tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post5679714591169874793..comments2024-03-28T00:36:19.403-07:00Comments on Rocketpunk Manifesto: The Cities of EarthRickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-7745795286328676542010-10-31T09:27:40.500-07:002010-10-31T09:27:40.500-07:00I tend to agree with this last point, that if ther...I tend to agree with this last point, that if there are hints of a post-Westphalian world they point most strongly toward a 'neomedieval' model with multiple layers of a hierarchy sharing attributes of sovereignty. <br /><br />On the cost of energy, I am not entirely sure that it won't be relatively cheap. My impression is that the sustainable techs are approaching a price point not too far above the current fossil fuel price, and there is still a lot of room for progress.<br /><br />That said, the energy splurge culture probably wouldn't last whatever the price of energy, but is a cultural response to suddenly having a lot of energy available for the first time.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-26548305779658696662010-10-31T04:36:50.549-07:002010-10-31T04:36:50.549-07:00Lots of daily economic stuff may happen at city le...Lots of daily economic stuff may happen at city levels, but large states don't just build the roads and railroads, they make sure there aren't bandits on those roads. So good at it we've forgotten about the problem, but it used to be common.<br /><br />There's also economic stability and enforcement of regulations which need uniformity to work. Keynesian buffering of business cycles; tax and benefit levels -- you can localize those, but then you also have to restrict trade and migration to avoid undermining the system, at the expense of efficiency and individual freedom.<br /><br />In parts of the world we see both devolution and unification, e.g. Europe: regions like Scotland or Catalonia get more autonomy, but within the growing framework of the EU. The old nation state fades a bit, but you've still got a strong top down component. I don't think it'll go away; if the UK disappears peacefully, power will be going to both England (or London) and the EU, not just to London.Damien Sullivanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13321329197063620556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-55846056280047684162010-10-19T04:18:53.766-07:002010-10-19T04:18:53.766-07:00I'll add a bit:
First off-two new scenarios:
...I'll add a bit:<br /><br />First off-two new scenarios:<br /><br />In my space warfare setting, space jockeys are brains in hard jars. It is not therefore unbelievable that connecting a brain directly to a computer input/output system doesn't have civil applications, at least for the rich.<br /><br />This foreseeably leads to the opposite of suburbanisation of cities, centralization. The fastest servers and the baddest connection speeds are all kept as close as possible to the city center, if only for wire length. If this trend continues, the richest will leave nearest the city, the poorer a bit out, and the downtrodden either don't have access to the virtual wonderland or have lower accessibilty. This leads to a stratification where social hierarchy reflects geographic position.<br /><br />The rich inside, the poor outside. The 'citizen' has access to virtual wonderland, the highest GDP (virtual economy), and will have maglev superhighways to the other cities. His house would be bare compared to our standards today, as he doesn't spent much time in it. All can be done from his seat, why travel and spend money on a view you will never exploit? <br /><br />The poorer people spend less and less time in VR (T), have to work with their hands (or at least looking over the robots who do) and their capital is entirely real-based. He'd buy a view, a large house and own a car. He's poor but that's only relative- he's got the lifestyle if a North American.<br /><br />I can see city-states therefore developping from there. The city state owns its money producing center, it's ring of rich specialists and outgrowth of tech and service industries. Around it would be the heavy industries, the chemical industries, the wheat fields and what ever. <br />States as today exist, it assures military responsabilities, exterior relations and national works (building roads, dams), but its importance is reduced to only being able to mobilize more capital than any single city state. That's it. Citizens in London don't feel related in any way to Manchester, if it were not for the flag making sure they don't rip themselves apart.<br /><br />Second scenario: <br /><br />Post-apocalypse. It would justify a cities of earth setting. After a period of stagnation, an energy crisis leads to a worldwide limited-nuclear war. Armies are taken as major targets, but the major cities remain or are reconstructed quickly. The city, having mobilized the whole of iots resources for its own reconstruction, doesn't feel a need to honour its national alliance with other cities, creating a self-sufficient city state with defence in mind and in competition with other city states. New York rebuilt underground and surrounded by autonomous laserbots and 15M high city walls?KraKonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16247562094101986439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-65526882062774107852010-10-17T15:08:35.678-07:002010-10-17T15:08:35.678-07:00So: how do we envision this restructured world?
