REPLY Society Strategy Development (SD6918)

[SDMAIL Jack Harich]

Posted by  Jack Harich <register at thwink.org>


I think Kim is trying to nudge us along the brainstorming road, from 
so-so goals to ones that are breakthroughs in terms of insight.

This is right along the lines of what Tim Hurson discusses in his book 
"Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking." Here's a 
relevant extract from page 71:

-------------------- Quoted Material ---------------
"Good brainstorming is different. It relies on the overarching principle 
of separating creative thinking and critical thinking to generate long 
lists of possibilities. Alex Osborn, the advertising genius who 
'invented' the concept of brainstorming in 1941, developed a list of 
four essential rules for an effective brainstorming session:

- Criticism is ruled out. Adverse judgment of ideas must be withheld 
until last.

- Freewheeling is welcomed. The wilder the idea, the better; it is 
easier to tame them down than to think up.

- Quantity is wanted. The greater the number of ideas, the more the 
likelihood of useful ideas.

- Combination and improvement are sought. In addition to contributing 
ideas of their own, participants should suggest how the ideas of others 
can be turned into better ideas or how two or more ideas can be joined 
into still another idea.

------------- End Quote ----------------

Kim writes "To recap, the basic question concerned what observable, 
measurable indicators you think would cause friends of SD to have a 
party celebrating its success in say 20 years from now."

Let's see if we can shift gears into the third third, where the 
unexpected connections lie. This would go beyond the concept of 
"observable, measurable indicators." It would go to our ultimate dreams, 
ones that pushed the envelope of what is possible.

I'd like to share my ultimate dream. It's a measurable goal expressed in 
SD terms.

My ultimate goal is *a permanent race to the top* as described in the 
last chapter of the Dueling Loops book, at 
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/articles/005/DuelingLoops_Book.htm. The 
chapter is titled "The Tantalizing Potential of a Permanent Race to the 
Top" and is available as a separate download. This runs only 13 pages.

Notice page 182, which lists:

"The Critical Mass Components of the New Model of Social System 
Engineering:
Component 1 - System Dynamics
Component 2 - The Boundaries of Memetics
Component 3 - The Fundamental Principles of Memetics
Component 4 and 5 - Memetic Calibration Techniques and Fundamental 
Social Control Model Parts"

So as you can see, SD is but one piece of the puzzle. But it is THE 
piece on which the others build.

Isn't system dynamics really social system engineering by another name?

Memetics, by the way, let's us more accurately describe and manage the 
soft variables which have been discussed on this list lately.

The permanent race to the top goal incorporates most of the other goals 
expressed so far in this thread, because these tend to be symptoms of a 
system that is running well. They are side effects of achieving a higher 
goal.

This goal is a step beyond the goal of "the ability to reliably solve 
large, pressing social problems." That goal is actually self-limiting, 
because it's forces us to think in terms of solving particular problems. 
Better is to redesign the system so that it automatically solves them 
for us. The human system itself becomes the ultimate problem solver. We, 
as mere mortals, essentially transfer *the capability to solve problems* 
to something else.

And then we are out of a job. :-)

SDMAIL Bill Harris wrote:
>
> SD can help us see the "physics" that shows the impact of reducing or 
> not reducing GHG levels, it can help us see the likely impact of 
> various strategies for getting there, but it may not help all of us 
> accept the ethical importance of making that happen in lieu of 
> assuaging our short-term desires to achieve other goals.
A keen observation.

The "impact" is what the System Improvement Process (SIP) calls the 
proper coupling subproblem. In the case of the environmental 
sustainability problem, the human system is improperly coupled to the 
greater system it lives within, the environment. The relationship 
between the two systems lacks the proper feedback loops for the two 
systems to work together in harmony. See this definition:
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/ProperCoupling.htm

"Making that happen" is the what SIP calls the change resistance 
subproblem. That is, we may know the proper practices to achieve proper 
coupling, but we don't want to adopt them. We are resisting change. In 
the case of the global warming problem, change resistance has proven to 
be the crux of the problem. There is extreme resistance to getting all 
the nations of the world to commit to a highly aggressive series of 
targets to lower GHG emissions to acceptable levels in time to avoid 
catastrophe. See this second definition:
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/ChangeResistance.htm

Decomposing a problem into two or more easier problems is required when 
the problem is difficult. Otherwise one is attempting to analyze and 
solve two or more intertwined problems at once, without realizing it. 
This is a surefire route to failure.

Optimum, reusable problem decomposition is something a formal problem 
solving process excels at. Until SD practitioners start routinely using 
a formal, mature process on difficult problems, they will continue to 
see relatively low success rates.

Bill, you say SD "may not help all of us accept the...". It will help if 
one's analysis is driven by a process that fits the problem. Ideally the 
process should fit it so well that solving even big hairy "impossible" 
problems becomes a pleasure, instead of the nail-biting chore it is today.

And you say "accept the ethical importance of making that happen." If 
you've read the Dueling Loops paper, then you can see that an SD 
analysis has already identified a possible way to make this happen. Once 
The Race to the Top among Politicians loop goes dominant, politicians 
will now be competing on virtue, that is, how to optimize the common 
good of the system for all. They will be using the truth, instead of 
falsehood and favoritism, to do this.

While terms like "ethical importance" are popular, I tend to think in 
terms of agent incentives and strategies. A dominant race to the top 
would cause the dominant agents in the system to behave ethically 
correct, as defined by the system.

"...in lieu of assuaging our short-term desires to achieve other goals." 
- The Dueling Loops analysis shows how those with short term interests 
(for-profit corporations and their allies, notably the rich) have seized 
control of the human system by exploiting the inherent structural 
advantage of the race to the bottom. If we push on the right high 
leverage point, then we can make the race to the top go dominant, and 
the system will flip into a new mode, where the long-term best interests 
of humans will be the system goal.

SD has immense capability. But if the process driving it doesn't fit the 
problem, then applying SD to anything but easy problems will tend to 
fall short. If fact, it may fall so short so often that users may start 
to feel as if they are missing something, and are lost on an aimless 
plateau....


Jack
Posted by  Jack Harich <register at thwink.org>
posting date  Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:11:39 -0400