System disruption, netwar & development
BBC reports today of a caution issued by the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering that the country may be over-reliant on satnav systems. The failure of satellite navigation can result in system disruption because there are no backups. This has the potential to interrupt emergency services, law enforcement, and activities as mundane as stocking the grocery shelves (one of my favorite headlines of all time read "Nine Meals from Anarchy"*, from the Manchester Guardian concerning the challenges of stocking inner city grocery shelves during the blizzards of the winter of 2009-2010, an example of another kind of system disruption, from weather). Satnav systems could fail for reasons completely out of human control, such as solar flares.
This is an example of vulnerability in a critical control point in the distribution of information or materials in a tightly integrated system. Disruption at a control point can propagate throughout a system, causing cascading failure. This was the big concern of Y2K. Examples of the phenomenon include the great power outages of NE North America in 2003 and South America (Brazil and Paraguay) of 2009. John Arquilla, a defense analyst with the US Naval Postgraduate School, coined with co-author David Ronfeldt, the term "netwar" to describe how networked cells (e.g., of insurgents) can disrupt and defeat much larger hierarchically organized forces, again by attacking critical control points and causing cascading failure. In response Arquilla argues persuasively for new tactical approaches based upon network design, with redundancy, mobility, autonomy of cells, and use of strategic communication to help create an enabling environment (public diplomacy to counter propaganda). He calls this formulation "outpost+outreach." I can see many parallels here with other threads in the debate about the future. These threads share the characteristic of eschewing linearity, exemplified by hierarchical "command and control" structures in favor of networks of autonomous units.** The "good governance" narrative, for example, predicated on public participation, and promoting access to information, transparency in decision-making processes, and involvement of all stakeholders in decisions. The "information and communications technology revolution" narrative revels in the evolution of communication from "one to one" and and "one to many" to "many to many" through social networking. Social networking, it would appear, is antithetical to command and control systems, such that despotic regimes are now faced with a stark choice - to share power or turn off the lights. Over coming days, I want to consider ways in which the network approach applies to international development. Is the war on poverty being left behind - a vestige of linear thinking in a networked world? Is it evolving in ways that the old school doesn't recognize? Or is the netwar on poverty in full swing? In other words, what can we learn from the warning of the Royal Academy of Engineering about vulnerability of key control points, and how can we apply that to processes like certification.* The expression was coined earlier by Lord Cameron of Dillington, a farmer and first head of the UK Countryside Commission, according to the Daily Mail.
** In the United States, my home country, the tension between "command and control" and autonomous units, was present at the founding of the nation. The correct balance of local control and national authority remains a hotly debated topic.
-Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk
The UK may have become dangerously over-reliant on satellite-navigation signals, according to a report from the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Use of space-borne positioning and timing data is now widespread, in everything from freight movement to synchronisation of computer networks.
The academy fears that too many applications have little or no back-up were these signals to go down.
Dr Martyn Thomas, who chaired the group that wrote the report, told BBC News: "We're not saying that the sky is about to fall in; we're not saying there's a calamity around the corner.
"What we're saying is that there is a growing interdependence between systems that people think are backing each other up. And it might well be that if a number these systems fail simultaneously, it will cause commercial damage or just conceivably loss of life. This is wholly avoidable."
Contingency
More than half of humanity lives in cities now, and that ratio could rise to three-quarters by the end of the century. As a student of human and ecological resilience, it makes sense that I pay close attention to the urban environment. One of the sites I visit regularly is the Infranet Lab. It has posted what must be my favorite post of the year so far, "Infrastructural Opportunism, A Manifesto". You could view this as an architect or planner's take on resilience. I'm not sure that I understand scalar indifference and will have to work on it, but this is food for thought. I recommend a visit to Infranet Lab if you are looking for fresh perspectives on the urban environment. Oh, and I found a new job title (#2). Except that I'm still an apprentice.
Amplify’d from infranetlab.org
Arthur Jensen, played by Ned Beatty, in the 1976 film Network said: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal — that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone!
Buckminster Fuller, labeled a dilettante and a dabbler in his age, was instead the forerunner of a new breed of designer / thinker that we like to call the expert generalist. Long live the new expert generalists!
After a multi-day traffic jam in Hetaocun, China, Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times wrote: Stranded drivers chain-smoked, stomped their feet against the chill and cursed the government for failing to come to their rescue. As the night wore on, fuel lines froze and cellphone batteries died. The residents of Hetaocun, however, saw the unmoving necklace of taillights from their mountain village and got entrepreneurial. They roused children from their beds, loaded boxes of instant noodles into baskets and began hawking their staples to a captive clientele. The 500 percent markup did not appear to dent sales.
Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous 2002 speech yielded a term that now has its own Wikipedia entry: unknown unknowns. He said: [T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis in the 2007 film There Will be Blood says: Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I’m so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake!
The Medusa Bag was conceived in 1988 to meet the anticipated requirement for large scale water imports to California as well as to Israel, Jordan and Palestine. Others at the time were looking into tanker conversions and pipelines, but no practical economic embodiment of these ideas was found. The bags size and shape have been optimized and the first prototype bag will be built using industrial polyester fabric and special straps. A bag containing 0.5 gigaliters of water would be 465 meters long and 110 meters wide, while a 1.5 gigaliter bag would be 670 meters long and 160 meters wide.
Thilafushi Island in the Maldives has grown at the rate of a square metre a day, as more and more rubbish is dumped here. Mountains of rubbish – plastic, metal tins and rusty oil barrels – extend as far as the eye can see. Unlike the adjacent resort islands, the only visitors here are the Bangladeshi workers who wade through the sludge and brave the stench to burn the tonnes of refuse that arrive at the island every day. Spotting the potential to generate revenue from the mushrooming island, the government decided to lease part of it for industrial purposes. Additional terrain was created using white sand and now giant cement cones, oil drums and the skeletons of future boats can be seen dotted around. Metal compactors compress junk into blocks for sale to India. Each tonne sells for US$175. The island has grown to such proportions that it now has a café, a restaurant, two mosques, a barbershop, a clinic, a police station and rather unexpectedly, a makeshift zoo.
Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves is a book about a book about a movie about a house. A series of surveying measurements initially reveal that the house is larger on the inside than on the outside. The discrepancy is less than an inch, but is a sign of things to come. One day a small, closet-sized room appears in the home, although the outside dimensions remain unchanged.
A thermokarst lake, also called a thaw lake, refers to a body of freshwater, usually shallow, that is formed in a depression by meltwater from thawing permafrost. This landscape operates by scalar indifference as pools appear and disappear under freeze and thaw.
The Russian chessplayer Savielly Tartakower said: Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do, strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.
