[aebtebeten]

Thinking about people as PID controllers: left to our own devices we're normally very good at the D term, but lousy at the I term, with the P term somewhere in the middle.

Give people clay/parchment/paper, however, and it becomes much easier to reliably evaluate an I term.

Example: https://xkcd.com/1205/ ; maybe each single time you do the task it seems like sanding out the glitches would be more trouble than it's worth, but a little record keeping allows one to see when a slight itch becomes frequent enough to be worth addressing. (conversely, it may be tempting to automate everything, but a little record keeping allows one to see if it'd obviously be rabbit holing)

[caseyy]

You might like the second episode of All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. It talks about how techno-utopians tried to model society and nature as feedback loop controllers.

One might say a part of the reason they have failed is because nature and people don't much care for the I term. These systems have feedback loops for sudden events, but increase the temperature slowly enough and the proverbial frog boils.

There are very many undercurrents in our world we do not see. So much that even when we think we understand and can predict their effects, we almost never take into account the entire system.

[082349872349872]

Thanks! Parts of that ep reminded me greatly of The Tyranny of Structurelessness (1971-1973): https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

(the notion that we tend to overly ascribe stability and reproducibility to a system reminds me of Vilfredo Pareto having convinced himself that 80-20 was the invariable power law)

[caseyy]

That was a very interesting read, thanks. Structurelessness seems to be very fertile ground for structure and organization.

[082349872349872]

Rotating people through the root ("central" if you insist on camouflaging the hierarchy*) positions seems an excellent idea. The biggest problem with rotations in general is the existence of domains requiring large amounts of specific knowledge, but I don't think anyone is arguing that administrative positions are among them.

— We're taking turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week

— Yes...

— But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting

— Yes I see!

— By a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs

— Be quiet!

— But by a two-thirds majority, in the case of more major

— Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

(I wonder how the Pythons themselves handled group decisions?)

* but see expander networks for a possible alternative network structure