magpie 62/ thank god for mississippi
Hey Folks,
I took a break from this digital soapbox. Here’s what’s been happening.
Arizona: The Land of Contradictions
I disappeared into the desert for a few weeks, checking in on my folks. My brother showed up out of the blue, turning a mundane trip into a family sitcom episode.
Arizona is a state that exists on the knife edge of reality and absurdity. I engaged in a religious pilgrimage to the temples of asada, machaca, carne seca, and the almighty breakfast burrito. Hiking in Arizona is a paradox of beauty and danger—everything wants to hurt you, from the rocks to that thing that looks like a beetle but is actually a Tarantula Hawk. Oh yeah, it’s also hot.
I saw painfully hip parts of Tucson emulating mid-2000s Austin and I saw 15 junkies shooting up at a bus stop at 8am on a Saturday. Arizona is like that weird uncle you only see at Thanksgiving—fascinating, slightly dangerous, and you're thankful he's not your dad. You’re also hoping he loses his MAGA hat.
Systems Thinking in the Desert
Arizona isn’t malfunctioning; it's operating exactly as designed, like a dry, relentless Edward Deming Case Study. Lately, I’ve been trapped in a ‘systems thinking’ loop, seeing patterns and failures everywhere. Like these Gilbert goons assholes. Think back to these communities as you read the rest of this email
In Arizona, we thank god for Mississippi. Anil Dash isn’t dissecting Arizona specifically, but this article talks about systemic design resonate with the state’s inherent madness.
Potholes are Accountability Sinks
I stumbled into "The Unaccountability Machine," a book that blends steampunk cybernetics with a disturbing analysis of modern systems. Here’s the distilled essence:
1\ Accountability Sinks: We’ve created legal frameworks that act as black holes for responsibility. Davies calls these “accountability sinks” and shares enough terrifying examples to make you question every corporate and governmental structure.
2\ Information Theory in Management: Good middle management and technocracy are what separate the functional organizations from the dysfunctional ones. The flows of organizational information follow the fundamental rules of information theory.
3. Business Books are predictable systems: The latter half of the book gets repetitive, but what business book doesn’t?
Cliodynamics and the inevitability of discontent
Then there’s "End Times" by Peter Turchin—a book that will depress you if you’re into empirical data about societal collapse. Turchin is like Peter Zeihan with a statistics degree. Some ideas from the book:
1\ Elite Overproduction: Turchin argues that societies produce too many elites, which leads to the rise of counter-elites. While direct evidence is scant, the inferential connections are there, and it makes a disturbing kind of sense.
Turchin references Ibn Khaldun, whose work measured the approximate length of a Dynasty in his observable history as 400 years. Turchin compares this observation to his own and argues that polygamy led to shorter dynasties than in Turchin’s data for similar dynasties in monogamous cultures, becuase more potential heirs per generation = more chaos. So specific yet so… ‘yeah sure buddy’ type analysis.
2\ Cliodynamics and Inevitable Futures: Books like "Guns, Germs & Steel" love to paint the future as preordained by systemic analysis. The catch? You have to ignore human agency, which is a tough pill to swallow.
3\ the marxist messy middle - I’m not that bright but I think Turchin’s book details the messy middle of Marx’s ‘inevitable class struggle’. Which is weird, right?
North Carolina: A Brief Interlude
After Arizona, I flew to North Carolina for Mark Laabs' memorial. It was a fitting tribute to an exceptional individual. I reconnected with old friends, ate some great food and discovered some mind blowing coffee. My impression of North Carolina? “Wow, those trees sure hide a lot.”
Back to Reality
Between the political chaos, existential reflections, and the agony of long-haul economy flights, it took me a while to get back to this newsletter. But here I am, ready to dive back in. If anyone’s still out there reading, hi there. I’m back.