A primer on Complex systems

I’ve had some time to think about America and it’s depth and vastness. Folks living here are part of a 300+ million person country from “Sea to shining Sea” and I’ve found myself lamenting it’s malaise. If only I could help, but I’m one person of 300+ million how could I make a difference? Well that’s been front and center in my head for the past 2 years, working on an American solution to an American problem, and in this climate, no good deed goes unpunished. Well 2 years ago I stumbled into a panel speaking of the academic failure to model our changing world in such a way to create good solutions. The proposal was simple, the systems in place don’t work, and solutions are already out there waiting to be picked up and ran with. So why only movement and no action? The answer is data, in a digital world with entire lives recorded online, Americans are pretty reliably providing solutions to our most basic problems, good, righteous people with sincerity for change are abound. The hiccup? How do we parse the good from the bad?

What does data have to do with a complex system?

To simplify, it’s us. We’re all a part of a complex system, we’re all responding to things going on around us and unfortunately the size of this system is what seems to drive the insanity. Humans aren’t explicitly designed by the Grace of God for mass communication and it’s present in Social Media, but WE are the complex system. We’re adapting and changing our views and understanding, and as new information is presented to us this system is always adjusting, now for better or worse that remains to be seen. First and foremost, this isn’t a linear system, it’s no simple plug and play model, it’s far denser. You have to account for all people at all times responding and adjusting their perceptions and understanding of reality at all times, this is consensus, simple agreement on what reality is and what the implications are. This is important to understand, consensus is the sum aggregate of information as reality and opinions are fundamentally driven by the consensus, which is fascinating because our politics is ultimately shaped by whether or not people even agree on anything.

Data as consensus

People will readily provide opinions on any topic you ask and those that can’t simply say so, data is a fascinating medium to generate hundreds of thousands if not millions of ideas through simple polling, followed up by rigorous algorithmic straining and feasibility through game theory, data through simple questions can provide years if not decades worth of policy and aggregated problem solving without the needless ideological bickering back and forth. Needless to say our greatest enemy is the people we charge with solving problems, get back to the roots of who governs who, ourselves? Or folk with ulterior motive and distorted perceptions of reality? We provide data every single moment of our lives from purchasing habits, to posts, to blogs, to driving habits, and more. When someone posts a comment on a video with outrage, that’s another point of data to add to the consensus.

Where do we go with what we know?

The first step to addressing socio-political issues is admitting there are some. Check. Next the organizations responsible for generating solutions need to aggregate ALL available data, that’s the parties. Third digitize the parties and make solution aggregation immediate and accessible to anyone, smartphones much? Now that’s a curious solution to a complex system, and a fundamentally non-linear approach to governance, parties providing candidates and solutions to governance directly from the people they are tasked with governing, what a concept.