Why states fear complexity

Two features define our age. Acceleration. And complexity. Let's tackle acceleration first.

Fifty-three years ago, Alvin Toffler wrote this in his wholly remarkable book, Future Shock: "Change is the process by which the future invades our lives, and it is important to look at it closely, not merely from the grand perspectives of history, but also from the vantage point of the living, breathing individuals who experience it. The acceleration of change in our time is, itself, an elemental force. This accelerative thrust has personal and psychological, as well as sociological, consequences."

Stunning and prescient as it sounds, Toffler wrote these lines when the real agent of change (microprocessor) was in its infancy. We live in a dramatically altered reality.

Here are lines from Ray Kurzweil's latest book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI, where he describes the gist of one of his previous books: "Convergent, exponential technological trends are leading to a transition that will be utterly transformative for humanity. There are several key areas of change that are continuing to accelerate simultaneously: computing power is becoming cheaper, human biology is becoming better understood, and engineering is becoming possible at far smaller scales. As artificial intelligence grows in ability and information becomes more accessible, we are integrating these capabilities ever more closely with our natural biological intelligence." Then, after a brief overview of marvels of technology like ChatGPT, Gemini, all-pervasive smartphones and human genome sequencing, he writes, "Underlying all these developments is what I call the law of accelerating returns: information technologies like computing get exponentially cheaper because each advance makes it easier to design the next stage of their own evolution. As a result, as I write this, one dollar buys about 11,200 times as much computing power, adjusting for inflation, as it did when The Singularity Is Near (2005) hit shelves… Moore's law famously observes that transistors have been steadily shrinking, allowing computers to get ever more powerful - but that is just one manifestation of the law of accelerating returns."

While Toffler's work was primarily speculative on technology, and I have written in the past on many ways he went wrong, on population explosion and the exponential challenges it poses, he was on the money. When the population grows exponentially, of course, acceleration becomes a necessity. Without it, progress will not reach everyone. It is in light of this concern that people like Elon Musk, who complain about falling birthrates, lose me. We are eight billion and counting as we speak. Are we doing justice to every living, breathing soul on the planet? If you have not noticed, everything is getting crowded now. Or perhaps only people of their own colour matter to these individuals. In any case, an exponential population rate adds more to the mix than just acceleration. It also adds complexity to the equation as more people seek to explore hitherto uncharted territories and try to do new things.

Here, it is imperative to disambiguate a little. We are not discussing the cutting-edge science of complexity or the complexity theory. This discipline only shows how complicated our lives and their interactions with the universe already are. Take the following qualifier from Neil Theise's book Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being: "It is complexity theory that shows how the entities arising from fundamental physics actively weave themselves into ever larger structures, step by step, until they become the fabric of our everyday lives and of the dynamic, natural, living systems that surround us. While the aims of complexity science are grandly ambitious, when studied with careful intention, its lessons can also be deeply personal. It can solve some of the most crucial riddles of our sense of being." To remember how wobbly the foundation of this work is, please bear in mind that the building blocks of matter upon which we are basing our inquiries are subject to Heisenberg's uncertainty or indeterminacy principle. Imagine that the reality you are studying can fold up or change at any moment during your quest.

But here, by complexity we do not mean complexity theory or science, fascinating as it might be. We mean complexity in its rawest form. Where accelerating technology and innovations add further layers of complication to the ever-growing density of human society. Imagine how complicated the job of governing such a population is likely to become. No state is equipped with the bandwidth required for such a massive endeavour. Fear and suspicion of the unknown are then inevitable. In America and India's response to TikTok and Brazil and Pakistan's response to X or Twitter, you can already see the makings of this existential angst.

But we are still talking about the legitimate modes of expression. Pray, keep in mind attempts at subversion and perversion. In the far-right's attempts to weaponise the US 1st Amendment (for spreading racist hatred) and the 2nd (terrorising the innocent and suppressing voices of the victims of gun violence), two laws written for simpler times, you already see individual examples. The examples of nation-states are even worse.

To see what states are capable of, you need to watch a beautiful 2016 documentary, 'The Occupation of the American Mind - Israel's Public Relations War in the United States'. Consider this gem from Golda Meir, no less. "When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." Just like that, Israel appears devoid of any agency and beyond any blame.

Politics is a heartless thing. It obscures moral nuances. Let's see another example. Celebrated Singaporean diplomat and former UNSC president Kishore Mahbubani recently suggested that the UK vacate its permanent seat in favour of India. This is unlikely to happen. But is this the antidote to the alleged elite capture at the UN? Replace one elite with another? The UNSC is not the UN's executive. It is an exclusive club of the elite within the UN's parliament. Would you like a similar elite club in your parliament which can veto all lawmaking? The UN has a pretty inclusive executive headed by a democratically elected secretary general. But these nuances are lost on the old guard. When the obituary of nation states is written, the demise will be attributed to stupidity, greed, inflexibility and incompetence.

With such state-driven projects to subvert and pervert all arguments, moral pollution will only add to complexity. As acceleration and complexity force us to extreme solutions like singularity (mind merging with AI), innovations like Musk's Neuralink and Zuckerberg's Metaverse will define the contours of our reality. States' reaction to this turf encroachment will not present a pretty sight.

What can ordinary citizens do? The best disruption is the simplest - basic human decency. We can take charge of the future if all decent souls worldwide are vigilant. If you count yourself among them, wake up, be ready to use everything you have got and watch this space.