O...So: how do we envision this restructured world?<br /><br />One: http://transect.org/transect.html<br /><br />Two: http://www.america2050.org/maps/<br /><br />Three:<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city<br /><br />The most important of these is the transect. Geoffrey is a village guy, so he'd live in T2 rural. More urban folks would prefer T4 through T6. Even in the T3 suburbs, there's a town square within a five or ten minute walk where you can go to the bank or the grocery store or the farmer's market and, hopefully, a stop on the S-Bahn into the city. If done right, these are close-grained enough that no transect is too massive on its own. In some cases, there's a sharp contrast--Central Park, for instance.<br /><br />People living in the low-density zones are incentivized to have a hand in producing food and energy, like keeping a garden or putting solar panels on their roof. Residents of the core do their part just by living in higher density.<br /><br />More of the goods everyone buys are produced not by anonymous laborers in another part of the world, but within the metropolitan area or the megaregion, because the transportation costs are too expensive to fly perishable food or tube socks in from another hemisphere, no matter how cheap the children are to hire. Partially this is because the invisible hand is working its magic, but it's also because policies of various political bodies have made it so that some negative externalities are more accurately reflected in a good's market price. If summits of state governments are unable to do what is necessary, perhaps summits of city governments can. With charter cities and special economic zones, perhaps they will have that autonomy.<br /><br />In this world I describe, community is more important than it is today. People are more likely to pick a place and stay there for some time, and to follow local and regional politics more attentively, as part of the greater shift in culture pushed along by the the growing unreliability of oil and the ecological disasters that follow its overuse. The Gulf Coast has not seen the worst. Prepare for a Bangladeshi diaspora.<br /><br />The broader pattern is one of localization. As R.C. said, this happens at sea as well, though it'll be a long time before seasteading is economically viable. Even this fundamentally libertarian project will end up being very communitarian by virtue of being life at sea. But it will be the good sort of communitarian where people have the freedom to smoke weed and love queer.<br /><br />In a locally global world, the city continues rising to prominence, and given enough time this could extend to military forces as well. However, I would expect defense to be the Rubicon of state power, which they would defend most jealously and refuse to cede even as they are rendered less relevant in other areas, on both smaller and larger scales.<br /><br />As for space, don't forget that the best place to build a space elevator is probably off the coast of Singapore.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07499628950181405872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-67708950652852958192010-10-17T15:08:21.446-07:002010-10-17T15:08:21.446-07:00This is a very interesting topic, as is the discus...This is a very interesting topic, as is the discussion that's followed. I'd been meaning to read and add to it but hadn't until now.<br /><br />Something I don't think has been discussed, except briefly in the bits about hypersuburbanization, is the scale at which human environments will operate in the 21st century. It's a response to the problem Raymond mentioned:<br /><br />"Exurban always seemed like the worst of both worlds. You're too far away to walk anywhere, and it's not even that pretty."<br /><br />Urban/suburban/exurban sprawl in general has this problem, along with problems of congestion, pollution, global warming, gas prices, and so on. The North American middle class consumes massive amounts of oil with its lifestyle, not only getting around but by the endlessly cycling global supply chain that fills the big box stores and online mail-order suppliers.<br /><br />We are now mentoring populations much larger than those of North America in the finer points of this lifestyle, and they are taking to it with aplomb. When China and India get their Thatcher and Reagan, when everyone in Asia and South America wants and can have two cars and a house in the suburbs, when we have to use oil that is harder and more expensive to tap, there will be major consequences. <br /><br />Energy will not stay cheap forever, and no combination of electric cars and biofuels will solve the problem, absent a restructuring of how we live. Some aspects of globalization are here to stay. Barring a Kessler cascade or somesuch, we'll always have instant global communication. Others, like the endless supply chain, are not sustainable--and I don't just mean that in the environmentalist sense. Wal-Mart's business model works because it's cheap, and it's only cheap as long as oil is cheap.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07499628950181405872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-62255599587895285482010-10-12T12:38:45.110-07:002010-10-12T12:38:45.110-07:00Thucydides:
