The Ecosystemic Decision E-Book

Rita Carrizo

• Herausgeber: Editorial Autores de Argentina
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 335

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

"The human brain is neutral, it does not distinguish between right and wrong, ethical and non-ethical behaviour. It only learns and optimizes whatever is repeated" Talking about risks implies talking about decisions, those we do make and those we don't. Learning how to manage those risks requires considering the decision content and, fundamentally, understanding what drives us to "make" a decision. We would all probably agree that the current state of the global ecosystem demands urgent action. It seems that changing radically the way in which we decide is necessary for all the species of the planet to keep on coexisting. But, how do we do it? Why are we still chained to a decision-making model that has shown to be poor in terms of sustainability and ethics? It may be that the answer lies in our own evolution, but what kind of biological and cultural evolution process transformed humans into "not so good" decision-makers at recognizing and becoming responsible for the impacts and potential responses of the ecosystem towards their decisions? This book approaches these questions with a view to understanding who has been and who currently is the Western decision-maker. It proposes a paradigm shift that makes "ecosystemic" management of decisions and risks possible. Through a deep reflection about the topic, Rita Carrizo -the author- seeks to connect contributions from the fields of biology, genetics, sociobiology, neurosciences, systems thinking and ontology of language.

Leseprobe

Carrizo, Rita The Ecosystemic Decision : An ethical way of managing risks / Rita Carrizo. - 1a ed. - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Autores de Argentina, 2022.

Libro digital, EPUB

Archivo Digital: descarga y online

ISBN 978-987-87-2422-5

1. Ensayo. I. Título. CDD A864

EDITORIAL AUTORES DE [email protected]

RITA CARRIZO

The Ecosystemic Decision

An ethical way of managing risks

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

The decision-maker and the ecosystem duo

1.1 A macro-historical view of human action

1.2 Decisional archetypes

The decision-making process

The economic man

The administrative man

1.3 The decision-maker in the light of the systemic approach

System Thinking

What does it mean to think systemically?

What are the pillars of systems thinking?

The linear decision-maker

Chapter 2

The decision-maker’s driver

2.1 Digging into the biology of the decision-maker

Biology and Ecology

Sociobiology

Cooperation

Altruism

Genetics

AVPR1a gene research

COMT Val158Met gene study

Where does this reflection take us?

Fear written in the genes

2.2 Cultural aspects of the decision-maker

The metaphysical paradigm

The Humanist or homocentric paradigm

The result-oriented creed

2.3 The existential pain

Chapter 3

The pending learning

3.1 Ecosystemic ethics

3.2 Language: the apple of Eve

3.3 A powerful look at language

The observer principle

The action principle

The principle of the system

Chapter 4

The ecosystemic decision, decision-makers and their risk profiles

4.1 The decision-maker, an onto-linguistic observer

Heuristic processes

Neuroplasticity of the decision-maker

4.2 Risk profiles

Microcosmic perspective

The ecosystemic decision-maker

Chapter 5

What is risk?

5.1 Linear decisions, linear risks

5.2 Looking at risk from an ecosystemic perspective

Risk dwells in the OLO decision-maker

When talking about risk, it is not necessary to talk about time

Uncertainty

5.3 Ecosystemic dimensions of risk

Traditional risk

Opportunity risk

Use of risk

5.4 Risk factors

5.5 Emerging risk

Chapter 6

Ecosystemic risk management (ESRM)

6.1 What is it in charge of?

6.2 ERM, SRM and ESRM

6.3 ESRM and the 2020 pandemic

Appendix

An Ecosystemic Approach to the 2020 Pandemic

Introduction

1. The speech

1.1 Speeches that followed medical directions

1.2 Virus underestimation speeches

2. Decisions taken

2.1 Day 1 and first steps

2.2 Conducting tests

2.3 Full lockdown or social distancing

2.4 Monitoring COVID-19 mobile apps and geolocation

2.5 Ecosystemic consequences

3. Conclusions

References

Biography

Sinopsis

"The human brain is neutral. It does not distinguish between right and wrong, ethical and unethical behaviour. It only learns and optimises whatever is repeated. "

