Insights from 'Bend not Break (Pt. 4) - Modelling the Drivers of the Metacrisis'

Bend Not Break is a highly insightful discussion between Nate Hagens (The Great Simplification ) and Daniel Schmachtenberger (The Consilience Project ) about the drivers of the global economy, in Nate term’s the?Superorganism?and in Daniel’s terms the?Metacrisis.

In this episode they discuss how we are incentivized to overemphasize opportunity versus risks, national and global multipolar traps, the exponential resource curve, software and its relation to human attention and materials, ‘the third attractor', zero-sum and positive-sum types of games. In addition, they answer questions like: Is there are place for ethics in the superorganism? What is unique about homo sapiens? What must come true of our species? And they leave you with a guiding question for what YOU can do! Let’s go!

??I create these posts to share how it increased my insights in the complexity of ‘the superorganism’ by naming and shortly describing the different constructs that are discussed. Beware that most of them are nuanced. It’s best read after my first , second and third post.

??? ?? The combination of views – Nate talks about ‘dynamics of the superorganism’ and Daniel talks about them as ‘generator functions of catastrophic risk’ but they are basically looking at the same thing and the combination views inter-informed each other. Daniel adds that “it is pretty easy to see that all the problems that we look at in the world, one of the lenses that they have in common involves the system of macroeconomics that the world is working with, meaning that there is perverse incentive, that what generates profit for a company, country or individual often does so at the expense of another or the environment as a whole. When that profit equals not just security and survivability but also game theoretic advantage of their ability to influence their own fate in the world and whatever mechanisms they use to generate more profit than somebody else, e.g., better technology, that can be re-engineered and employed by others, so you get these kind of races […] to be able to convert the natural world into profit faster and increase relative game theory.”

"Corporations are able to privatize the benefits and socialize the losses."

??Overemphasizing Opportunity – According to Daniel there is "a kind of meta perverse incentive that everybody has technologically, politically, but particularly economically, which is to overemphasize the opportunity and under-emphasize the risk of any new technology/venture.” We tend to measure both the opportunity and the risk on a small amount of direct variables. However, thinking it through thoroughly, including second and third order effects of introducing a product, technology or venture, is a totally different story. An example that Daniel uses to illustrate is protein folding. This might be used to cure cancer but by developing that technology we might also lower the barrier for creating bio weapons and/or increase chances of accidental lab leaks of monstrous creations (e.g. viruses). Performing thorough risk analysis takes time and conflicts with the advantages that are looming for first movers (e.g. Metcalfe’s law ). Moreover, in case the introduction of the product or venture has any negative side effects for society, corporations are well protected against this responsibility via limited liability laws, and, when necessary, they can always leverage a part of the gains they made by being a first mover. In other words, “corporations are able to privatize the benefits and socialize the losses.” This perverse incentive does not encourage actors in general to perform thorough risk analysis. Nate and Daniel agree we would make a lot less things if thorough risk analysis was obligatory.

??Ethics in the superorganism – According to Nate, there's no place for ethics within the economic hierarchy. Even if there are ethical individual humans, their position doesn't allow them to express their ethical view. Daniel agrees in general with that and refers back to the Multipolar Trap (also see part 2 ) to explain that we need to address the mismatch between the ‘very Darwinian things’ such as violence and dominance that keep winning and what is good in an ethical, philosophical or even long-term viability sense.

??Successes from the past – There are some examples where we managed to alter negative developments, including cigarettes, mothers against drunk driving, seatbelts in cars, HFCs CFCs in the ozone layer, and some commons that triumphed against profit streams. However, all of these examples were only a small part of 'the machine of creation', in other words, not every industry needs HFCs/CFCs. By gathering a critical mass, change in those small areas was possible. Now, Nate's story is different. He focuses on energy, a driver of not only every single business or industry but also every nation state’s geopolitical situation. So, literally, power is bound to energy. This results in more resistance to change.