"Without getting too pendantic a...Thucydides:<br /><br /><i>"Without getting too pendantic about things, the difference between Afghanistan 2002, where <b>a SOF operator could literally pick up his satphone and speed dial "1" to reach an orbiting F-15 or B-1</b> and the hours to days long process it took during the 1991 Gulf War is like the difference between night and day."</i><br /><br />Well, since <b>that</b> never actually happened, except in some "Transformation" snake oil salesman's imagination, yes, we definitely can't get too pedantic. In reality, the TACP was handed a resource by a controlling authority, just like always. What made it seem so streamlined compared to the past was that there were so few troops on the ground, and each party of US troops was primarily tasked with coordination of air support. When you have few controlling agencies and a lot of firing agencies, of course the controlling agencies get the phone answered quickly, with a lot of resources on call. But it was still just a simple matter of a big supply and a small demand.<br /><br /><i>"SOF operators are trained to work as FACs, and they did direct the aircraft both tactically but also using in airpower in a strategic manner to cut off Taliban logistics, particularly in the operations leading up to the assault on Kandahar."</i><br /><br />US Army Special Forces are trained to be the trainers and leaders of indigenous forces. Some may have training in joint fires control, but they're mostly reliant on USAF TACP for air support. That's because normally it's the TACP guys that have the AM radios to talk on air tactical nets, and the training to direct air strikes effectively.<br /><br />Cutting off the logistics of enemy front line forces is interdiction, not strategic bombing. It's an operational mission, not a strategic one. And this is the first time I've heard of ground controllers involved in that in Afghanistan. Can you point me to a readily accessible source on that?<br /><br /><i>"The implications..."</i><br /><br />From my POV, it's all <i>claimed</i> implications, not real ones. Certainly small, specialized teams with a lot of support can be highly effective in directing decisive fires. But that has yet to obviate the need of larger, forces to close the deal. SF teams certainly had an effect by making the USAF in effect the Northern Alliance AF. But we can't forget that it took the NA troops in the field to motivate the Taliban and AQ troops to concentrate where air strikes could affect them. And it took NA troops and others to actually take advantage of the air strikes on the ground.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-72307581500530204272010-10-12T12:07:02.867-07:002010-10-12T12:07:02.867-07:00Raymond:
"Also, I believe the USMC includes ...Raymond:<br /><br /><i>"Also, I believe the USMC includes an FAC at company level, do they not?"</i><br /><br />Theoretically. How common that is on the ground I don't know. I can tell you that my Marine rifle company in Operation Desert Storm (B 1/1) had an officer forward air controller and a radio man attached.<br /><br /><i>"(Can you also explain the JTAC/FAC terminology divide?)"</i><br /><br />I'm not an expert on defense terminology, but something that is explicitly "Joint" is specifically intended for interservice operations. A Joint Terminal Attack Controller is supposedly trained and equipped to provide terminal control for an air strike from any service's aircraft, for any service's ground forces. <br /><br />I think "TAC" is old, superceded terminology.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-42933991371225856002010-10-12T11:59:51.783-07:002010-10-12T11:59:51.783-07:00Without getting too pendantic about things, the di...Without getting too pendantic about things, the difference between Afghanistan 2002, where a SOF operator could literally pick up his satphone and speed dial "1" to reach an orbiting F-15 or B-1 and the hours to days long process it took during the 1991 Gulf War is like the difference between night and day. <br /><br />SOF operators are trained to work as FACs, and they did direct the aircraft both tactically but also using in airpower in a strategic manner to cut off Taliban logistics, particularly in the operations leading up to the assault on Kandahar.<br /><br />The implications of this are huge. Manning, equipping, logistics and the relative importance of the various services all come into play. How you deal with the after effects is also important; tiny forces can now apply power all out of proportion to their size, but you will still need a large constabulary force to take and maintain control afterwards...Thucydideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09828932214842106266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-62821941821388383222010-10-12T11:39:25.388-07:002010-10-12T11:39:25.388-07:00Milo:
