Musings Report #15 04-09-12 Change and Punctuated Equilibrium
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The Process of Change and Punctuated Equilibrium
As many of you know, I tend to see natural systems as models of human behavior. This is somewhat different from "behavioral analysis" which seeks to explain decisions as manifestations of cognitive biases. Yes, we do have cognitive biases, but these are surface phenomena in terms of understanding the processes of systemic change--what we call revolution or transformation.
Since I expect massive global changes to occur over the next decade, this process of systemic change is both endlessly fascinating and highly relevant. If we can make sense of the various processes of change, we will be more likely to successfully navigate the decade ahead.
Cognitive bias and the reaction we call "denial" are both considered to be psychological phenomena. This reflects our cultural preference for explaining everything in terms of individual psychology--a trend that helps protect the Status Quo from analysis as all problems are distilled down to individual psychology: you need better coping mechanisms, it's all in your head, etc. A crazy-making system goes unexamined as individuals are constantly told to "solve their problems" with motivational lectures, pop psychology and other forms of group-think.
A more productive approach in my view is to look at why we cling to failed models and what causes us to abandon the Status Quo and risk a new approach. In general, I think we don't change anything significant unless there is literally no other choice. We can understand this as a systemic bias for conserving the Status Quo.
This is not merely psychology, it is a reflection of life’s grand tradeoff between conserving existing traits that have worked well enough to aid survival, and risking precious surplus on wagers that some variation (innovation) will yield an advantage. We can understand the tradeoff by thinking of the organism’s limited bank of surplus energy. If it wagers that surplus constantly on innovation/mutation, then it might find itself without the reserves needed to survive a crisis. Making wagers in the hopes of gaining selective advantages has a cost that could potentially threaten the life of the organism.
Thus every species has to strike a shifting balance between “investing” limited resources on innovations that may come to naught and conserving existing traits which may prove inadequate in the next crisis. There is no way to predict how much surplus should be wagered on adaptations, or whether conservation of the Status Quo will be a successful strategy or a doomed one. What is certain is that organisms that invest little to nothing in adaptation, mutation and experimentation (LII) will eventually find their Status Quo is no longer suited to the environment and they will destabilize into extinction.
The fossil record is littered with species that were unable to adapt quickly enough to rapidly evolving environments. Thus the ability to evolve quickly and produce robust adaptive responses is a great selective advantage.
If we had to describe the selective advantages of culture over genetic mutation, it would be culture’s innate capacity for extremely rapid adaptation via experimentation, feedback and communication.
Life has a default setting that guarantees constant instability: random genetic mutations occur constantly over time, and those individuals who have been weakened by mutation die without reproducing, while those with advantageous mutations bear more and stronger offspring, and so the improvement is slowly distributed throughout the species’ gene pool. Though genetic mutation and selective pressure may appear constant, we have observed that some species are able to adapt relatively quickly to rapidly changing environments. They accomplish this with an explosion of experimentation that results in what is termed punctuated equilibrium.
In periods of relatively unchanging conditions, species’ Status Quo is more than adequate for survival, and so mutations are generally passed over: they simply weren’t that much better than the Status Quo.
But when the environment changes rapidly, some species are able to unleash a cascade of highly beneficial adaptations which spread fast enough through the species to save it from extinction. Thus the process of experimentation and selection is not a steady-state; it too is adaptable depending on the pressures created by crisis or rapid environmental change.
Individuals within institutions have tremendous incentives to suppress any threats to their own security, and that the selective pressures of meritocracy and feedback pose threats to the security of individuals within organizations.
But human organizations are also capable of rapid evolution when selective pressures mount and conditions change.
This feature of culture is scale-invariant, meaning that we can see human groups from households to communities to corporations to nation-states that clung to their Status Quo (conserving existing strategies) suddenly abandon the Status Quo and move to new strategies.
We can conclude that punctuated equilibrium is a model that illuminates human behavior as well as genetic mutation. Transformative change is possible; so is choosing to conserve the Status Quo by suppressing dissent, fact, feedback and transparency, and sliding to extinction.
What triggers the explosion of experimentation and risk-taking characteristic of punctuated equilibrium? We can invoke the Pareto Distribution and suggest that when 4% of the populace have embraced a new approach and belief-system, then they will exert outsized influence on 64% of the populace. When 20% of the populace have embraced the new value system, the remaining 80% will follow.
Though it may seem that 4% is too limited a number to influence 64%, recall that only 4% of mortgages defaulting triggered the global financial meltdown--something I suggested could happen back in 2007 when the bubble was still intact. (Can 4% of Homeowners Sink the Entire Market? --February 21, 2007)
Thus a mere 4% of the populace opting out of debt, consistently voting for third-party candidates and rejecting the sociopathology of State-consumerism could indeed modify the value system of 64% of the people. All that is needed is a trigger that unleashes a period of widespread experimentation and low-intensity instability--the core process of rapid adaptation.
From Left Field
Mark Pincus, founder and chief executive of Zynga, said recently that game mechanics “will be the most valuable skill in the new economy.”
Along with pushing a broom and weeding the garden. Uh, right.... this is the kind of comment which is eventually recognized as marking the top of a trend that was supposed to never top. The skills needed going forward have essentially nothing to do with playing repetitive games and everything to do with acquiring a vast and deep set of skills and knowledge bases.
(via Joel M.) Everyone talks about gasoline prices but rarely does anyone talk about the soul-grinding commute time that erodes family life and sanity.
Anti-austerity protesters are claiming victory after the government acknowledged that around 50 percent of Ireland’s estimated 1.6 million homeowners failed to pay a new, flat-rate $133 property tax by the March 31 deadline. (via Joel M.)
Thanks for reading--
charles