??Multipolar traps nationally and globally - We've figured out how to solve multipolar traps inside of a nation state by rule of law and monopoly of force and enforcement. However, we don't have governance, to deal with global multipolar traps. Logically thinking one would come to the idea of a global government to deal with global multipolar traps, however, Daniel doubts whether it is possible to keep something that holds that much power from getting corrupt [more on this later]. Instead, Daniel proposes a more decentralized global governance process that still allows us to solve multi polar traps. [When reading about this I had to think about SIMPOL , or Simultaneous Policy. I've proposed it to Daniel but haven't heard from him yet.]

??"If you have rule of law and a monopoly of force and enforcement, you CAN bind a multipolar trap. It doesn't necessarily mean you will, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be very politically feasible, which is why there are no nations that have done that for oil because they just couldn't. They couldn't because there was no way they would maintain economic viability within the overall global system that exists. If a country would take the lead to price oil at the actual cost that it would take us to produce it renewably, including how we manufacture those hydrocarbons and how we process the externalities, the price would be way higher than it currently is. The result is that any country that does this first will get radically disadvantaged GDP-wise relative to every other country in their ability to build militaries or keep up with trade etc. Leading nations are definitely not going to do this, so there's this anti-incentive to lead. Also, as a nation, you can’t enforce your monopoly of force on another country that has nukes and/or critical parts of your supply chain."

????????“You have to somehow reach agreements with agents that are hopefully capable of being rational enough to see that the alternative that we have, in a time period that is not so far out that it is unreasonable to think about, is much worse." This is the whole reason behind Nate's podcast and why Nate and Daniel are now having this podcast: they try to show the inexorable world situation if we continue on the path that we're on, such that those who are in the positions of power could come to make the kinds of agreements that makes those choices possible for each other that bring about a different, better, long term situation.”

??Alex: If “leading nations have a disincentive to lead” we need to redefine what a leading nation is. One example of a way forward: What about opening up to your citizens and in an open, honest explain the situation that we are in, acknowledging that we are part of a system that we do not have under our control anymore? Organize round tables throughout the country to make sure enough people understand the situation, start the preparations for community plans how people could work together to deal with the inevitable backlash of stepping out of the global economical game. Following this trust-based approach, I believe we will be amazed by the human creativity and cooperation that will arise from it. Of course, even done ‘right’ there will be disruption and possibly some war, but what are going to get if we continue on the current path? Put differently, how would you envision us losing our biosphere?

"There's an ethics of action and inaction. I'm ethically responsible for what I could do and don't as well as what I do."

??Personal Level - On the personal level Daniel advocates that people can earnestly consider their choices and also absolutely do their best on a number of areas (e.g. meat, clothes, flying) but people should also not try to be perfect because this can lead to hopelessness. Also, a personal choice might not affect the whole but in case someone decides to communicate about it and that everybody that is compelled to change as well, the cumulative effects might be meaningful. Additionally, there are people that decide to go and live in a forest and not use any (global supply chain) products anymore. Daniel refers to this as 'trying to wash my hands clean of being part of our species' and he sees it that these people avoid taking the responsibility to meaningfully affect it. According to him, "there's an ethics of action and inaction. I'm ethically responsible for what I could do and don't as well as what I do." Later on he adds that "every time you drive on the road, use your phone or pay with money you are complicit with the world system. Somebody can not think of himself as an individual separate from the whole. There is this - I am because we are - and this is the way the human world is right now, so I can't make myself in perfect ethical alignment, independent of helping the species as a whole to move. And there's something actually more humble and interconnecting and important about getting that." Once again, his advise is don't try to be perfect but earnestly consider your choices. Lastly, consuming less will not prevent wars or major corporations directly, so people who get frustrated with that might think about the following: "What is my role to play in the transition of the human presence on earth to one that actually works with earth long term?"