"Al Qaeda does not possess this capabi...Milo:<br /><br /><i>"Al Qaeda does not possess this capability."</i><br /><br />You ever heard the term "poor-man's air force"? Suicide bombers and IEDs are not exact analogues, but they do allow behind-the-lines strikes and attacks on heavier targets than small units normally are capable of. And it's been well-established that AQ cells have broad leeway to select targets for bombing.Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18103471451043461302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-23081312859399340112010-10-12T11:31:37.866-07:002010-10-12T11:31:37.866-07:00Tony:
I should have been more specific; I was ref...Tony:<br /><br />I should have been more specific; I was referring to SOF teams with attached JTAC. Also, I believe the USMC includes an FAC at company level, do they not? (Can you also explain the JTAC/FAC terminology divide?)<br /><br /><i>"I work for a small, specialized company. We have a national market because the Interwebs gives us that kind of reach. But internally we still work like any small business ever has."<br /><br />"Prior to that, I worked for a major HMO..."</i><br /><br />That's just it - small businesses don't have the same requirement for some of the upper layers larger companies often require (as seems to be the case with your old job). Likewise cities, if given sufficient autonomy and tax revenue, can maintain and expand their own infrastructure more efficiently than state/provincial or federal levels.<br /><br />WRT your HMO job, ouch. Not knowing the details, I won't comment too directly, but I'm curious if they were actually centralizing instead of delegating and specializing. If the former, those efforts are frequently doomed to failure, and the exact opposite of what I'm talking about.<br /><br />The automotive company I work for is in the opposite situation in some ways. A couple years ago, we finally got a proper Canadian subsidiary, but at the same time the head office has been centralizing more of the warranty data and purchasing decisions. Given the differences between the Canadian market and the American one (especially in winter), not to mention the German market, this has tied our hands in frustrating fashion. And despite the appearance of effort towards modernizing communications with the engineers in Germany, the reality is even worse than before. (Which really doesn't help when your latest couple models are ridden with problems.)<br /><br /><i>"That works under certain business conditions. The problem with government is geographic scope and specialization. You have to have a Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office within 50 miles of everyone in the state. And the people that work at the DMV can't do building inspections."</i><br /><br />I know, and like I said, nothing is a foregone conclusion. Sometimes legacy models still work better. For geographic concerns, though, as urbanization continues the geographic assumptions underlying the state/provincial level begin to crumble ever so slightly.Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18103471451043461302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-57190959114261620392010-10-12T08:49:24.760-07:002010-10-12T08:49:24.760-07:00Thucydides:
"This has potential benefits for...Thucydides:<br /><br /><i>"This has potential benefits for organizations which choose to fully embrace the model; SOF forces in Afghanistan were fully disintermediated in 2002, with individual soldiers given the ability to directly call aircraft for tactical or strategic level support. The Regular military establishment still has not gone very far don that road"</i><br /><br />That's not factual at all. Specially trained and equipped Air Force tactical air controllers were attached to the SF teams and they were the means through which air strikes were directed on the battlefield, under the direction of the SF team leader. This approach goes back at least as far as Vietnam. No "individual soldier" directed air strikes.<br /><br />Also, none of the strikes involved strategic missions. Yes, B-52s and B-1s were used as long endurance bomb trucks -- which was indeed an interesting innovation -- but the missions directed from the ground were, AFAIK, against immediate tactical targets.