Talking about risks implies talking about decisions, both those we do make and those we do not. Then learning how to manage risk requires considering the decision content and, most importantly, understanding what drives us to "make" a decision. We would all probably agree that the current state of the global ecosystem demands urgent action. Radically changing the way in which we decide seems necessary if we want all the species of the planet to continue to coexist. But, how do we do it? Why are we still chained to a decision-making behaviour that has proven to be poor in terms of sustainability and ethics? It may be that the answer lies in our own evolution, but what kind of biological and cultural evolution process transformed humans into "not so good" decision-makers at recognising and becoming responsible for the impacts and potential responses of the ecosystem towards their decisions? This book approaches these questions with a view to understanding who has been and who currently is the Western decision-maker. It proposes a paradigm shift that enables an "ecosystemic" management of decisions and risks, made possible through a deep reflection in which the author, Rita Carrizo, sought to integrate contributions from the fields of biology, genetics, sociobiology, neurosciences, systems thinking, and the ontology of language.

Introduction

You may have read the phrase “managing risks” in the title and approached this book looking for guidance on what, when and how to get your risks under control. You may even have been encouraged to discover the risks you are not managing today. If this is the case, you will probably be disappointed. There are no recipes or tools in this book that could bring you comfort. On the contrary, I dare say that much of what you will read in the next few pages will cause you considerable discomfort, and I will explain why.

Speaking about risks requires speaking about decisions. The decisions you make and those you don’t make are precisely the ones that produce the risks you want to manage. Therefore, from the perspective I will use throughout this work, you will notice that if you want to manage risks, you will first need to manage the decisions that lead to them. This task is not just about looking at the content of the decision itself, but fundamentally, understanding what drives you to make the decisions you make. You probably know people who make similar decisions to yours but who, in practice, undergo different impacts, outcomes, and consequences. This understanding opens the entrance to the rabbit hole; then you can go as far or as close as you want to.

If you read on, you will go down the decisional rabbit hole as deep as this author can go with her abilities and limitations. I propose you look at the decision by observing the decision-maker, the human being behind the decision. In particular, we will examine the decision-maker in Western culture. And this is where discomfort might arise, by seeing yourself personally reflected in this writing, when in fact all you wanted was a recipe. But if you made it so far, you may want to give yourself the opportunity to keep on reading, to judge for yourself whether there is anything you can learn from it. Nothing written here is going to change your decision-making attitude or your decisions, unless you want it to and allow it to. Don’t give my words that power; instead, give yourself the opportunity to reflect, to question yourself, and to question me. The rest is up to you.

The idea of “ecosystemic decision-making” could have piquet your curiosity and, just to fuel it, let me tell you that this book studies the Western decision-maker as a participant in an ecosystem where the decision-making process takes place, that is, immersed in a complexity from which he or she cannot escape. The journey down the rabbit hole begins with an understanding of the current situation of the decision-maker and the ecosystem duo; a panorama that I presume you will find familiar, though not necessarily comfortable. This is the intention of Chapter 1, a prelude to the insight that will follow in the next one.

You may find Chapters 2 and 3 like going downhill on a roller coaster: sometimes exciting, other times frightening, and sometimes you may wonder why you climbed on. Don’t worry, the same thing happened to me. Some stops are offered with the intention of integrating different perspectives of knowledge, including those within the fields of biology, genetics, sociobiology, and the ontology of language. I hope they help you make sense of the story and understand the decision-maker better. I also hope that they will pique your interest and, in your opinion, add rigour and theoretical underpinning to my perspective.

The descent and deep reflection culminate in Chapter 3, which offers a different path back to the surface, a path that proposes learning a new decisional paradigm that I have called “ecosystemic decision-making.”

Chapter 4 invites a closer look at the risk-taking decision-maker, drawing on advances in neuroscience and questioning the extent to which their decisions are deliberate or “rational.” The exploration ends with the “ecosystemic decision-maker” as the archetype of the new decisional paradigm.

At that point, and having developed the theoretical framework of the perspective, Chapter 5 takes on the task of reinterpreting some of the features of risk management discipline, starting with risk and uncertainty itself.

Finally, Chapter 6 attempts to provide a baseline for ecosystemic risk management, or ESRM, and to distinguish it from other traditional forms. It is offered with the intention of enriching knowledge, but more importantly, to be enriched by those who are interested and open to learning. This chapter also includes an appendix, written with the intention of showing how some decision-makers managed decisions during the pandemic COVID-19, which is contemporary to this text. It is not an ESRM process, but I hope it serves to show decisions that could have been ecosystemic but were not.