??Where do we come from? What is unique about homo sapiens? Daniel and Nate have a different beginning point of their stories. Together with his colleagues, Nate attributes the beginning of the superorganism to around 10000 years ago when we began to optimize for surplus through agriculture. Daniel acknowledges that, at that time, our populations regularly started to pass the Dunbar number as a result of formalized methods of animal husbandry and the agrarian revolution. However, he also adds there were earlier enablers that allowed us as a species to become distinct from anything else in nature. These include, stone tools, fire and language. Normally, there are two stories when it comes to this. The first, older story says that man's dominion over nature came from “our desire to rise above our animal nature to some angel, godly over-self and that makes us separate enough that we have dominion over.” The second story, emphasized by the environmental movement, says that “men are not the web of life, we're merely a strand within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves and see our unity with nature and our dependence on it more.” Now, Daniel wants to take elements of both of these stories and create a third one that is rather distinct. He summarizes it as: "Humans don't exist without the rest of nature so we have to be stewards for it. What is different about us allows us to destroy all of nature in a way that nothing else in nature can, therefore we have to be stewards or we don't continue to exist." This difference is explained very well in a lot of words by Daniel but the gist of it is that other animals are only able to increase their adaptive capacity through (slow) change in relation to the whole system (e.g., genome change in one animal will lead to genome changes in another animal, for instance a predator getting faster will, over time, lead to faster pray animals). In contrast, apart from only genetic mutation, (earlier) humans learnt to increase their adaptive capacity through abstraction such as tool making and abstract coordination mechanisms. And we are able to stack abstractions on top of each other, which is called recursive abstraction. For instance, we are able to understand the concept of 'sharpness' and that stones differ in sharpness. And later on we attach the stone with the right sharpness to a stick to form an axe or an arrow to leverage that sharpness is different ways. This is an example of abstraction applied to the domain of atoms (as explained in the second episode ), but we also apply it to the domains of energy (fire) and bits (coordination mechanisms). With regard to the latter, we have the ability to adapt or coordination mechanisms based on the size of number of people that we are cooperating with. Different examples are signs, language, written language, roman numerals, formal hierarchies, metaphors etc. Specifically, language and memory allowed us to convey learnings to next generations given us even more advantages as compared to other species. Apparently, the ability for abstraction increased throughout our ancestors where chimpanzee did not (yet) have it but Homo habilis did.

Last, coming back to the superorganism, Daniel concludes that "the capacity for abstraction, i.e. ability to increase our adaptive capacity through a different, faster process than simply genetic selection than the rest of nature, can be seen as the beginning of what we call the human superorganism and the beginning of a process that is ultimately self terminating unless it changes." [In this video of 'In search of the Third Attractor', Daniel covers this topic again. It is a direct link to the topic Infrastructure, Social Structure and Superstructure].

[Alex: This increased understanding of 'how we are different from nature' puts a lot of things into perspective for me and makes me understand so much better why it makes sense for us to be stewards of the earth. However, I am also interested to supplement this perspective with additional views - if any - on how we differ from nature. So, please do share!]

??Later on, Nate and Daniel explore abstraction in light of the distinction between infrastructure (technology), social structure (governance, law) and superstructure (culture, values). The message here being that when you think about 'homo sapiens' you also have to think about its complete technology stack and coordination mechanisms because all of that together is what has allowed us to make it through history (i.e. has been selected for). You can not think of 'homo sapiens' without thinking of 'a group with their coordination mechanisms.' It is implicit in us.

"Since we have the capacity to ruin the biosphere upon which we depend, we have the necessity to steward it."

??What must come true of our species? As a result of our ability to build these adaptive abstractions on top of each other, recursively faster than nature can build resilience to that, we have the ability to advantage ourselves at the expense of each other and at the expense of nature. We have the ability to destroy whole ecosystems in a way that no other animal can. To illustrate Daniel refers to a polar bear on a rampage versus a nuclear bomb. "Now, since we have the capacity to ruin the biosphere upon which we depend, we have the necessity to steward it. In other words, because our adaptive capacity has surpassed the process by which evolution usually creates adaptive capacity, our motive also has to transcend normal evolutionary motive." [This statements sums it up so neat and makes so much sense to me. For more interesting material related to the questions ‘where do we come from?’ and ‘what must come true of us?’ I would recommend the books The Patterning Instinct (our past) and The Web of Meaning (our future) by Jeremy Lent].

