Mary Meeker’s State of the Internet: Good, Bad or Somewhere In-Between?

 by Marissa Wong, Slide Share

"500 million photos are uploaded every day. Sharing of digital information has grown 9 times in five years. And China is leading the digital charge. If you haven’t seen it already, “Queen of the ‘Net” Mary Meeker has uploaded her latest report on Internet trends.

Among the highlights: Emerging markets continue to lead in the 8% year-over-year growth in global Internet users, with China adding the most (264 million users from 2008-2012). And while 81% of users are outside of the U.S., 80% of the top 10 global internet properties were made in the U.S. (Google, Microsoft and Facebook are at the top of that list.) Another interesting international comparison: Americans are under sharers. Just 15% of Americans report that they share “everything” or “most things” online, compared to a world average of 24%. Saudi Arabians are the world’s biggest sharers and the Japanese share the least."

Read More

It’s the Best Possible Time to Be Alive

Anne Boysen Doga and Paul Schumann

Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge. It has been cited by many critics as the finest play from one of the most significant contemporary playwrights in the English language

Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house, in both the years 1809–1812 and the present day (1993 in the original production). The activities of two modern scholars and the house's current residents are juxtaposed with the lives of those who lived there 180 years earlier.

In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron who is an unseen guest in the house. In the present, a writer and an academic converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about what happened in Thomasina's lifetime is gradually revealed.

The play's set features a large table, which is used by the characters in both past and present. Props are not removed when the play switches time period, so that the books, tortoise, coffee mugs, quill pens, portfolios, and laptop computers appear alongside each other in a blurring of past and present

.

Anne and Paul will read an excerpt from Scene Four at the CenTexWFS meeting on May 21, 2013. It focuses on a discussion between Valentine Coverly and Hannah Jarvis.(http://ctxwfs.org/Default.aspx?pageId=544823&eventId=688232&EventViewMode=EventDetails)

.

You can read an essay on this play at http://www.scribd.com/doc/38336576/Arcadia-A-Play-on-Complexity and an excellent summary on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_%28play%29

Anne and Paul are both bloggers. Their blogs are respectively “After the Millennials” (http://www.afterthemillennials.com/) and “Insights and Foresights” (http://insights-foresight.blogspot.com/).

How Money Walks

A fascinating way to look at the transfer of wealth within the US from 1995 to 2010. The map below shows Travis County, Texas (home of Austin) which has a net gain in wealth $2.72B. It gained that wealth from Harris County, Dallas County, Los Angeles County, Santa Clara County and Bexar County. It lost wealth to its neighboring counties of Williamson, Hays, Bastrop, Burnet and Caldwell.

http://www.howmoneywalks.com/web-app/

Atlas Has Shrugged: West, Texas

“Like almost anyone who lives in Texas, I have visited the town of West, uncountable times. Nobody drives I-35 through the middle of the state without stopping for the famous kolaches[1]. Hardly anyone else knows much about the little community. But it is about to become an icon of our failures to properly oversee dangerous businesses and manage our governments.

Let's concede the remote possibility there may have been a criminal act involved. David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound at Mt. Carmel was only 15 miles distant, and, as we already know, the Oklahoma City bombing was a criminal response to the federal government's actions. This week in April, as has been shown by events like the Boston tragedy and the Ruby Ridge shootout, can deliver us unto evil in America.

But what happened in West is probably more about government inactions.” 

 

These are opening paragraphs of James Moore’s excellent essay in the Huff Post. The title of course refers to Any Rand’s controversial[2] book Atlas Shrugged[3]. This book has informed the philosophy of the radical conservatives[4] in the U.S. leading to reduction of funding of government and loosening of controls on business. Its title is derived from the myth that Atlas[5] holds the world on his shoulders. One of the characters asks the question of what happens when the load gets too heavy for Atlas. Another character answers that he shrugs.

Moore is correct, but I don’t think his essay tells the whole story. It is also a tale of two complex systems, each in disequilibrium. 

One system encompasses the ammonium nitrate, ammonia gas, and other, at this point unknown, chemicals and combustible materials in the factory. Ammonium nitrate has one of the classic characteristics of a critical state complex system, that of positive feedback. When ammonium nitrate burns, one of its by products is oxygen, which in turn encourages the fire to burn more, possibly leading to an explosion.

The other is the complex system encompassing the government regulations, the procedures that regulators follow, the funding of these programs and finally the response of the owners and the day to day actions of the employees.

Complex systems in disequilibrium have two annoying characteristics – cause and effect are not linked and the probability of a large event is much higher than normal statistics would predict. As a result the impact of a perturbation of the systems like cutting funding can have a measurably larger impact than might be expected. Add this, to the large errors committed by the owners detailed in Moore’s article, and a simple error in the factory, and kaboom.

“Atlas Has Shrugged: West, Texas”, James Moore, 4/18/13, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/atlas-has-shrugged-west-t_b_3111124.html

---

[1] We like the Czech-American Restaurant in town as well.

