That doesn't really parse, because the variety here is the number of possible states.
It was poorly worded, but your A/C case was a clear counterexample anyway, so I'll withdraw the point. The controller can have greater or lesser variety than its system.
Ideally, we'd want a situation where no shaping at all is required.
Probably you mean something different than I do by "shaping", but that statement just sounds implausible. For instance, language shapes society, and even in a utopian one you'd want to continue improving language, say by incorporating new terms from developing sciences into common parlance. If you meant deliberate shaping, I'll note that the hypothesis I gave (that video games helped decrease violent crime in the US) wasn't a deliberate effect.
If both of these fail or are inapplicable, though, I think the kind of reasoning I wrote in my post would help constructing a better controller/regulator, avoiding the usual traps of corruption, excessive centralization, lack of accountability, and so on.
*nods* Yeah, I think so.
At least, unless we find ourselves in a utopia, the higher level maintenance - deciding where to go, how to shape society, then having that change happen - involves departing from the natural equilibrium, and thus some sort of steering will be required.
I question this. Societies generally improve and develop without steering -- the progress of science is a great example. Societies also push themselves out of equilibrium without any kind of steering, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 12:57 am (UTC)It was poorly worded, but your A/C case was a clear counterexample anyway, so I'll withdraw the point. The controller can have greater or lesser variety than its system.
Ideally, we'd want a situation where no shaping at all is required.
Probably you mean something different than I do by "shaping", but that statement just sounds implausible. For instance, language shapes society, and even in a utopian one you'd want to continue improving language, say by incorporating new terms from developing sciences into common parlance. If you meant deliberate shaping, I'll note that the hypothesis I gave (that video games helped decrease violent crime in the US) wasn't a deliberate effect.
If both of these fail or are inapplicable, though, I think the kind of reasoning I wrote in my post would help constructing a better controller/regulator, avoiding the usual traps of corruption, excessive centralization, lack of accountability, and so on.
*nods* Yeah, I think so.
At least, unless we find ourselves in a utopia, the higher level maintenance - deciding where to go, how to shape society, then having that change happen - involves departing from the natural equilibrium, and thus some sort of steering will be required.
I question this. Societies generally improve and develop without steering -- the progress of science is a great example. Societies also push themselves out of equilibrium without any kind of steering, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.