??Exponential resource curve - We are on a exponential resource curve because a) an exponential population growth and b) an exponential resource per capita curve. Assuming that the exponential population is clear to most of us, I will skip to the explanation of the exponential resource per capita curve. To do so, Daniel refers back to the distinction between endosomatic and exosomatic calories (or energy). Endosomatic energy you get from eating things and processing them internally. This is what we do like all other animals. However, what distinguishes us from other species - as a result of recursive abstraction??- is that we also use a lot of extrasomatic energy, so outside of our bodies. Examples include heating our homes and using fire (or electricity) to prepare our food. Daniel even points to the invention of fire as the starting point of these extrasomatic calories. Additionally, what started off with fire is nowadays continued by every other new technological invention. So, the combination of increasing resource use per capita and a growing population leads to a exponential resource curve. [Note: I wonder if some technologies might actually decrease the use of extrasomatic calories but that Jevons Paradox overall cancels out those benefits].

??????Software, human attention and materials - Zooming back out to the level of the superorganism, Daniel talks about the pretty tight coupling between the utility associated with atoms, the utility of energy, the utility of bits or information. He says that a lot of people have this hope that the information processing gives us the ability to produce more value per unit of energy and per unit of physical goods. And because of growing the value of software we can keep growing GDP without putting all the demand on the environment. According to Daniel this hope is true to some extent: Software might have less energy and materials demand per dollar worth of output, but that's not an exponential curve, it's another S-curve, where eventually, you hit a limit of human attention. In other words, it doesn't matter how many movies there are or how much new software there is, you get diminishing return on the value of the digital stuff limited to human attention seconds. Then, what you're competing for is, as you do more in the domain of software, you're either applying to human attention or you're applying it to the material's economy, because what else is there? So, if you're applying it to the material's economy, the innovation and software equals more efficiency at extracting atoms and energy, extracting, converting etc., or it equals human attention seconds for engagement on Social Media. If you do that, then the competition against groups doing that is a competition for human attention which ends up being, as Tristan Harris, amongst others, points out “a pretty bad race to the bottom of the brain stem for making maximally limbic hijacking stuff.”

??So, it is not like the software proliferation just solves all the problems. The software creates a whole new set of attention hijacking, belief hijacking capabilities which are problematic; they can drive polarization, addiction, low attention spans etc. Or it is simply adding efficiencies to the materials economy, where if you don't have some law or deterrents that limit the upper boundary, you have Jevons' Paradox that, when you increase the efficiency, you just end up using more materials because more new markets open up.

0???Zero-sum and Positive Sum type of Games - Daniel refers to Robert Wright who argues that, over the long arc of history, humans have been more and more [involved in] positive-sum [games] in their dynamics via moving from tiny band to tribes to much larger groups that allowed for division of labor – i.e., people were able to perform specialty roles and via trade depend on others for their survival instead of having to do everything themselves they would need to survive – leading overall to better conditions for everyone. Inside those groups, fundamentally positive sum behaviors get ‘selected for’ – a reference to genome selection - ?because the group that does more positive-sum behaviors gets through [history]. This is partly true, however, it is also true that the group that does more coordination or positive sum type behavior within that ingroup does better in a war with an out group. The war is zero sum or even negative sum. The pressure of the war forces that other thing [the positive sum ingroup behavior] to happen. So, there is a relationship between positive sum things and zero sum things that has to be factored together. Additionally, what was positive sum for the humans within the group, was negative sum for nature. [Insight: so these 'positive-sum games' are purely an anthropocentric construct and limited. If they destroy the thing we depend upon, shouldn't we start to call them something else than 'positive'?] It was those humans coordinating with more diversity and specialization, which meant more people able to extract more stuff from nature and turn it into useful stuff for humans at the cost of the ecosystems. Then, following the zero sum dynamics with other groups, meaning they had to race to do it faster to than the other groups. Thus, the net effect of the total human social activity was debasing the ecosystem that it depended upon [This in-group, out-group dynamic looks a lot like the marketplace to me].

