Insider
by
charleshughsmith
Executive Summary
- Identifying the 8 characteristics that signal a system is experiencing diminishing returns
- The powerful advantages simplification can offer
- Debt-avoidance as a forward strategy
- The criticality of creating parallel, self-reliant systems
If you have not yet read Our Era’s Definitive Dynamic: Diminishing Returns, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, we surveyed examples of diminishing returns and touched upon the forces that generate devotion to systems beset by diminishing returns. In Part II, we’ll look a little deeper into the dynamics, with an eye on avoiding being ensnared in systems that are doomed by dwindling yields and rising costs.
Characteristics of Diminishing Return Systems
1. Friction. Sources of what I term 'friction' include procedural impedance between dissimilar systems, fraud, inefficiencies, and processes that no longer add value but that are accepted as “the way things work.” (I wrote about systemic friction for Peak Prosperity in 2011: How Much of the U.S. Economy Is Friction?)
Common examples include the proliferating “reward cards” from retailers that fill our wallets and purses with low-value complexity and our absurdly complex income tax system that costs billions of dollars while serving primarily as a conduit for special-interest tax breaks.
2. “Solutions” that do not address the root problem. One example is our healthcare system’s haphazard approach to mental health: A great many mentally ill people who fall between the system’s cracks end up being incarcerated, in essence passing the cost and responsibility for mental healthcare to the already-burdened criminal justice system. Imprisoning the mentally ill is clearly a diminishing-return “solution” to our systemic lack of mental health care.
How to Overcome Diminishing Returns
PREVIEW by charleshughsmithExecutive Summary
- Identifying the 8 characteristics that signal a system is experiencing diminishing returns
- The powerful advantages simplification can offer
- Debt-avoidance as a forward strategy
- The criticality of creating parallel, self-reliant systems
If you have not yet read Our Era’s Definitive Dynamic: Diminishing Returns, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part I, we surveyed examples of diminishing returns and touched upon the forces that generate devotion to systems beset by diminishing returns. In Part II, we’ll look a little deeper into the dynamics, with an eye on avoiding being ensnared in systems that are doomed by dwindling yields and rising costs.
Characteristics of Diminishing Return Systems
1. Friction. Sources of what I term 'friction' include procedural impedance between dissimilar systems, fraud, inefficiencies, and processes that no longer add value but that are accepted as “the way things work.” (I wrote about systemic friction for Peak Prosperity in 2011: How Much of the U.S. Economy Is Friction?)
Common examples include the proliferating “reward cards” from retailers that fill our wallets and purses with low-value complexity and our absurdly complex income tax system that costs billions of dollars while serving primarily as a conduit for special-interest tax breaks.
2. “Solutions” that do not address the root problem. One example is our healthcare system’s haphazard approach to mental health: A great many mentally ill people who fall between the system’s cracks end up being incarcerated, in essence passing the cost and responsibility for mental healthcare to the already-burdened criminal justice system. Imprisoning the mentally ill is clearly a diminishing-return “solution” to our systemic lack of mental health care.
by
JHK
Executive Summary
- The 3 fundamental activities society will need to prioritize in order to manage our contracting economy & resources
- How food production will need to evolve if we are to continue to feed ourselves in the future
- How pursuing "growth" is wasting us precious time and energy
- Mandatory transition will be needed across all sectors: transportation, health care, urban planning, manufacturing, trade, etc..
If you have not yet read Part I: Growth is Obsolete, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
The problem of growth in its current context is first a problem of language, but do not make the mistake of supposing that this is just a semantic argument. Language is the human animal's primary tool-kit for accomplishing anything in groups, whether it is hunting bison or putting a spacecraft on the moon. If you use the wrong tool you are likely to mismanage the task. Now the primary task facing humans in this moment of history is managing contraction and our goal should be to manage it in a way that minimizes the potential for hardship and suffering. It must be obvious, then, that "growth" in the broad sense that we use the term is not conducive to facilitate "contraction" in the broad sense. The promiscuous use of the word "growth" in our economic debates only confuses us and paralyzes our ability to construct a coherent narrative about what is happening in the world and how we might enter a plausible future which extraordinary events are now shaping.
Three Fundamental Activities
I propose that we substitute the term "activity" for "growth" in our public debates over how our economy can function in the face of the manifold crises of population overshoot, climate change, peak cheap oil, and capital scarcity. There are an endless number of purposeful activities we can undertake to address these large problems that do not connote growth. The three fundamental categories of these activities can be stated with precision, namely:
- re-localizing
- downscaling, and
- de-complexifying.
The quality in common with all of them is indeed the opposite of growth. Yet they all imply a range of positive actions that we can undertake as communities to make new arrangements for the human project to continue in a favorable way.
I will describe the particulars in a moment, but first the point must be made that…
Getting to a Future That Has a Future
PREVIEW by JHKExecutive Summary
- The 3 fundamental activities society will need to prioritize in order to manage our contracting economy & resources
- How food production will need to evolve if we are to continue to feed ourselves in the future
- How pursuing "growth" is wasting us precious time and energy
- Mandatory transition will be needed across all sectors: transportation, health care, urban planning, manufacturing, trade, etc..
If you have not yet read Part I: Growth is Obsolete, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
The problem of growth in its current context is first a problem of language, but do not make the mistake of supposing that this is just a semantic argument. Language is the human animal's primary tool-kit for accomplishing anything in groups, whether it is hunting bison or putting a spacecraft on the moon. If you use the wrong tool you are likely to mismanage the task. Now the primary task facing humans in this moment of history is managing contraction and our goal should be to manage it in a way that minimizes the potential for hardship and suffering. It must be obvious, then, that "growth" in the broad sense that we use the term is not conducive to facilitate "contraction" in the broad sense. The promiscuous use of the word "growth" in our economic debates only confuses us and paralyzes our ability to construct a coherent narrative about what is happening in the world and how we might enter a plausible future which extraordinary events are now shaping.
Three Fundamental Activities
I propose that we substitute the term "activity" for "growth" in our public debates over how our economy can function in the face of the manifold crises of population overshoot, climate change, peak cheap oil, and capital scarcity. There are an endless number of purposeful activities we can undertake to address these large problems that do not connote growth. The three fundamental categories of these activities can be stated with precision, namely:
- re-localizing
- downscaling, and
- de-complexifying.
The quality in common with all of them is indeed the opposite of growth. Yet they all imply a range of positive actions that we can undertake as communities to make new arrangements for the human project to continue in a favorable way.
I will describe the particulars in a moment, but first the point must be made that…
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