From: HANKINS@PKEDVM8.VNET.IBM.COM
Subject: Government Fusion Legislation
Reply-To: HANKINS@PKEDVM8.VNET.IBM.COM
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 05:35:58 GMT

In reply to Jim Bowery's comments that the previous legislation was
doomed to failure because it allowed subcommittees to have conflicts of
jurisdiction (I'm not sure of the precise wording), and previous
comments about the apparently self-serving and self-opposing nature of
the legislation, I'd like to offer the following meager insights from
Systems Theory:

1. From my initial scan, this looks to me like a large system set up to
   solve The Problem.

2. There is a phenomenon I like to call Large Systems Precession, and
   which has been given other names by Systems Theory researchers.

   Large systems are like tops; they spin okay for a while, but then
   gravity pulls downward on them.  They destabilize and instead of
   falling over they begin to dissipate their energy in unexpected
   directions.

3. Attempts to restabilize the system by pushing it back
   into place or (God forbid) adding additional "stabilization systems"
   only cause it to dissipate energy in even more unexpected directions.
   You push it -this- way, it goes -that- way.

4. Attempts to build a more stable system of comparable size only amount
   to pointing the system in a different direction.  Gravity still
   exerts a force on the system, and it begins to precess.

5. Large systems tend to oppose their own function, the longer they
   operate the more they oppose it.

6. Large systems behave as if they have a will to live; they behave in
   ways that tend to further their own existence at the expense of their
   overt function.

A good, almost stupidly simple example of this is "The War on Drugs".
The Problem is drug-related crime and lives destroyed by addiction.  The
Solution is drug laws and enforcement.  Those who enforce the laws can
tell when their efforts are successful when the price goes up.  Let's
follow the system around the rest of the loop.  More enforcement leads
to decreased supply leads to higher prices leads to more theft and
theft-related crime (breaking and entering, armed robbery, muggings,
etc.) and also more crime related to the higher value of the merchandise
(more violence over dealer turf and deals gone bad).  This makes The
Problem bigger, which leads to calls for more of The Solution, and...

Substitute Prohibition for The War on Drugs, and make the other
corresponding substitutions on substances and recent poor immigrant
populations and varieties of violence and you'll see that The War on
Drugs is creating much the same large system that Prohibition did, in
which a push in one direction leads to a movement in another.

These systems are set up by well-meaning folk;  it's just that we have a
cultural myth (and I think this is a global we) that we can solve each
Problem by building a system.  It's just one of those things we do.

Given these tendencies, the likely effect of new legislation on the
fusion effort is that there will be unexpected and anti-expected effects
of this legislation on fusion research, just different ones than the
ones we're getting now.


Dan Hankins
Standard disclaimer applies.
A day without segmented addressing is like a day without electroshock.
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion