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Ep 58: Control Theory and a Stable Society
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Ep 58: Control Theory and a Stable Society

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In college, as a "roboticist" I had to study controls. Like, how to control a robotic arm electronically.

Controls is an important and interesting field, whose lessons are pretty hard to distill into one sentence, but I'll give it a shot: Never use positive feedback.

Ok not never, but there are very few systems in the world that rely on positive feedback.

In a positive feedback control system the closer you are to your goal the harder you try.

Take your car's cruise control system— a classic example of control theory in action. Cruise control operates through NEGATIVE feedback, meaning the closer your car is to it's set speed, the less gas it will inject into the engine. If you want to go 60mph but you're currently going 30, your car will inject a lot of gas. If you want to go 60 but are going 55, it will inject very little. This allows it to smoothly reach your desired speed and not go over. Good job, car.

Now imagine if instead your cruise control used positive feedback. This would mean that the closer your car got to it's set speed the MORE gas it would inject into the engine.

I once accidentally built a system like this in college. It didn't end well. The arm I was trying to control spun in circles very quickly until it broke.

The reason you don't have many positive feedback systems is that most systems are designed for stability. The majority of systems, including the natural ones powering our body, work to maintain a stable state. Positive feedback systems are inherently unstable. Negative feedback systems are, when designed well, stable.

One of the few, natural, positive feedback systems I can think of is childbirth. When you go into labor each contraction stimulates more oxytocin to be released which stimulates more contractions. Contractions get more and more frequent until, presumably, a baby is born. To be clear, I've never done this, but this is how I heard it works.

Childbirth is a great place to use positive feedback because you don't want stability. You want disruption. You want the child that is inside you get out. When you want change, particularly rapid change, positive feedback is good.

Another place where you can see positive feedback, and thus instability, is in most societal systems. This is a feature of US society in particular that has gotten a lot of press lately.

In the US (and, to be clear, most countries, but I'll speak for my own here) the more power you have, the easier it is to get more power. In capitalism money turns into more money. In a technocracy knowledge turns into more knowledge. In a hierarchy status turns into more status.

The rich get richer, the smart get smarter and those with status, well, you get the point. This is positive feedback.

We have negative feedback systems in place which try to correct for some of these, naturally, unstable systems.

For instance, our progressive tax policy takes more money from you the more you make. Though It's not super effective at achieving stability (a wealth tax would be more effective), it does somewhat counter the positive feedback inherent in capitalism.

Positive feedback for knowledge is naturally checked by technological progress— especially today. Most of the useful technical knowledge I'm accumulating today won't be useful in 10 years. Even if I can accumulate knowledge faster than the average person, thanks to the education I've been fortunate to receive, there's a reset every 10 years when my knowledge becomes outdated. Thus knowledge and skill inequity is, largely, averted.

However, positive feedback for status, has no effective check in American society.

Cultures have attempted to put status accumulation in check for a long time, but most fall prey to the very system they're trying to regulate. Most religions, for instance, include instructions to help those weaker and less fortunate. Many religions even prescribe self harm for situations where you realize you have more status than others. However, these religions usually become hierarchies themselves. Those climbing the hierarchy are unlikely to emphasize the religious doctrines that would prevent them from benefiting from their hard work. Thus, religion has mostly been unable to check status accumulation. In fact, sometimes it makes things worse.

The lack of negative feedback on status accumulation leads to power inequities in the US that transcend wealth or ability. Whatever group has historically held the most status within a domain continues to accumulate status faster than other groups. Within the domain of work and politics, in the US, the group that has historically held the most status is white men. As a result it's pretty freakin hard for marginalized groups to obtain that same status, regardless of their wealth or ability.

Of course, it's also important to note that status feeds positively into wealth and knowledge as well. The more status you have the better educational resources you can access and the more capital available to you. So, until we can solve for status inequities, it will be hard for any system to control the inequities elsewhere.

So my question is, what is the status equivalent of taxation? What is a negative feedback loop that makes it harder to accumulate status the more status you have?

I have some thoughts on this, mostly based on observing cultures that have managed to survive for a long time. I'll probably publish these in my next essay. However, what do you think?

Note: This entire essay assumes that societal stability is a good thing. I personally would like a relatively stable, long lived, American society. However, if you like the boom-bust cycle that is typical of most civilizations, then probably positive feedback is the way to go. 

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