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-78293128133144708852010-10-11T20:12:25.700-07:002010-10-11T20:12:25.700-07:00There will always be specific cases which require ...There will always be specific cases which require specialized handling, which means no single model can cover all cases or eventualities. In economics, this is spoken of as the local knowledge problem. look up "Organizations & the Local Knowledge Problem" <a rel="nofollow">http://hayekcenter.org/?p=2041</a><br /><br />Disintermediation provides an opportunity to experiment with more models, and also to provide a more finely grained social, political and economic system so most people will be able to connect to the model that works best for them. (This has potential benefits for organizations which choose to fully embrace the model; SOF forces in Afghanistan were fully disintermediated in 2002, with individual soldiers given the ability to directly call aircraft for tactical or strategic level support. The Regular military establishment still has not gone very far don that road)<br /><br />If you happen to believe in Guild Socialism, then it will be easier for you to find and join a guild. Even alternate economic systems will be able to exist. Many readers of this blog have heard that the virtual economy of MMRPG's interacts with the real world (you can purchase gold coins or magical items in the game from other players for <b>real</b> USD). At the other end of the spectrum we have the Hawala networks which transfer cash around the globe without any records for governments or conventional economists to track.<br /><br />Cities provide the critical mass of resources and people to make such networks viable, but hopefully the long reach of the Internet and associated technologies can transfer these benefits to you wherever you choose to live.Thucydideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09828932214842106266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-45933580981258521372010-10-11T14:29:42.326-07:002010-10-11T14:29:42.326-07:00Raymond:
"If the lower units are given more ...Raymond:<br /><br /><i>"If the lower units are given more autonomy, and direct communication with specialized support units is allowed, then the higher command levels are there to resolve conflicts over allocations when necessary. This effectively raises the number of subordinates per level."</i><br /><br />That works under certain business conditions. The problem with government is geographic scope and specialization. You have to have a Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office within 50 miles of everyone in the state. And the people that work at the DMV can't do building inspections.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-74706359110360551212010-10-11T12:54:22.810-07:002010-10-11T12:54:22.810-07:00Raymond:
"I think some of said behavior can ...Raymond:<br /><br /><i>"I think some of said behavior can be considered a legacy model, borne of centralized communications and authority. In business, this model is being challenged (most notably in the tech industries) by smaller, more specialized companies and more flexible logistics. Not that it's a forgone conclusion, but battle has been joined. We'll see if government follows suit."</i><br /><br />I work for a small, specialized company. We have a national market because the Interwebs gives us that kind of reach. But internally we still work like any small business ever has.<br /><br />Prior to that, I worked for a major HMO that tried to leverage moder ncommunications to flatten it's operations by a single level. That was a fiasco of huge proportions, as the company soon discovered that the intervening level existed for real human and geographic reasons. The organization found that there were many things that just couldn't be done by remote control, but being there in person on a timely basis required top level managers and their key support staff to fly monthly, and in some cases weekly, in order to do their jobs. At one point, the 0700 and 1600 Southwest flights between two major metropolitan areas looked like a company bus. After a while, department heads were scheduling meetings on the plane the save time. I think that led to a quarter billion dollar loss by the time people came to their sense.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-62411992500740833922010-10-11T12:39:05.987-07:002010-10-11T12:39:05.987-07:00Raymond:
"Here I'm speaking of scales ab...Raymond:<br /><br /><i>"Here I'm speaking of scales above small-unit tactics. And don't think that the ability of small units to call in air support without going through five levels of hierarchy isn't tactically relevant."</i><br /><br />Since when has a small unit ever been able to do that? If you're talking about a squad or platoon, there is no such thing as <i>any</i> kind of impromptu support, except by kicking the chain of command and seeing what falls out. It could be anything from company mortars to a JDAM strike, depending on what resources are available and how the higher-ups interpret your needs.<br /><br />Even with the most highly networked C^(whatever the latest exponent is) system, the crisp young troop on the ground is still praying into a radio for Divine intervention, and has no control over whether or not his prayers will be answered, or how.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-72889826086734717112010-10-11T11:51:48.272-07:002010-10-11T11:51:48.272-07:00Raymond:
"And don't think that the abili...Raymond:<br /><br /><i>"And don't think that the ability of small units to call in air support without going through five levels of hierarchy isn't tactically relevant."</i><br /><br />Al Qaeda does not possess this capability.Milonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-33571488993295516732010-10-11T11:32:55.806-07:002010-10-11T11:32:55.806-07:00Milo:
Here I'm speaking of scales above small...Milo:<br /><br />Here I'm speaking of scales above small-unit tactics. And don't think that the ability of small units to call in air support without going through five levels of hierarchy isn't tactically relevant.Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18103471451043461302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-16415426028785659402010-10-11T11:27:23.219-07:002010-10-11T11:27:23.219-07:00Raymond:
"Modern comms allow forces to fight...Raymond:<br /><br /><i>"Modern comms allow forces to fight as a unit while more dispersed than ever before,"</i><br /><br />Not really. If two people are more than two maximum-weapon-ranges away from each other (at a stretch), then they're effectively acting independantly regardless of communication capability. They can cooperate only in a strategic sense, not a tactical one, and so aren't a unit.Milonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-52612665689293929072010-10-11T11:10:36.156-07:002010-10-11T11:10:36.156-07:00Thucydides:
"A competing meme is "scale...Thucydides:<br /><br /><i>"A competing meme is "scale free networks", fractal organizational models which look the same at almost every level. The Internet is one such model, and tracing the spread of disease also seems to follow a scale free model, to use two exampes."</i><br /><br />The internet is in no way a scale-free model. The nature of IP (especially TCP/IP) results in a network which is inherently quantized and discrete. You'll get some elements of a scale-free model if the nodes are sufficiently clustered, but the internet in general has too many overlapping networks of too varied sizes to be considered truly scale-free.<br /><br /><i>"Guilds or the Universal Church are not part of our day to day lives anymore, but are still around in the places they are useful"</i><br /><br />Guilds are still with us, in the form of professional associations which are backed by law. We just don't call them guilds anymore, and they don't cross borders as often or as efficiently as their medieval predecessors.<br /><br />Tony:<br /><br /><i>"The problem is that much of organiztion, in both business and government, is involuntary behavior."</i>"<br /><br />I think some of said behavior can be considered a legacy model, borne of centralized communications and authority. In business, this model is being challenged (most notably in the tech industries) by smaller, more specialized companies and more flexible logistics. Not that it's a forgone conclusion, but battle has been joined. We'll see if government follows suit.Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18103471451043461302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-406784702941944172010-10-11T11:09:34.502-07:002010-10-11T11:09:34.502-07:00Happy Canuckian Thanksgiving, Thucydides. (Althoug...Happy Canuckian Thanksgiving, Thucydides. (Although it gets in the way of properly responding. Apologies for going back so far.)<br /><br />Tony:<br /><br /><i>"Technological force multipliers are ephemeral, transitional things, because once you make the enemy aware of a technology, he'll put it to use himself, as soon as he can."</i><br /><br />Technological <i>advantage</i>, certainly. Technological <i>capability</i> remains, and allows you to do the same with less, or more with the same. Modern comms allow forces to fight as a unit while more dispersed than ever before, and thus allow forces to exist which wouldn't be able to otherwise.<br /><br /><i>"I think this is just the way of most of the world, in most times and places. Our highly organized societies and wars have somewhat blinded us to that fact."</i><br /><br />Yeah, I can probably agree with that.<br /><br />Rick:<br /><br /><i>"The Escobars and Capones strike me as variations on the 'marginal' theme - as someone noted, they don't really threaten state power structures, even in Colombia."</i><br /><br />I think the hollowing-out of state power structures is just as much of a threat to the state as its defeat. It's a different nature of threat, perhaps, but I wouldn't call it marginal.<br /><br />Thucydides:<br /><br /><i>"A Fourth American Republic..."</i><br /><br />My problem with the AEI is that they have a nasty tendency to draw their boundaries arbitrarily. That paper, for example, goes on and on about the New Deal (like most sufficiently conservative pundits insisting on far-reaching reform), but doesn't mention the Fourteenth Amendment, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, or the Interstate Commerce Act (while it lasted), which have more to do with shaping American business than Social Security.