September « 2010 « 29th Day

September 20, 2010

The Coming Tea Party Tsunami and the Political Establishment

Filed under: Activism,Political,Theoretical — glberry @ 6:01 pm

Remember when the Tsunami hit Thailand a few years ago? We saw tragic images of children playing on the beach just moments before the wave overcame and engulfed them. With regards to the Tea Party movement and politics in America, the elite media and the establishment political class (both Democrat and Republican) remind me of those children.

So we see Democrat strategists crafting messages for political gain. We see the likes of Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer wringing their hands over who will hold committee chairmanships in the Senate.

Such chitter chatter reminds me of those poor children who may have been arguing over who gets to place the flag on the top of the sand castle not realizing that 1/4 mile off shore there was a 15 foot wall of water that was about to completely overwhelm them. And then they wonder why we don’t pay them any mind.

The establishment is a power hoarding structure. It uses Creativity and Information (CI). It will try to consolidate its power as it crashes. The tea party is a power distributing structure. It uses Creativity, Information and Communication. It will continue to expand. The Communication component is both its method and message to distribute power.

That is not the only difference. The CI political establishment is centralized while the tea party is decentralized. This is a critical difference when it comes to robustness and power. See CIC and Complexity: The Tea Party as a Complex System.

The establishment and the tea party manifest their impacts on different scales. A complex system like the tea party operates on the individual person level but effects of the system can occur at a much higher level. This is called emergence. Emergent properties are not visible at lower scale (i.e. by looking at individual members of the tea party) and are not predictable by looking at the members of a system. Examples of an unexpected and unpredictable emergent property include the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts and the primary losses of eight national office incumbents. I expect the results of November 2 will also be surprising.

More than November 2, I expect incumbent losses to accelerate in 2012 and 2014. Even before the 2012 election, expect to see pro-term limit activism increase. Pay attention to 10th amendment movements next year, especially in the context of the Health Care lawsuit. Finally, I believe we will see the tea party adopted in other countries as the effectiveness, impact and message are demonstrated.

The political and media elites will continue to be confounded by tea party success because they view things through a CI lens and seek answers at the wrong scale. That will not change until they understand that the tea party structure is decentralized power distributor.

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September 18, 2010

Iran: Will We Act or Will We Wait?

Filed under: Political,Theoretical — glberry @ 5:24 pm

Will We Act or Will We Wait?

When President Bush made the decision to invade Iraq, many of us said, “You acted precipitously, you should have waited”. Now, it comes to Iran, and President Obama is waiting. When not if Iran produces a nuclear weapon, won’t many of us say, “You should have acted sooner. You waited too long”? Why the difference in strategy and which approach will prove to be most prudent?

This is the way I would explain the difference.

There was a lily pad on a pond, which doubled in size each day until, after 30 days, it covered the pond. The riddle is, on what day did it cover half the pond? Most of us think the answer is the 15th day, but it is not. The answer is the 29th day … because the lily pad doubles in size each day.

So, it will not take 15 days to cover the first half of the pond and 15 days to cover the last half of the pond. What seems unbelievable to most of us is that it takes 29 days to cover the first half of the pond but only one day to cover the second half. This is exponential power.

Linear thinkers (most of us), who add to get the rate of change, think the answer is the 15th day and that 15 days remain to cover the last half of the pond. Exponential thinkers, who multiply to get the rate of change, know the answer is the 29th day and that only one day remains to cover the last half of the pond. Q. How much of the pond is actually covered on the 15th day? A. 3/100,000 or 0.003% of the pond.

In the 21st century, for the first time in history, our world has become visibly exponential, that is, the rate of change is accelerating visibly, just like the lily pad. So, we are mistakenly thinking that the 29th day is only the 15th day. The result is we feel that (exponential) problems are becoming crises too suddenly, and traditional (linear) solutions are being implemented too slowly. It is frightening us, angering us, making us feel that things are out of control.

President Bush was thinking exponentially. He understood the consequences of waiting and so he acted well before the 29th day. President Obama is thinking linearly and waiting. In effect, he is saying, “It is only the 15th day, we have plenty of time, we can fix it later”. When the 29th day arrives with Iran, how many of us will think mistakenly that it is only the 15th day? Suddenly, we will be out of time.

We have paid a terrible price already for mistakenly thinking that the 29th day was only the 15th day. Do you really think “We have plenty of time” to avoid another disastrous 29th day, even after our real-life experience staring us right in the face

… of waiting too long to avoid the 2008 Financial Crisis?

… or of waiting too long to avoid the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill?

… and now, hearing at the 2010 G20 Economic Summit that we are going to wait too long again, this time to do something about the US National Debt?

Linear thinking is making us act like we have a death wish!

We don’t have a lot of time. Iran is not waiting. Remember the lily pad. Israel will remember. Whether we like it or not … the exponential clock is ticking.

tick … tick … tick.

For the moment, the choice is still ours. The price-tag is our future.

George L Berry, Actuary, 29thday.org

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