All this allows me to insist that this book contains no recipes, no critical paths, no new “truths” -you will then see why I say that. It simply offers a thoughtful, profound, and -as far as possible- informed view that seeks to give an interpretation -hopefully a powerful one- and offer it to the decision-maker.

Chapter 1

The decision-maker and the ecosystem duo

1.1 A macro-historical view of human action

As stated in the introduction, risk and decision find a connection in the decision-maker. We will not talk about you or me as particular decision-makers. Instead, this and subsequent chapters will be devoted to gaining a better understanding of who has been and continues to be the decision-maker in the West. The idea will be to recognise what we have in common. To this end, I will use some ideas and information from an unusual history book I had the pleasured of reading some years ago, and which I find appealing for being challenging and clear, but above all, because it is written from a macro perspective. This book does not seem to be written from the eyes of someone who chooses to enter the forest and to observe every tree, plant, animal, soil and landform, but from those of someone who chooses to ride on the back of an eagle to perceive the shapes, colours and dimensions, looking for “patterns” that can only be seen at a greater height and far away from the forest inhabitants. The author who was able to make this journey is Yuval Noah Harari who, in 2014, published his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. From him, I will borrow some ideas -in my opinion, so lucidly explained- to use as a springboard for the beginning of this work. I am very grateful for this opportunity.

Harari proposes that the history of humankind could be described in terms of three milestones or revolutions, each of which offered humans new possibilities and differential “powers”. The first one, which he dates to about 70,000 years ago, was called “cognitive” and may have occurred as a consequence of a DNA mutation in the Homo sapiens, who had already been walking the Earth for a long time.1 This extremely relevant event would have made possible new ways of thinking and communicating using imagination and language as we know it today.

Trying to learn more about this topic, I found that genetic studies carried out since the 1990s have associated the FoxP2 gene with language ability. Several investigations carried on since 2009 revealed that this gene collaborates with the brain’s ability to conceptualise -a decisive factor in the development of language. In addition, it seems that the protein of the same name that such a gene encodes contributes to the formation of neural connections linked to language. Researchers believe they work together to help the brain adjust and adapt differently to speech and language acquisition. A surprising thing about this mutation, which is currently only present in humans, is that it would be much older -having occurred more than 500,000 years ago- and that it was also present in Neanderthals. It is possible that they too could have spoken.2

In Harari’s view, this new ability of our ancestors seems to have been a differentiating power from other coexisting Homo species, granting them the ability to talk about things outside their experience and things that might not even exist; this ability would have allowed Homo sapiens to create myths. The author says about language,

It’s the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled.

Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. (Harari, 2014, p. 24)

This event had many impacts on human life. However, learning to work with others on a large scale changed the way they experienced the world. In the author’s perspective, some 30,000 years ago, these skills made sapiens the dominant species on the planet.

It could be said that, his evolutionarily favourable transformation of our species gave it the means to outcompete other similar species, with devastating consequences for them considering that none of them managed to survive.

The second milestone in human development that the author describes would have taken place approximately 12,000 years ago. By that time, sapiens hunter-gatherers, who had been experiencing the power of language for thousands of years, discovered that they were able to domesticate some varieties of animals and plants for their own benefit and realised that this meant no longer wandering in search of food. This “agricultural revolution” not only changed the way people lived at that time, but also determined how they would continue to live until modern times, domesticating the same animals and plants and, above all, securing their livelihood by settling in one place.

This time, the new power to subjugate nature provided humanity with much more food and enabled exponential growth that ensured the survival of the species. It was sapiens themselves who managed to find the tools with the power to overcome the other species on the planet and once again establish themselves as the dominant species.

According to the author, this story, that is often told as a success story when looking at human evolution, also hides collateral consequences which are not usually told. For example, the dependence on a few products -compared to the range of options that the hunter-gatherer had- exposed them to inclement weather, drought, and consequently, starvation. Later, the same “success” led them to live in overcrowded human settlements that exposed them to filth, increasing mortality in the early years of life. Not to mention the many more hours of work required to earn a living, or having a poorer diet than the hunter-gatherer’s. As a counterpart to the farmers’ success in obtaining more food, thieves appeared who wanted what they had, adding more violence to the already existing. During hunter-gatherer times, if a hunting or gathering space was contested by another group and they found themselves inferior in strength, they had the option of escape. On the other hand, for the farmers, leaving their land, their “home”, was synonymous with losing everything and risking death for themselves and their families; they had to fight to survive.

