for - definition - progress trap - Ronald Wright

definition - progress trap - A seductive trail of successes that leads to a catastrophic end - Ronald Wright - defined in his book "A Short History of Progress"

• for: definition - enough vs feasible dilemma, double bind, progress trap

• definition: enough vs feasible dilemma

  • the changes that are actually required are not feasible to do
  • what is feasible to do is not enough
  • this puts us in a double bind
  • we need to have interventions that are BOTH
    • enough to solve these problems and are
    • feasible to execute

• for: definition, definition - double bind

• definition: double bind

  • the definition of a double bind is that you have a problem (a bind) in one context and you can't actually solve it in that context because it's caught in another context
  • Gregory Bateson defined the double bind as an evolutionary trait of species due to their changing nature.
    • Since individuals of a species are constantly changing, there comes a day when all that it knows what to do in order to survive is outdated due to the changing environment. When it repeats the old behavior that served its survival in the past, it dies.

• comment

  • adjacency
    • between
      • double bind
      • progress trap
  • adjacency statement
    • progress traps are related to double binds because in a progress trap, an implemented solution to a problem in one context gives rise to a new problem in another context.
    • the original problem (bind) in one context appears to be resolvable but actual isn't. Future unfolding of the implemented solution unfold a future unexpected problem.
    • The two problems are not simultaneously occurring as in a double bind, but time-delayed
    • both double bind and progress traps emerge from the same root of violating holism
    • in not grasping the implications of the emptiness of phenomena, we ignore intertwingled nature of reality, we circumvent Indra's meet of jewels at our own peril

• for: quote, quote - Stowe Boyd, quote - progress trap, quote - unintended consequences, unintended consequences, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap
• quote:
  • Technological change is an accelerant and acts on the social ills like pouring gasoline on a fire
• author: Sowe Boyd
  • consulting futurist on technological evolution and the future of work
• paraphrase
  • In an uncontrolled hyper-capitalist society,
    • the explosion in technologies over the past 30 years has only
      • widened inequality,
      • concentrated wealth and
      • led to greater social division.
    • And it is speeding up with the rise of artificial intelligence,
      • which like globalization has destabilized Western industrial economies while admittedly pulling hundreds of millions elsewhere out of poverty.
  • And the boiling exhaust of this set of forces is pushing the planet into a climate catastrophe. -The world is as unready for hundreds of millions of climate refugees as it was for the plague.
  • However, some variant of social media will likely form the context for the rise of a global movement to stop the madness
    • which I call the Human Spring
  • which will be more like
    • Occupy or
    • the Yellow Vests
  • than traditional politics.
  • I anticipate a grassroots movement
    • characterized by
      • general strikes,
      • political action,
      • protest and
      • widespread disruption of the economy
    • that will confront the economic and political system of the West.
  • Lead by the young, ultimately this will lead to large-scale political reforms, such as
    • universal health care,
    • direct democracy,
    • a new set of rights for individuals and
    • a large set of checks on the power of
      • corporations and
      • political parties.
  • For example,
    • eliminating corporate contributions to political campaigns,
    • countering monopolies and
    • effectively accounting for economic externalities, like carbon.

• for: progress trap
• definition
• quote
  • progress trap
    • A progress trap is the condition in which we find ourselves when science, technology and industry create more problems than they can solve. Often inadvertently.
• author
  • Dan O'Leary
• source
  • https://www.progresstrap.org/2010/02/12/the-progress-trap/

• finite time singularity

  • when the mathematical solution to the growth equation becomes infinitely large at some finite time

• comment

  • this is also salient for the accumulation of unresolved progress traps
  • the Anthropocene can perhaps be viewed as the occurence of finite time singularities due to unresolved problems arising from progress traps that innovation is too slow to solve