<br /><br />Milo:<br /><br /><i>"If they for whatever reason lose their current political dominance, then turning inwards like this would be a logical conclusion. However, I don't see them just giving up their political dominance willingly. They're pretty culturally attached to being the "world police"."</i><br /><br />They're not attached the being the world police as they are determined to never be threatened, which frequently manifests as police actions and invasions in support of their preferred agent of stability.<br /><br />Rick:<br /><br /><i>"I'll further suggest that as you get a ways into the midfuture, especially a multi-layered polypolar one, the more the 20th century ideological fixation on 'ownership of the means of production' may recede into the past and become irrelevant to contemporary issues."</i><br /><br />That depends on the marginal cost of national vs international trade (which has been steadily decreasing post-Soviet) and how many strategic resources can be identified as such (oil, gas, uranium - any others?). I suspect you're right, up until the point where old-school nationalism intervenes (however inefficient it may be in the particular case).<br /><br />Tony:<br /><br />"<i>Ever hear of span of command/control? You can't practically eliminate levels of administration, no matter how much technology you have, for the simple reason that the responsible officials can only control so many subordinates or, at the lowest level, can only service so many customers.</i>"<br /><br />I have heard of it, and levels of administration can in fact be reduced with a combination of specialization and delegation. If the lower units are given more autonomy, and direct communication with specialized support units is allowed, then the higher command levels are there to resolve conflicts over allocations when necessary. This effectively raises the number of subordinates per level. That's the part about the Wal-Mart model which works so well, because local purchasing levels can be quickly scaled without recourse to HQ. A similarly decentralized command structure also worked well for the US Marines in Fallujah, from what I understand.Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18103471451043461302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-8885906072148796662010-10-11T09:42:35.014-07:002010-10-11T09:42:35.014-07:00Thucydides:
"...radically transform..."...Thucydides:<br /><br /><i>"...radically transform..."</i><br /><br />This is where you lose me. I simply don't accept radical transformation as a conscious choice. The conscious choice is to evolve technology and see what happens. What does happen is serendipity. It has been said by MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray that military revolutions are not planned, they are survived. The same applies to any other kind of technology-based change. <br /><br />As for scale-free networks, they seem to form through voluntary behavior. That's nice. The problem is that much of organiztion, in both business and government, is involuntary behavior. It's great if your friends in Singapore and Burssels can help you with your problems, but if their solutions are against your local laws, or simply not possible in your local business culture, then you have to do things through the existing government or business hierarchies.<br /><br />Wal-mart's flat organization works for them because they have certain norms and use push logistics. They're broadly flexible, in the sense that they can respond to trends nationally or even globally, and do it very qucikly. But they respond in the same way everywhere. They're very well built for a juggernaut. If they have to be locally flexible? not so much.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-45690653469376452812010-10-11T09:01:55.177-07:002010-10-11T09:01:55.177-07:00In my line of work, span of command is pretty all ...In my line of work, span of command is pretty all encompassing, but there are lots of interesting discussions afoot to see how to radically transform the hierarchy in the interests of economy and speed of decision making. Wal-Mart is a popular starting point, since they have a huge work force, global financial and logistics yet can outperform their competitors with as few as five levels of management.<br /><br />A competing meme is "scale free networks", fractal organizational models which look the same at almost every level. The Internet is one such model, and tracing the spread of disease also seems to follow a scale free model, to use two exampes .<br /><br />Politics, business and other organizations have settled on hierarchies as a means of distributing limited resources in limited time (and through limited communications channels), so it has a place in the here and now, but competing models can now challenge the traditional ones since may of the old barriers such as communications bandwidth and access to resources are coming down.