Catastrophe Theory (a.k.a. "a squalid little ending")

Current Music: Vivaldi Violin Concerto 1, Op. 4 / "Nobody's Side", from Chess

I read some of this book called Ubiquity by Mark Buchanan (author of Nexus), a popular science book on the tendency of natural systems to self-organize into near-critical situations, across all realms of physics and social situations. It was a fascinating premise. A basic example: snow falling on mountains leads to these snowpacks that can be just on the edge of avalanche and the tiniest thing can set them off. But avalanches are common, not rare... and in general "catastrophes" like this are not rare at all... indeed he postulates it's like a law of nature, this *tendency towards near-criticality*. The book has tons of examples (like the stock market crash in '87) and, amazingly, WWI, where the force setting off the avalanche was simply the wrong-turn of Archduke Ferdinand's driver and his subsequent assassination. But it wasn't just 10 million dead due to a single wrong-turn: the system of society had self-organized into this near-critical mass.

It's interesting to think of how this might apply to smaller social settings, and moreover to consider using the idea to prevent critical situations from developing in the first place. In Chess, Tim Rice writes "And how the cracks begin to show!" as the critical fight happens between Florence and The American. There's probably something to be learned from Ubiquity about avoiding social catastrophe and preventing invisible critical situations from developing (e.g. could the problem with Playing God in Yellowstone re fire management be mapped via analogy to personal relationships?) A starting point is the moral given by Tim Rice in the chorus to "Nobody's Side" as some sort of solution, but it's too bleak for my taste:

No lover's ever faithful
No contract truly signed
There's nothing certain left to know
And how the cracks begin to show!

Never make a promise or plan
Take a little love where you can
Nobody's on nobody's side

Never stay too long in your bed
Never lose your heart use your head
Nobody's on nobody's side

Never take a stranger's advice
Never let a friend fool you twice
Nobody's on nobody's side

Everybody's playing the game
But nobody's rules are the same
Nobody's on nobody's side

Never leave a moment too soon
Never waste a hot afternoon
Nobody's on nobody's side