Processes Changes
Basic Olicognograph: Formal Perspectives
Change small world (not always beautiful) to big (not always ugly) ones
Social revolutions do not necessarily have to be scientific but this helps to maintain and makes more reliable the results of changes. A social revolution can be indirectly efficient if it changes the perspective of sciences and if their perspectives backs or recruit more innovations, including renewing past ones that stood latent or reinvented after being lost in memories. Succeeding to integrate technological and social revolutions and you may for sure reach the "status" of a civilization. If it is missed to channel technologies toward social utilities or toward initiatives for social issues, especially for helping to solve the problems created by the same civilization, then this civilization will disappear: export its contradictions by meet growing limits and accelarating costs.
Galileo’s revolution started something not only for the general perspective of our place in the universe (already begun by Copernicus and Kepler) but also because he set a "wholist" heuristic: a scientific procedure to study physical phenomena as a come and go between mathematical formulation and experiments.This made the real transition from the Middle Age to the Renaissance. Descartes added reduction or more exactly partition (clean cuts into pieces) to that, suggesting to divide a phenomenon into parts, each part to be studied separately (and simple enough for reassembling). He made it during the European proto-industrial period, at a time when imperialist christianism was, at least, succeeding to divide into renewed spiritual practices. This brutal moments of "misericordious" inner reconstruction needed to let permissiveness to few scientists, then after the wars of religions, this helped the foundations of major tool of mathematics’ formalism especially infinitesimal calculus (invented by Newton and Leibniz) during the century of enlightenment (for science, philosophy and laws).
During the same period, emerged also a collective process of compilation of knowledge (L'encyclopédie) that set the shared the roots of knowledge on scientific ground for the Industrial Revolution emergence. Mechanics was already highly develop in some places of Europe, but not yet in a new energetic converter (of heat to power). The one which came, even less sophisticated then many devices of that time was pexpansible and open to large scale of energetic consumption. So to start massive dynamics of production (for the wealth of few but meanwhile emergence of nations) and exchange among nations in systems of social power then to "capitalism of means of production". World system large scale fed by slavery colonialism evolved to imperialism; meanwhile scientific domestication of rhetoric and dialectic came with German Universities' revolution; so as to put academics into research and development of more reliable knowledge. Modern era took place in every countries of Europe, was soon transfered to North America and there actively used, abused and made systematic, flexibly using all processes of extorsions, explotations and exportations of inconvenients all over the World, on networks over territories, and even rationalize under suprematist theories that gave the well known results of global conflicts of twentieth century.
Many diverse tiny wisps of heterogenous scientific pieces reframed as the fireworks straws of superior civilized uniqueminded projects of "civilizations". Formally all converging after Keynes (but somehow also Ford) in an unhopefull (but not so horrendous) dream of consumption where peace and prosperity words where not absent, but coexisting with ennemies, supposed rationality and unique reason. Todays' avatars could be, with not so different: geopolitics, clashes of civilizations, executive summaries, revolution of information, all many things at the service of military complexes, nationalisms of failed political democrats, ultimate weapons of big profits, big distorsions of public issues, and nightmares of Kafka's on bureaucracies so well IT equiped.
Methods discrete-continuous, conflicting-coinciding.
In the same way of continuous-discrete-catastrophic patterns, let talk about dichotomy between qualitative - quantitative methods (can be completed either by valuation or coincidingly resulting compatibility). Nowadays, it is more a misunderstanding between those who want to highlight discrepenacies and others wanting to ignore the implications of others' perspective(s) respect to their own. The first ones (qualitative) specialists make the difference because they often do not comprehend the epistemology of quantitative methods and most of its heuristics. With the others disciples, quantitivists, there are three groups:
- 'Wrong' quantitativists, who ritualize numbers (quite like numerologists, sometimes dangerous when hystrionic).
- 'Bad quantitativists', whom manage quantification more as an artifice for convincing that their definitions (when a bit of philosophy and humbleness could make them more useful),
- 'Good quantitativists', conscious to make many implicit or hidden qualitative and arbitrary assumptions, dispersed so in all mathematical formulas (but often forced to arrogant academism or timorous at explaining the limits of their arts - which is where can be their best social utility: know and explain the limits of use of numbers).
Logics and mathematics have developed methods that fill much of the gaps between quantitative and qualitative methods and both are now well confused. But some ability for wise articulations and popular skills for asking good advice are still very needed. Good levels of resolution or for covering complexity, especially for caring adverse effects, are now possible. But transdisciplinarilly crisscrossings are also needed to prevent the slips of specialism of histrinioc pseudo experts. Some of adverse effects of vicious circles of dialectics, of course, come from communities themselves; but it is also essential to notice that modern sorts of proper dynamics look like strange attractors (similar to patterns looking like "vicious circles"). So if those are legitimate, there are not the ones of many modern bureaucracies and are not cared by these. The sort of communities we speak of is conceived in the broad and relative sense of commonness differenciated according anthropic consistency and human proximity.
Now, for better approach in humane economics closeness themes and concepts, necessary registers for sustainable development and/or management approaches, have already been developed, as (provided with their main current limit):
- Economic anthropology (mostly deductive, poorly practical when only relating to academic litterature),
- Microeconomic (with arbitrary simplified assumptions or too theoretical so both needing to be adapted to popular self-management),
- Individual organization (depending too much on vertical kind of social links of pyramidal organization, requiring more efficient democratic balance),
- Social economy (wasting on academics tales and not caring enough aids of scientific support for good effectivity),
- Ecological economy or management of commons (lost in descriptive studies, hardly providing criteria to enable decisions on local complexities, meanwile not diffusing enough at government levels),
- Methods of participation (too childish games, wasting communities’ time, when not ignoring genuine criticial priorities), etc.
