Feedback Loops

I'm going to go ahead and say this: most problems exist because of some sort of feedback loop process. Feedback loops lead to exponential change rather than linear change. problem 1 <----> problem 2 = problems squared.

Personal relationships are like this. They progress or regress at exponential rates, because of this feedback loop issue. I'll use William James's example about a party. A dude goes to a party, refusing to talk to anybody unless he has convincing evidence that they like him. So, he sits in the corner and waits. Nobody talks to him. He concludes that they don't like him. He doesn't go to any more parties. However, if he had shown up, believing that they liked him, he would have chatted with them, would have felt at ease, and they probably would have liked him.

Feedback loops. Vicious Cycles.

These things pop up everywhere in public policy. Let's take the problem of ghetto poverty. After desegregation, whites and middle-class minorities fled central cities in droves, aided by public policies that subsidized suburban mortgages while failing to do the same for central cities, leaving the poor and working class behind. As the economy shifted from a manufacturing to a service focus, industries increasingly located in suburbs, because they needed a more highly educated workforce. So, now, the poor central city neighborhoods lacked good jobs for low-skilled people. Unemployment rose. With limited access to low-skill, high-wage jobs, ghetto residents became increasingly despirited, with low educational attainment and involvement with the underground economy (drugs/prostitution). These crime markets led to increased street violence, which in turn instills a culture of stand-offishness, which makes residents even less likely to succeed in a customer-service oriented economy. One cannot list "drug dealer" on a resume. Moreover, poverty means that few have cars, creating a "spatial mismatch," where they can't physically get to where the jobs actually are. Many who have the skills to succeed simply leave, leaving behind even higher concentrations of despair. These conditions (real and imagined) make whites even more scared of the dark skinned and the poor, making them even more likely to keep fleeing if and when they move into the white suburbs.

Feedback loops. Vicious Cycles.

I eat too much. That makes me heavier. That makes it harder for me to move around. That makes me more likely to sit around and eat. That makes me heavier.

If problems were easy to fix, they'd be fixed. The ones that hang around are feedback loop problems. Exponential problems. Cyclical problems. All around tough nuts to crack.