The beauty and danger of scaling
As long as I have tried to figure out ways to make the world a more beautiful place, I have been attempting to find solutions that might scale. Only recently have I noticed the beauty and danger of scaling. As much as any idea can have positive effects, any idea can also have adverse effects. The more I learn about how complex systems work (of which the world is one), I come to understand that
(i) I can’t know. Predicting the positive and negative outcomes of interventions is nearly impossible.
(ii) what is positive for some might be harmful for others. The danger of injustice thus increases with scale.
(iii) a coin always has two sides. There might never be an upside without the downside.