The Complexity Continuum Conundrum

The marvel of the last century of human history has been our ingenuity in developing complex mechanisms for the use of, and benefit to, those who do not understand them.

From combustion engines to airplanes, from compact discs to certificates of deposit, we have successfully found ways to make the complex utilitarian. In the last few decades the greatest triumphs of this complexity continuum have been working together to help to co-create a new world that was unimaginable without them: computers and capital markets. The massive processing power of the former supports the massive investment vehicles of the latter, on which the former depends for its lightspeed, global advancement.

Lest we forget, however, these mechanisms are designed and used by us, humans. You know, people like you and me with all the same imperfections that enables our births into this world. There is no such thing as an infinitely straight-line, a perfect circle, everlasting permanence, bug free software or a perfectly moral human. To assume otherwise is to gamble with probability.

Drunk on the success of a century of complexity management and sustained by an improbably extended period of good luck in recent decades, we have come face-to-face with the underlying inevitability. However wonderful our mechanisms, we cannot escape the eventuality that something, somewhere will go wrong or happen unexpectedly. This is the natural human way, it always was and it always will be. However much we model our systems on Nature, or think of them as following natural patterns, they will always be our handiwork and carry the natural imperfections of our humanity.

The limit on our progress is defined by our ability to repair damaged mechanisms and recover from disastrous events. When we exceed that limit we meet our fate. It is a mark of maturity when we are sufficiently cognizant of our own limitations that we restrain our risks in conformance with the potential consequences. Our societies, and governments we elect, must demonstrate a maturity commensurate with the complexity of the mechanisms at work in the societies that they govern.

There is a design principle here that needs to be incorporated into the fundamental structures of our government. We must constrain the infiltration of complex mechanisms without restraining the incredible innovations of those that do understand them. Complexity can only be incorporated into the backbone infrastructures of our societies when there are sufficient numbers to be able to monitor them, and repair them when the inevitable failure occurs. This is Nature's KISS principle.



Acknowledgment.
This same principle is at work on a very human level with all of us culturally. I first encountered it in Jean Liedloff's book "The Continuum Concept", which lays out a potent position on the limits of humans to cope with rapid cultural change and remain balanced, functioning members of a community.