[2] Paul Krugman alluded to an oft-quoted quip by John Rogers in his blog: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged)

[3] “The book explores a dystopian United States where many of society's most productive citizens refuse to be exploited by increasing taxation and government regulations and disappear, shutting down their vital industries. The disappearances evoke the imagery of what would happen if the mythological Atlas refused to continue to hold up the world. They are led by John Galt. Galt describes the disappearances as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds that drive society's growth and productivity. In their efforts, these people "of the mind" hope to demonstrate that a world in which the individual is not free to create and profit is doomed, that civilization cannot exist where every person is a slave to society and government, and that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society. The protagonist, Dagny Taggart, sees society collapse around her as the government increasingly asserts control over all industry.” Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged)

[4] “In the late 2000s, the book gained more media attention and conservative commentators suggested the book as a warning against a socialistic reaction to the finance crisis. Conservative commentators Neal Boortz, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh have offered high praise of the book on their respective radio and television programs. In 2006 Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas cited Atlas Shrugged as among his favorite novels. Republican Congressman John Campbell said for example: "People are starting to feel like we're living through the scenario that happened in [the novel] ... We're living in Atlas Shrugged", echoing Stephen Moore in an article published in The Wall Street Journal on January 9, 2009, titled "Atlas Shrugged From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years". In 2005 Congressman Paul Ryan said that Ayn Rand was "the reason I got into public service" and later required his staff members to read Atlas Shrugged. In April 2012 he disavowed such beliefs however, calling them "an urban legend" and rejecting Rand's philosophy.” Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged)

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_%28mythology%29

Well Informed Futility and Complexity

I learned a new phrase on Friday's PBS TV program Moyers and Company - well informed futility.

“In the absence of federal policies that are protective of child development and the ecology of the planet on which our children’s lives depend, we serve as our own regulatory agencies and departments of interior…. Thoughtful but overwhelmed parents correctly perceive a disconnect between the enormity of the problem and the ability of individual acts of vigilance and self-sacrifice to fix it. Environmental awareness without corresponding political changes leads to paralyzing despair….We feel helpless in our knowledge, and we’re not sure we want any more knowledge. You could call this well-informed futility syndrome. And soon enough, we are retreating into silent resignation rather than standing up for abolition now.”

Sandra Steingraber, Raising Elijah

This syndrome is much larger than the issues Steingraber talks and writes about. It captures well how I feel most of the time on almost all of the wicked problems we face that I have researched.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/the-toxic-assault-on-our-children/

It seems to me that this syndrome may be why people don't want to talk about complexity. More knowledge only adds to their frustration as they don't feel they can do anything about it.

And, we know that's not true. Every system is likely a combination of simple, complicated and complex subsystems. Our normal ways of forecasting work well on simple systems and will usually give you optional futures to deal with through scenarios for complicated systems. Complex systems in disequilibrium are less tractable but in most cases will yield probabilities of occurrence and/or alternate potential futures (strange attractors). Complex systems composed of intelligent agents in dynamic equilibrium yield to massively parallel modeling. Systems composed of adaptive intelligent agents in  dynamic equilibrium are the least tractable.

Can you diagnose the types of systems and can they be  parsed? Then, like a doctor, can you prescribe a treatment? Or, is it a non treatable disease?

Policy and Complex Systems

"The world around us is a complex web of relationships connecting people, companies, groups, countries, and policies into a complex policy system that provides the context for our daily existence. Under such circumstances, it is imperative that our policies at all levels (local, state, country, the world), intended to regulate such systems, take into consideration this richness of both relevant system elements and relationships among them. Companies, societies, markets, or humans rarely stay in a stable, predictable state for long. Randomness, power laws, and human behavior ensure that the future is both unknown and challenging. How do events unfold? When do they take hold? Why do some initial events cause an avalanche of policy change while others do not? What characterizes these events? What are the thresholds that differentiate a sea change from insignificant variation? And, most importantly, what can we do at the policy level to promote activities that will bring about positive, long-term, and sustainable changes in the system of interest?"

Some questions being raised by Paul Rich, President - Policy Studies Organization
http://www.ipsonet.org/publications/open-access/policy-and-complex-systems

Economics and Complexity

James Glattfelder studies complexity: how an interconnected system -- say, a swarm of birds -- is more than the sum of its parts. And complexity theory, it turns out, can reveal a lot about how the economy works. Glattfelder shares a groundbreaking study of how control flows through the global economy, and how concentration of power in the hands of a shockingly small number leaves us all vulnerable. (Filmed at TEDxZurich.)

James B. Glattfelder aims to give us a richer, data-driven understanding of the people and interactions that control our global economy. He does this not to push an ideology -- but with the hopes of making the world a better place.

 http://on.ted.com/Glattfelder

First a researcher at a Swiss hedge fund and then a physicist, James B. Glattfelder found himself amazed by the level of understanding we have in regards to the physical world and universe around us. He wondered: how can we move toward a similar understanding of human society?

This question led him to the study of complex systems, a subject he now holds a Ph.D in from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Glattfelder is co-head of quantitative research at Olsen Ltd in Zurich, an FX investment manager focusing on market-stabilizing algorithms. In 2011, he co-authored the study “The Network of Global Corporate Control,” which went viral in the international media and sparked many controversial discussions. The study looked at the architecture of ownership across the globe, and computed a level of control exerted by each international player. The study revealed that 75% of all the players in the global economy are part of a highly interconnected core which, because of the high levels of overlap, leaves the economy vulnerable.

In his free time, Glattfelder enjoys snowboarding, rock climbing, surfing and listening to electronic music.

"As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy ... The study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power."

The New S

 http://www.ted.com/speakers/james_b_glattfelder.html