Population size was also affected by the above-mentioned revolutions. According to Harari, by 10,000 BC, before the shift to agriculture, the Earth was home to some 5-8 million nomadic hunter-gatherers. By the 1st century AD, there were 1-2 million hunter-gatherers left (mainly in Australia, America and Africa), compared to the 250 million farmers worldwide; this growth represented a 50-fold increase in the population.

Rereading and reflecting on the transformative power that language and this new revolution had on the human way of life, the discovery of agriculture must have shown them that it was possible to change the world they inhabited. Perhaps humans discovered for the first time that they had the power to manipulate what was around them at will and for their own benefit; a power that even today, they seem to feel they own.

Along the same path, but many, many years later, humanity was the protagonist of a new and unprecedented event: the “scientific revolution,” which Harari places about 500 years ago. At that time, people began to question the supposed truths with which religions and powerful classes had ruled them until then. Such questioning led them to recognise that these truths were no longer sufficient to explain the world in which they lived, that they had to declare themselves ignorant of such a world and that they had to go out and seek new answers through science. In this new revolution, the mere declaration of ignorance became the new “power” seeking to resolve many and varied problems that were once the responsibility of the “gods”.

As science began to solve one unsolvable problem after another, many became convinced that humankind could overcome any and every problem by acquiring and applying new knowledge. Poverty, sickness, wars, famines, old age and death itself were not the inevitable fate of humankind. They were simply the fruits of our ignorance. (Harari, 2014, pp. 187-188)

This new approach to problems sparked the race for progress and development, resulting in stark contrasts for many people. For example, the quality of life increased greatly for some sections of the population, while others were condemned to misery. The peasantry disappeared as people abandoned the farming life they had been leading for almost 12,000 years to live and work in industrial cities and thus were exposed to all the ills of overpopulation, such as filth, disease, exploitation and more poverty.

According to the author, in the year 1700, there were about 700 million humans in the world (almost three times the population of the 1st century AD). In 1800, there were 950 million people (30% more in 100 years). Only 100 years later, in 1900, there were 1.6 billion people, six times the population of the 1st century AD. In 2000, the figure quadrupled to 6 billion. Today the population is very close to 7.8 billion. Just to rub my eyes one more time, I constructed the table below, where, beyond the staggering number, what is impressive is the annual average.

Year

Population (in millions)

Number of years

Exchange rate

In %

Annual average

10000 BC

8

-

-

-

-

1 AD

252

10000

31,25

3025

0,30

1700 AD

700

1700

2,80

180

0,11

1800 AD

950

100

1,36

36

0,36

1900 AD

1600

100

1,68

68

0,68

2000 AD

6000

100

3,75

275

2,75

2020 AD (*)

7780

20

1,30

30

1,50

(*) Source: https://www.worldometers.info/es/ - 21.04.2020

To conclude this journey through Harari’s work, the author makes a strong judgement on the cost to humanity and the planet of the revolutions and progress mentioned above, a cost that currently threatens their very existence. In his words,

Humans cut down forests, drained swamps, dammed rivers, flooded plains, laid down tens of thousands of kilometres of railroad tracks, and built skyscraping metropolises. As the world was moulded to fit the needs of Homo sapiens, habitats were destroyed and species went extinct. Our once green and blue planet is becoming a concrete and plastic shopping centre. (…) Global warming, rising oceans and widespread pollution could make the earth less hospitable to our kind, and the future might consequently see a spiralling race between human power and human-induced natural disasters (Harari, 2014, p. 245)

Again, and called to reflect on what has been said, I would like to offer an additional interpretation. If the first revolution gave humans the language and power to become the only surviving Homo species, and the agricultural revolution was like eating from the tree of knowledge, making them aware of their own power over nature and other species, the third of the revolutions seems to have given them the right to make intensive use and abuse of everything on the planet.

For the sake of further exploring the decision-maker and the ecosystem duo, I will present some studies that summarise in numbers various aspects of this relationship.

Starting with species destruction, the Informe Planeta Vivo (2018)3 reports a decline in global vertebrate population size of sixty percent between 1970 and 2014; especially in South and Central America, the decline was 89%. Given what we now know about human health, our food and safety depend critically on biodiversity. As Dr. Edward Wilson says in some of his work, humans do not yet know all the species that sustain life on earth. Contrary to expectations, this ignorance, which should have led to caution, greater awareness and learning, seems to have clouded their understanding.

