources to support political activity rather than for the economic activity they promised their investors. Management will become unaccountable to its owners (stockholders) for their fiduciary performance which they were hired to do. We have seen what damage such managerial misbehavior has brought to investors, other stakeholders, and the people of this nation over the last decade. And we have seen the near total lack of accountability and responsibility that they have been held to by government and the courts.

Where and how are the rights of individual citizens to be protected?

McCain-Feingold and similar campaign finance laws, designed to circumscribe corporate political activity, are the only way the balance of power between the individual and the corporation can be maintained.

In my view, strict construction means “WE, the people”, and not “WE, the corporations”. We the people, not some fictional legal construction, own this government.

This case is not that complex. The Supreme Court Justices can decide for the people or for the fictional corporations. Congress has the power and obligation to serve the people by limiting the powers of the vehicles used by those who control great wealth.

What the Supreme Court decides in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission will show just how “strict” these strict constructionists really are.

The Superorganic Strategy for Survival

Last night, I was surfing the Internet and happened to find this movie, Africa The Serengeti, on Hulu. I'd seen it before and it had a strong impact on me at the time. I found this particular sequence below still has the same impact on me. I hope you can see past the brutality to the honest beauty of life that I found in it.

In 1994, I had the opportunity to see Africa: The Serengeti in IMAX at the Boston Museum of Science. It was a particularly difficult time in my personal life.

In 1984, I began a decade long odyssey that took me from Tucson,Arizona where I had built a life, back to my home town, Providence,R.I. with the idea of beginning a new adventure. But things did not turn as I planned when I began the odyssey. I experienced many changes and disappointments over the following decade. I was still trying to come to terms with these when I saw the movie.

The day I went to the Science Museum, a friend's 10 year old grand daughter was visiting her. We arranged with another couple, who had a niece the same age visiting, to take the girls on a day trip to Boston. The Museum of Science was one of several stops we planned. Going to the IMAX was a spur of the moment decision. A decision that was to be mind changing for me.

The feature film that day was Africa: The Serengeti.. The plot centers around the Serengeti Plain in East Africa, a 500 mile long grassland that stretches from Tanzania in the south to the northern borders of Kenya. The story follows the annual cycle of the plant and animal life that inhabit the plain as they adjust to the seasons and challenges these present.

The stars of the movie are the Serengeti and the African wildebeest (an antelope designed by committee)with a cast of thousands. The large supporting cast include lions, zebra, elephants, jackals, gazelle, vultures, crocodiles,cheetah, etc.. Brutally honest in its portrayal of life on the plain and the relationships between plants and animals, predator and prey, the film is a far cry from the sanitized Disney Wildlife films of my youth.

It was this honesty, more than anything else, which struck me. In the sequence below I experienced an epiphany that had a lasting impact on my outlook on life.





The film is available at http://www.hulu.com and is Sponsored by the Micheal J. Fox Foundation http://www.michaeljfox.org/


The scene of the herd trying to cross the river upset and saddened me. It seemed such a tremendous waste and cost to the herd, and especially inhumane for the individual animals. I came away from the movie disturbed. I was also concerned about how the girls had taken it. It turns out that they didn't seem as bothered as I was.

I reflected on the scene and the following scene about the calving. I suddenly realized that the early deaths were required for the new generation to have a chance. This is the strategy that the super-organic entity -- the wildebeest herd and species -- has evolved to insure its survival. It defines the role of the individual within that strategy. Each individual is responsible for its actions and the consequences, Yet regardless of the individual outcome, that outcome contributes to the survival of the herd and the species.

What is the super-organic? It is the wildebeest family, the wildebeest herd, the herbivores, the predator/prey complex, the Serengeti itself. And the Serengeti is but one small super-organic system on a planet, we humans call Earth.

I realized that I could put my own wounds behind me.I had to move on to survive.

Suddenly I saw my place is in something greater than myself.I realize that I am but a small actor in the much larger picture -- the super-organic entity that is humanity.

