DESTABILIZATION (Signals of impending societal)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 881 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Human sciences |
K.E.F. WATT and Paul F. CRAIG suggest seven kinds of signals of impending societal destabilization:
- “1. Dangerous dependence on a single critical limiting resource at risk of near-term supply curtailment
2. A dangerously coarse-grained environment
3. Lack of redundancy in the social infrastructure. (What do we have already in place to allow us to survive sudden curtailment of petroleum supplies?)
4. Lack of fast-acting negative feedback loops in complex systems of impending resource shortages, sets systems up for shocks
5. Top-heavy, multi-layered, rigid organizational structures
6. Curtailment of migration because of prohibitive resource costs
7. Excessive connectance between the economics of different nations means that now, a shock anywhere translates into a shock at other, remote sites“ (1986, p. 200).
Some of these signals at least are valid for enterprises, individuals and, in ecological settings, for species.