The race for progress and development has also led humans to hyper-production to satisfy hyper-consumption. Today, it seems that we cannot (or do not know how to) live without consuming certain goods, services, and technology, and the consequences this has had at a global level are serious. The main one is global warming and the greenhouse effect on the planet, on which the United Nations (UN) continuously urges to comply with the Paris Agreement, signed in 2016, in order to implement mitigation and adaptation policies. A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) shows that from 1880 (pre-industrial times) to 2012, the global average temperature increased by 0.85°C.4 Even if the pact commitments were to be met, the average global temperature is projected to rise by 3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. If this were to happen, it would have near catastrophic effects, which is why the 2019 climate change summit called for new commitments to limit the rise to 1.50 degrees Celsius.5

On the side of imbalances and contrasts in development, the concentration of the world’s wealth on a few individuals, economic groups, and countries occupies a privileged place. There are no longer nobles, commoners, and slaves, but there are the absurdly rich, the rich, those who earn for a living, the poor, the very poor, and the absurdly poor. According to World Bank data from 2019,6 the extreme poverty rate has fallen from 36% in 1990 to 10% in 2015 (this rate is measured by the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day -yes, you read that right! $1.90 a day, which is almost impossible for me to imagine). Although this is good news, the improvements or gains were not uniform: East Asia and the Pacific, with 47 million extremely poor people, and Europe and Central Asia, with 7 million, reduced extreme poverty to less than 3%. Nevertheless, more than half of the extremely poor population lives in Africa, south of the Sahara. There, the number of poor people is on the rise, with a total of 413 million people in 2015, almost twice the population of Brazil to date. If the observed trend continues, by 2030, 9 out of 10 extremely poor people will live there.

But the imbalance does not only take the form of poverty, it also takes the form of slavery: how do those who cannot, or do not know how to, deal with what progress brings? One market has emerged to alienate many and enrich others: drugs. The 2018 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime7reported that in 2017 some 271 million people (5.5% of the world’s population aged 15-64) used drugs, a figure similar to 2016 but 30% higher than that in 2009. The most widespread drug is cannabis, with 188 million users. The report mentions that drug trafficking moves some 320 billion dollars a year, of which the substances that generate the most money are cocaine, with $85 billion, and opiates, with $68 billion. The majority of cocaine money is generated in the United States ($35 billion) and Western Europe ($26 billion), which are the drug’s two largest markets.

This story may not be news given the amount of information available and the many organisations following these issues, but for average people like this author, all this information together can trigger an avalanche of emotions and body sensations. This seems to be the current state of the relationship between decision-makers and the ecosystem. A scenario that shows us not only how our actions have affected the world we live in, but how it seems to be turning like a boomerang against humanity itself. Looking at this, I feel compelled to ask: what kind of evolution and development have human beings experienced since language appeared in their lives that led them to make such poor decisions? What happened to the ignorance that moved them to question and learn? Or, did the awareness of their power over nature make them arrogant and blind at the same time?

Perhaps the statement made 500 years ago was insufficient, considering that individuals acknowledged being ignorant of what was happening around them. However, they were unable to realise how ignorant they were -and still are- about themselves, about their actions, and about being the main cause of their own evils.

Such questions propose a great deal of enquiry, the kind that I encourage the reader to undertake because it treads paths that we, average people, do not usually tread and can lead to a comprehensive understanding of the power of language in our lives, especially through the choices we make.

1.2 Decisional archetypes

Bearing in mind that all human action starts off as a decision -at least this is what we will distinguish for now- this section explores what we humans know about human decision-making; what we have learned about ourselves as decision-makers. To do this, I find it appropriate to establish a baseline understanding and ask the Spanish dictionary: what is a decision?

As a noun, a decision is defined as the determination or resolution of a doubtful thing. As a verb, “to decide” refers to the act of making a resolute judgement about something doubtful or contestable. It also refers to the action of determining the outcome of something, and the purpose of doing something. It seems interesting to point out that none of the meanings offered highlight the series of considerations that are made about the “doubtful thing” before the decision is made, i.e., they do not speak about the process that leads to such a determination of outcome or purpose.