Farewell Walter -- Journalism then and now, a commentary

The passing of Walter Cronkite like the passing of Edward R. Morrow marks the end of the journalist as "individual conscience of the country and a people" here in the United States. Where Morrow marked the transition from radio to TV reporting in the mid-2oth Century, Cronkite marked the transition from network reporting to network TV anchor/managing editor.

Walter Cronkite represents a period in our history when America and Americans were proud of their country and their leaders. When many of the foolish ideals made sense and were worth standing up for, even as we knew things in reality were different (very different). Cronkite exuded a sense of fairness and straight forwardness that those of us growing up with the emerging media of the 60s and 70s appreciated. His excitement about and for life came through in a personal unscripted way that one no longer finds in this overly marketed and packaged culture.

Can an individual replace him today? I doubt it. The times and the environment have changed. The individual no longer counts, only the demographic. The middle has been replaced by the trashing from the extremes. And the shared values of the earlier era have been displaced by the chaos and dynamic of multiple media sources and outlets.

When choice was limited, an individual, such as Walter Cronkite, could raise to the top. But today -- today no one evens knows who all the players are, much less can propose a set of criteria to select the best that everyone or most people would accept.

Today's TV "journalism" is fluff, soft, viciously biased, and factually unchecked. Today the networks, the newspapers, the print media as whole struggle with out dated business models and poorer quality product. The expansion of outlets and sources and the ease of getting YOUR story out, reduces the power, control and quality of editing and end product. The demands of the 24 hour news cycle are well documented and commented upon by those both within and outside the media.The media and the Crowd that create and feed on it demand immediate satisfaction and gratification regardless of the importance or development of the story. Or else they will turn elsewhere.

Everyone and anyone with a cell phone, video recording device, and an link to the internet can be a reporter. Just check out this video.




So where are do we go from here?? The Superorganism that is the Crowd now rules and we find ourselves in the middle of Network, the movie.



Watching the HBO film "John Adams" the other night, I came to realize, as Adams did, the unique qualities of George Washington and how lucky we were to have had him at that particular moment in our history. In some way, I feel the same is true for Walter Cronkite and TV journalism in the mid 20th Century.

Customer Service -- Is it dead?

Have you enjoyed your latest visit with the friendly Customer Service Robot?

Did you find yourself going around and round in circles, being cut off, waiting a hour for a human being and then wondering which country you were in?

So what's knew?

It seems that Customer Service has gone the way of all great ideas when put into the hands of large corporations. It is ROIed to death.

The large corporations can turn to its accountants and risk managers and ask them to determine the risk/benefit ratio and cost of a product liability suit settlement. Based on which will be cheaper, fixing the problem with the product or risking customer dissatisfaction, they certainly don't really care about the "customer" nor the "service" only the odds.

. In a mass market, a customer is a commodity, not a brand. Not worth protecting. While we gurus may talk about the value of the individual customer and point to the cost of acquiring a customer and the loss of losing a customer -- the accountants can give management ten reasons why customer service is too costly. If Deeming had been listened to in terms of quality, rather than sold to management as a way to improve efficiency, maybe CS would hold a higher position in many organizations.

It is all ROI. There are many ways to skin the cat or the customer that don't involve the individual customer at all. Tax write offs, transfer pricing, hedges, arbitrage, and other creative accounting that cooks the books and leaves sales and customers out in the cold.

With technological change taking place so rapidly why waste money training the customer service people when the product that will be the source of the complaints will be replaced before we can schedule the workshop for the CS staff?

Let's face it, we grant corporations something God can't grant us individuals -- life in perpetuity. (Think GM, Lotus, Wang, Studebaker)

When you think you can live forever and the only goal is to be profitable anything goes. Us human know there is an end and maybe a reward or punishment so we have to care. Kill the corporation by putting a time limit on them and may be there might be better CS, especially if they get a second life for good service.