A Theory Of National Instability

Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Post Reply
MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

A Theory Of National Instability

Post by MSimon »

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... -the-storm
Simply put, fragility is aversion to disorder. Things that are fragile do not like variability, volatility, stress, chaos, and random events, which cause them to either gain little or suffer. A teacup, for example, will not benefit from any form of shock. It wants peace and predictability, something that is not possible in the long run, which is why time is an enemy to the fragile. What’s more, things that are fragile respond to shock in a nonlinear fashion. With humans, for example, the harm from a ten-foot fall in no way equals ten times as much harm as from a one-foot fall. In political and economic terms, a $30 drop in the price of a barrel of oil is much more than twice as harmful to Saudi Arabia as a $15 drop.


For countries, fragility has five principal sources: a centralized governing system, an undiversified economy, excessive debt and leverage, a lack of political variability, and no history of surviving past shocks. Applying these criteria, the world map looks a lot different. Disorderly regimes come out as safer bets than commonly thought—and seemingly placid states turn out to be ticking time bombs. 

A country that is moderately unstable is more resilient. Which makes conservatives more a threat to national resilience than liberals. Assuming they both eschew centralized power.

That used to be what our Federal design was all about.

And then we get things like Oklahoma and Nebraska suing Colorado. Or the Federal government usurping health care which used to be a State thing. Or Federal education standards like Common Core.

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. - Benito Mussolini - Too rigid to survive.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Post Reply