<br /><br />You can email the president, but you can also find the means to solve the problem on your own, or with the help of your friends in Singapore, Canada and Outer Mongolia. I believe that most people will choose the method which provides the fastest, cheapest or best results, which will render competing models irrelevant. <b>Which</b> model will prevail is an open question, and older models still exist in our society for certain specialized roles (Guilds or the Universal Church are not part of our day to day lives anymore, but are still around in the places they are useful)Thucydideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09828932214842106266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-77197127566415487962010-10-11T08:31:23.509-07:002010-10-11T08:31:23.509-07:00Thucydides:
"A meditation on the changes to ...Thucydides:<br /><br /><i>"A meditation on the changes to the structure of the American Republic by a member the AEI is no less valid than the speculation that we do."</i><br /><br />The writer has a right to speculate as much as he wants about whatever he wants. That doesn't mean anybody has a duty to take him seriously. I'm just applying a healthy, rational skepticism to somebody that's trying to sell something. Guess who I learned that from? A guy with the initials RAH.<br /><br /><i>"Objecting to it on the grounds of origin is doubly strange since we often speculate on the nature of future economies and wonder what form of Mcguffinite will attract speculators (i.e. businessmen) to put their money and effort beyond the Earth."</i><br /><br />The point to be made here is that it <i>is</i> McGuffinite. The only space business that investors are likely to be interested in through the plausible midfuture, barring major, unforeseen advances in launch vehicle efficiency and economy, are ones with government contracts attached. The stuff of romance and the stuff of reality are not the same thing.<br /><br /><i>"If anything, I might expect to see the effects of communications technology and the information revolution to disintermediate a lot of levels beteween citizens and the State, maybe the City State itself is too large a level of State power, and people will be able to organize in neighbourhood sized units to deal with really local issues, and hook up with like minded people and groups to gain access to larger levels of resources."</i><br /><br />Ever hear of span of command/control? You can't practically eliminate levels of administration, no matter how much technology you have, for the simple reason that the responsible officials can only control so many subordinates or, at the lowest level, can only service so many customers. Hierarchies don't exist because networks are absent, they exist as a very specific type of network that addresses two very specific problems: 1. How to give everybody involved face time with officials and 2. How to organize the labor of officials so that it is effective. Just because it's possible and cheap for you to email the President with your problems or advice, that doesn't mean its practical, or that it will ever be.Tonyhttp://blogs.echofiveecho.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-71626939512320266012010-10-10T22:15:05.747-07:002010-10-10T22:15:05.747-07:00So... our glorious future is government by street ...So... our glorious future is government by street gangs?Milonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7494544263897150929.post-56936251993844047342010-10-10T21:53:32.673-07:002010-10-10T21:53:32.673-07:00A meditation on the changes to the structure of th...A meditation on the changes to the structure of the American Republic by a member the AEI is no less valid than the speculation that we do. Objecting to it on the grounds of origin is doubly strange since we often speculate on the nature of future economies and wonder what form of Mcguffinite will attract speculators (i.e. businessmen) to put their money and effort beyond the Earth.<br /><br /><br />The city state meme is popular (I think) because most readers and consumers of SF live in cities, and from experience most people are parochial (remember the remark uppost about identifying with the city of Toronto to foreigners?). As many people have noted, larger groupings have certain levels of efficiency and access to resources which smaller polities do not, so reversions to city states do not seem to be in the cards.<br /><br />If anything, I might expect to see the effects of communications technology and the information revolution to disintermediate a lot of levels beteween citizens and the State, maybe the City State itself is too large a level of State power, and people will be able to organize in neighbourhood sized units to deal with really local issues, and hook up with like minded people and groups to gain access to larger levels of resources.<br /><br />Speculate awayThucydideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09828932214842106266noreply@blogger.com