[p2p-research] dangers of connectivity

[Samuel Rose]

See also this comment to me on my facebook profile from Peter Rothman, who
studies network dynamics in his Credit Card security consulting business:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=668410120&ref=name

Peter wrote:

I am not sure that connectivity increases the chance of Black Swan as much
as it increases the sustainability of feedback loops. These can be positive
or negative feedback, and the results will depend on the circumstances.
and type of feedback.

Another factor to consider when assessing the probability of Black Swans,
humans generally underestimate the frequency of infrequent events. Example,
ask someone to give you a string of "random" binary digits (or a sequence of
Heads and Tails) from their imagination. They will typically underestimate
the number of runs such as 1111111 or 0000000. People are naturally pretty
bad at reasoning about these sorts of events.

Another similar effect is repeated trials. Even an unlikely event will
eventually occur if you conduct enough trials. This is why, for example,
surprisingly low false alarm rates are required for biometric security
systems and it is what went wrong in part with the risk models for credit
default swaps

-----end quote---


I wrote back:

"Thanks, Peter. I see what you mean about feedback loops. I think Robb is
talkiing about stuff like this http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/9/4/9.html

"There is empirical evidence from a range of disciplines that as the
connectivity of a network increases, we observe an increase in the average
fitness of the system. But at the same time, there is an increase in the
proportion of failure/extinction events which are extremely large. The
probability of observing an extreme event remains very low, but it is
markedly higher than in the system with lower degrees of connectivity."

Anyway, this large scale failure could very well be *due* in part to
feedback loops, depending on the system. ... Read More

"Black Swan" metaphor is perhaps really more related to human perception and
estimation, so I really appreciate your comments on that."

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Paul B. Hartzog <paulbhartzog at gmail.com>wrote:

> yes
> there is an appropriate response to this from complex systems as well
> as philosophy
>
> i will draft it
> and we can post it some appropriate way
>
> doing now
>
> -p
>
> On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 10:41 PM, Michel Bauwens
> <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Paul,
> >
> > remember I mentioned an article claiming that increased connectivity
> > increases global risk, see
> >
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-danger-of-unified-globalization/2009/03/29
> >
> > you replied, but I forgot to add this as a comment
> >
> > Now, John Robb comes back to that charge, citing scientific backing, see
> >
> >
> http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/04/the-increasing-frequency-of-black-swans.html
> >
> > I really would appreciate if you could rewrite or resend that commentary,
> > refer to those 2 pieces, and I would like to publish it as a separate
> piece,
> >
> > I think this is really a central issue for the future of our planet,
> >
> > Michel
> >
> > --
> > Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
> > http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
> > http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
> >
> > Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
> > http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
> > http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
> >
> > Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
> >
> > The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
> > http://www.shiftn.com/
> >
>
>
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.PaulBHartzog.org
> http://www.panarchy.com
> PaulBHartzog at PaulBHartzog.org
> PaulBHartzog at panarchy.com
> PHartzog at umich.edu
> --------------------------------------------------------
> The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
>                 --Muriel Rukeyser
>
> See differently, then you will act differently.
>                  --Paul B. Hartzog
> --------------------------------------------------------
>



-- 
Sam Rose
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