Communities face the big problem of being too distracted by the power of exogenous stereotypes, superficial global culture, aids projects messed in developing countries with real economy made impossibly consistent by first world experts put there by well intentioned geopolitic.Scientific synthesis may be easier if expressed in the same register with simplification(s) and reduction(s), but doing so they extend their dogmatism (social arts, religions, non properly scientific complex arts are prone to that) and tend to un cover real problems, defect in main social local issues or promote with great and wide inertia adverse effects as well as paradigmatic weaknesses. They prevent understanding. It is to care adequatelly the diversity of processes on common, share minimum understandings and clear agreements. Goals must be coherent with community's, individual minima of humane esteem or society's basic cultural aspirations. To develop good synergies between processes (and not consider that all projects of infrastructure are socially relevant or real sustainably achieved just because academics made it its pork's barrel, in the common flows of common local practices.
Assessment in Projects
In economic methods of assessment of projects, you have standart calculus of cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness, to summarize your appraisal. Add also the necessary review of the consistency of values, including properly qualifying units, amounts and measures managed. Cost-benefit procedures traditionally qualify a perfect monetary value of estimates. Money has this ambition, but social values is more complicated and money-support, if still a core, is far from perfect and should, at least care more about doubts and keep minds questionning. Efficiency in project methods should intent to take into account the imperfection of money-value, match common sense to care, compare the more consistent physical systems parameters as: material, energetic and entropy/neguentropy balance, which objective variations can bring truer information to actors and better to decide between options, before theoretic assumptions on "utility". Efficiency should adapt its indicators and units, drive comparisons of cost-benefit analysis on them and value also social diversity, links and networks; to include potential mitigations fo any kind, of anthropic transformations. All this to cover the multiple aspects of benefits, liabilities as well as negative externalities; which can be not properly treated by money value.
Now, some methods and methodologists have intented to bridge the missing links, like with multicriteria methods. These are often characterized by the introduction of protocoles of operations (aggregations) to relate diversity of issues to uniqueness of criterion of decision, as with aggregated scores (aggregated score should never miss to recall that their algebra is fake and arbitrary, and it can be democratized). Many multiciteria methods have put their method implementing their arithmetic of value at the core, between complex issues like with legal rules of spatial and democratic planning. But that is also why they are often paradoxically limited by potential "butterflies or dominos' effects": relations looking like strong but not robusts to exogenous interferencies, so not continuously quantitative. Meanwhile focused (obsessions' dirven) deciders just oversimplify to their narrowness to bias societies toward politics inconsistency for allowing corrupting practices or because, often the same let the non legitime foreign actor deliver their expertise. Valuation processes of projects can stay artificial and not necessary good artifacts especially if the world persist in be conceived in a deterministic way. Taken risks should be assumed if uncertainties are understood both as basic uncertainty, mixture of complex things, aware to care potential good emergencies, etc...
Another jump for better assessment of projects would consist in the ways economical and social issues are included. Economics frames are often seen as giving the rational 'last' word of human interest (when ideologically promoted as monetarists did. Especially caring to articulate humans' roles and not discriminating so supply / production from demand / consumption. This differnciate too much on sort of social papers and maintain (with other reductions) the appearance of classes' societies. To pure market concepts truncated by separation we prefer to manage social analysis including rational deficiencies of economics perspectives. Like setting Economy as a temporary registers of methods of decision, narrowly valid in the short term (but, of course with methods of actualization or update). But better to anchor, in the large term, to social technological issues. This, in our opinion, looks like more consistent with constructions' of time. Care that, by "constructions of time" we do not valid the reduction of traditional marxist historical practice. Set of concepts neither surelly safe, for assuming any social economical decision either in the long term either or in the short term.
Another cut between methods of social and economic assessment is with the bias accepted in the specifications of methods. Some schools will prefer to related to some theoretical market: frame of general equilibrium, models of prices biased toward ideal prices as existing at international levels pretending so to be about perfectly tradable goods and services. Setting local existing values at inferior ranks, despite these being closer to critical humane needs as well as more consistent with honnesty, transparency and realily. So the need to forge proper views on variety of systems of values. To be able to use them for sustainability. Needs unmet or gauged by despicable formal views of economics theories. Other methods of appraisal of project can be biased, for good or for bad, toward the jobs and value added, of a given project to the local or regional economics. Switches from a traditional ecologically careful role to the black hole of megaurban violent marginallity need to be more comprehensive of backstage adatation before being considering a blessing for civilization and good pastorship for 'souls'. Such method of projects appraisal may look like better anchored but somehow also putting the duty of hard flexibility on local weakest people as well as possibly disturbing local social balance.
It is necessary to be flexible with global definitions. That is not conceive them dogmatically and determine operations too soon in rigorous processes; before communities' legitimate definitions; as well are take the most simple meaning of operations before established by local democratic conventions if they could be so. Definitions may have to be specific and practiced. There is no ideal made with absolute definitions since the beginning when the design of the project started. This only has the effect of making them rigid. Methods of synthesis for analysis, decisions or assessment for those concerning infrastructure projects have been developed 4 decades ago they have to be "donwloaded" (to locally designed more sophisticated or complex management. Practically they represent an opportunity for an ordering of arguments, to put into perspective of projects or strategy(ies) of utility. "Economic Measures applying to Specific Investment Features and Decisions have been developed: 1) Investment Features, 2) Investment after return, 3) Regulated investment, 4) Financing, 5) Risk, 6) Social costs, 7) Taxes, 8) Combinations of investments".
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