So, when speaking of decisions, we will say that it is not only the end product -the decision itself- that is relevant, but also the considerations that were made in order to arrive at that decision and the way in which these considerations were made to end up in such a final product. Moreover, since the issue the decision seeks to address is “doubtful”, it seems implicit that the content of the decision will depend on a choice or option made on the basis of the considerations already mentioned.

As you can see, none of these aspects are included in the meanings provided by the dictionary, so it is necessary to extract them through interpretation.

Some readers might question what has been said about the choice required to make a decision, arguing that it is not always a matter of choice and that often “there are no other options left”. Let us look at some examples. Suppose the production manager of an organisation instructs his or her staff to take an inventory of products in process, or the CEO asks middle management to prepare a daily report on sales; or imagine a parent asking his or her child to look after the younger siblings while she or he cooks lunch. In these cases, the boss, manager, or parent offers no other options from which to choose, and the recipient interprets the request as such. Similarly, if someone points a gun at a person in order to make him or her hand over money or perform certain actions, the one looking at the gun might say that he or she sees no other option but to obey. In all these cases, it seems as if the act of choosing does not take place.

However, if we look a little closer, we will be able to observe that the choice of the content of the decision has at least two sides, or values. On the one hand, going down the path that is obvious to the decision-maker and doing what is asked, suggested, or ordered. On the other hand, refusing, i.e., “doing nothing” and leaving the situation in its original state. Neither the boss, the manager, nor the parent offered the option of receiving a refusal -much less the one who points a gun. The “no” path and inaction will always be a possible path for the decision-maker; the fact that it could not be obvious or convenient for him or her does not mean that it is not available as an option. That is why we will say that, when making a decision, there are always at least two options.

The decision-making process

The “decision-making process” is the name given by many people to the whole sequence of actions in language that leads to a decision, including the way in which the associated considerations are made. Thus, different social sciences have offered proposals to address and present descriptive models of human behavior, especially oriented to determining the “right” decision. It is therefore interesting to explore them further since, as shown above, human decision-making has proven to be quite “poor” -as a synonym for “wrong”- in terms of the sustainability of the global ecosystem.

The economic man

Economics proposed the “Homo Oeconomicus” (HE) as the decisional model of the neoclassical perspective well over a century ago. As an archetype, it speaks of an individual whose characteristics define the way they make decisions. First and foremost, HE is concerned with always achieving the greatest monetary benefit -as a producer- or the greatest utility when satisfying their needs -as a consumer- with the least possible cost or effort. For example, they would never choose in favour of an alternative that implies high benefits but also a lot of effort and high costs, such as caring for the planet, for other humans, or for co-inhabiting species. Second, the way in which the HE seeks this maximum benefit, it is said, follows an individualistic line. Their decisions will thus always be oriented towards satisfying their own needs without being interested in satisfying group or social needs. The idea pursued by this model8 is that there is no one better than yourself to care about and strive for your own well-being, assuming that the welfare of society would be secured if all decision-makers sought to maximise utility at the lowest cost. Imagine, for a moment, the 1 billion people alive in the 19th century trying to maximise their well-being in this way, or whole groups of people or countries behaving like HE. How likely is it that everyone would succeed in this, assuming they did their best? What happens when the path of one HE crosses the path of another HE and then, if one of them maximises its utility at the least cost, the other will no longer be able to do so? How would this dilemma be resolved in terms of this theory? And, could HE consider these scenarios as dilemmas? Where does this leave the welfare of society and that of the global ecosystem, and how is it defined?

The two aspects described above provide the ideological or paradigmatic content of the model and, at the same time, lay the basis for explaining the rationality of the decision-maker and his or her ability to make correct decisions. They also seem to define a certain adaptive trait of success or failure because those who make a higher profit will be considered successful and will have a better chance of enduring. In this scenario, the dilemma mentioned above can hardly be present since choosing an alternative that is not geared towards achieving maximum individual benefit or that, instead of favouring the individual, would benefit others, would not be a rational decision with the power to ensure the success necessary to endure over time.