??Embedded Growth Obligation Revisited – Nate and Daniel agree that this is something that should be understood by every first-grader, so they revisit this point and completely peel it down again. There are two things I would like to point out (again, because it was already in the back of my head). First point is about how interest on top of money over times becomes compounded interest (i.e., if you leave the money and the interest that you earned after the first period where it is, you will earn interest on top of the interest). Over time, this dynamic leads to an exponential growth rate. [Apparently we are not wired to understand the concept of ‘exponential returns’, so it is something that we easily forget or that surprises us. Perhaps this story about the king, the con artist, the chessboard and the rice might help to keep it on your radar.] Secondly, according to Daniel, the compounding dynamics give the financial system its own physics. “It means there has to be exponentially more total currency in the system every year than the previous year. To not debase the value of the currency means that there has to be exponentially more goods and services that it is related to, otherwise the system collapses. Rather than the financial system being indexed to the real goods and services, now the real goods and services are indexed to the financial system where the embedded growth obligation, just to keep up with interest - let alone the many other aspects of the financial system that create embedded growth obligation - mean that there is a demand for exponential extraction and exponential energy moving through the materials economy turning into waste and pollution.” In other words, the tail is wagging the dog. “You cannot run exponentially more of a finite planet through a linear materials economy that has limits on both the front and backside of that linear materials economy forever. So you hit limits of growth or planetary boundaries.” [Another episode of The Great Simplification with Olivia Lazard dives further into the materials and their limits]

"When you create something that is centralized, even if its original governance is good, isn't it capturable or corruptible by negative forces eventually?"

??The Third Attractor - In his work with The Consilience Project Daniel talks about a third attractor state for the future. The first two states are most likely based on the kind of general dynamics that we're on: increasing catastrophes and increasing dystopias. The first attractor - #Catastrophes - largely results from not having more coordinated governance. All countries are racing to grow their GDP and/or military presence which results in passing the planetary boundaries, destruction of environment and eventually cascading catastrophes of lots of types (e.g., climate change leading to extreme weather events, leading to human migration, leading to resource wars etc. More on this here ). The second attractor - #Dystopias - is often posed as an answer to the ‘Increasing Catastrophes’ attractor include control mechanisms. People that call for this as a solution, e.g., the environmental movement, mention that we will make sure that there's a good process of jurisprudence with checks and balances and transparency, however, Daniel points out that we have a bad track record when it comes to the idea of Noblesse Oblige - the obligation of the nobility class to be noble. Moreover, “when you create something that is centralized, even if its original governance is good, isn't it capturable or corruptible by negative forces eventually?” [I have been an advocate of this centralized government and take it as a learning point of this podcast to be less na?ve given our historical track record]. Given the constraints posed by the first two attractors, Daniel's work is focused on finding out how the third attractor would look like, so his compass question is ‘how to create a coordination system that is able to prevent all catastrophes while not being corruptible or capturable?'

??How to close the delta between 'what needs to happen' and 'what is on track to happen'? As mentioned, Daniel prefers to work on an ecosystem of solutions that synergize instead of single solutions that conflict, omit a critical part of our society/culture to evolve, or that simply transfer problems to other areas. To do so, he uses two models. The first model by Marvin Harris’ has already been introduced and distinguishes three layers in society: infrastructure (entire technology stack), social structure (law, governance, economy) and superstructure (culture and values). The second model is time-based and Daniel distinguishes three different horizons – triage (near term actions to avoid certain bad things from happening), transitional things (how do we work with / make changes to the current systems that run the world?) and long term (how would we rethink/redo it from scratch?). It is important that these horizons inter-inform each other. In Episode 5 these two models will be used to think of 'solutions' per time horizon and societal layer.?