There are also other aspects that would enable HE to make perfectly rational decisions, such as a complete and consistent system of preferences in which the same alternatives have the same value for each individual. This means that any HE will always be able to choose from among the alternatives offered and that all are of equal value, regardless of who makes the choice; this decision-maker seems to have no doubts, let alone dilemmas. Furthermore, there is the not-insignificant fact that HE is perfectly aware of all possible options and has an infinite computational capacity to evaluate their complexity and choose the best one. Herbert Simon9 would say that this individual presents a preposterously omniscient rationality; I would also add that he or she comes from another planet since it would hardly describe a human being. As will be discussed in subsequent chapters, recent studies in neuroscience have shown that the human brain works in a way that precludes the rationality required for choosing the best alternative; not to mention the improbability of the brain ever knowing all the possibilities or having the capacity to process all of them, even with today’s technological assistance.

I have no doubt that, in the eyes of this archetype, the ecosystemic approach of this book will fall into the realm of irrationality. However, if we look at the information summarised at the beginning of this chapter when talking about the current state of the decision-maker and the ecosystem duo, we can now relate it to the actions of many HE -call them individuals, countries, societies, and so on- who, through poor “rational” and “correct” decisions in the pursuit of individual profit, have brought the ecosystem to its present state.

The administrative man

In the 1960s and 1970s, in the light of management science, Herbert Simon developed a new theory of human decision-making within organisations. It had at its core the “Administrative Man” or “Homo Administrativus” (HA), a new archetype of decision-maker that differs in some ways from the old economic man and whose decisions were rather task-oriented and had no pretensions for limitless rationality. The motivation of the HA was no longer the optimisation or maximisation of individual benefit or utility, but rather the achievement of “satisfaction” through the selection of a “good enough” alternative, always in terms of individual utility or monetary benefit. Thus, faced with different options, they would perform scrutiny until they found an option capable of satisfying what they were looking for, suspending the process from that moment on.

In Simon’s words,

“Administrative theory is peculiarly the theory of intended and bounded rationality —of the behavior of human beings who satisfice because they have not the wits to maximise” (Simon, 1957, p. 24).

The author uses the word “wit”, which has various meanings, e.g. intelligence, clarity, shrewdness, and understanding. Whichever is used, it would seem to make clear that HA does not possess the ability to maximise profit or satisfaction.

In contrast to the HE, who could deal with the world around them as absolute connoisseurs of everything that happens in it, the HA archetype describes an individual who considers himself or herself incapable of having such knowledge and who understands that the world he or she perceives is only a simplification of the “buzzing, blooming confusion that constitutes the real world” - to use Simon’s words. Thus, for the HA, not all facts and events matter in light of what they need to decide about, and so they make decisions using a simplified picture that contains only the factors deemed relevant, ignoring the interrelatedness of things -”so stupefying for thought and action”- according to the author.

It seems that even the HA could not get rid of the individualistic quest for success, profit, and satisfaction of its archetypal peer. But, instead of wasting time looking for the maximum possible benefit, they accept the kind of profit that can fulfil their expectations. Rather, they seem to be decision-makers in a hurry to achieve success, so much in a hurry that they reduce the decisional panorama to the little they are able to see, ignoring the interrelationships between things. Possibly, for these decision-makers wondering: what about other individuals going down the same path in pursuit of satisfaction? Or what if the option that satisfies me would harm others? I dare to say that these ethical dilemmas are unlikely to arise in the HA simplification and speed.

Once again, the historical overview presented at the beginning of the chapter seems to expose many HAs in action since the mid-20th century, decision-makers in a relentless race for well-being and unlimited progress, with a rather short-sighted and simplified view of the ecosystem.

1.3 The decision-maker in the light of the systemic approach

The reflection up to this point triggers a question: why was not everything abandoned when the undesirable consequences of some decisions began to be evident? Apparently, the change from hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculture did not bring an improvement in the overall quality of life of the individuals. On the contrary, it forced them to work longer hours and enjoy much less; or, even when they were allowed to have and store food in large quantities, it was less nutritious and varied, and competition for food brought more violence into their lives. Later in history, the industrial revolution showed its B-side of pain and suffering for the victims of misery, unhealthiness, or the exploitation of man by man. Even today, when there is ample evidence of the fate of our planet if the pace of production, emissions, pollution, and consumption continues on its unbridled course, why do we not abandon it all and recalculate the path?

These seem to be dilemmas that require an in-depth enquiry to be able to outline an answer that will surely be incomplete. Nevertheless, and this being part of the purpose of this book, I propose to start this journey by making use of Systems Thinking (ST). This discipline has been used since the mid-20th century by several branches of science as an integrative perspective when it comes to understanding and describing organised complexity.