Complex Systems

NOTE: This was published 5 months ago. Yesterday I noticed a the lights hung above the middle lane that tell you whether it is for North or South bound traffic. I have lived in Toronto for about 2 and a half years and I never saw them before. So I should probably take this post down but I let it stand as evidence (as if any were needed) of the quantity and significance of all the things I don't know. And because the argument is essentially true even tho my example is massively (and obviously to anyone who actually looks for traffic lights) wrong.

Lately I've become oddly fascinated with how complex systems can be with almost no rules. Traffic is a great example of this. Cars are getting lighter and smaller both for city driving and fuel efficiency. I picked two cars - the Ford Focus and Toyota Corolla - that are popular and kind of generic; they both weigh close to 2800 lbs, so call it 1250 kg. Because we are so accustomed to seeing cars driving we don't get freaked out by 1250 kg of metal moving at 60 kph but that is a lot of momentum. Highways often have concrete barriers separating traffic moving in different directions but smaller (two or three lane) highways don't, so two cars (2500 kg) of metal can be moving towards each other at 200 kph. What separates them? A line of paint. And that line of paint keeps us safe.

Aside from traffic lights, stop signs, yield signs, and signs indicating one-way traffic most vehicular movement is regulated by lines of paint. There are only 4 kinds of lines: solid white, broken white, solid yellow, and broken yellow. In case you use a different system where you live, solid white means the cars on the other side of the line are going in the same direction but you can't change lanes, broken white means same direction and you can change lanes, solid yellow means opposite direction no lane changes, broken yellow means opposite direction passing allowed. Here is an image of Jarvis Street in Toronto:

You might need to blow it up but at full size you can clearly see five lanes of traffic, all separated by broken white lines. Jarvis isn't one way. And whether three lanes are southbound or northbound seems to depend on the amount of traffic, which is to say it is a continuous negotiation made instantly by every driver using it. There is no rule to govern the use, no authority to make a determination. It is figured out minute by minute by people pointing 1250 kgs of car at each other and stepping on the gas.

Aside from being kind of cool in and of itself, systems of this type illustrate what makes some things more - I'm tempted to call them human because there is a social process involving expectations, perceptions, understanding of obligations and a social contract that is happening in a matter of seconds all day, every day on streets like this one. The same process works when new roads are opened before the paint goes down, or when circumstances make using the suggested lanes impossible but traffic still needs to move. These situations are almost never handled by cops (or any authority), they are handled by instant and non-verbal communication. This, to me, is the essence of politics. And that might sound like a let down if you think this is going to degenerate into me pumping for one party or another. I don't mean politics in the electoral sense. I mean politics as the autochthonous coeval of cities - the sometimes gentle, sometimes brutal art of living together without killing each other.

Politics is why we cannot "inhabit" the internet in the same way we inhabit cities. The distinction, or difficulty, has less to do with the dumb fact of our physical existence than the absolute necessity of over-arching rules that arbitrate almost everything that would, in the physical world, be the domain of politics. The rules of digitalia in its current form specify everything from how I interact with the machine physically (through the design of the object I touch, whether it's a phone or a pad or a full-on machine) to how I navigate the set of sites that compose digital space to how I can use (and the absolute limits of what I can do with) any particular site. There is neither room nor necessity for those almost instantaneous negotiations that are so much a part of every minute spent in the city - whether in a car or on foot or sitting down.

Someone obsessed with efficiency would make sure the entrances and exits to major transit hubs were physically separated. Think of a subway station with street level access, people trying to get in from different directions, people trying to get out in different directions. It should be a perfect illustration of chaos but at almost every moment there are spontaneous agreements reached (these are the IN doors, those the OUT) without discussion or planning or authority of any kind. It is part of the human condition to self-organize in temporary, consensual ways. I love that about cities.

I have a friend who told me when you don't know where you are going, follow the most people. He wasn't speaking metaphorically. When I find myself in an airport, train station, or even shopping mall that I don't know how to navigate, I remember his advice and just look for the direction more people are moving in and I go that way. The strange thing is, without any knowledge of where those people want to go or what they think they are doing, they almost always wind up taking me where I want to go. The systems self-organize regardless of my volition (or anyone else's). The same rule works in social situations - when is it time to leave the party? In the absence of other information, leave when most other people leave.

So much of how we live is based on a consensus we cannot articulate, almost never consider, yet follow with remarkable accuracy. It is only when things get fubar that we need to bring out politics as the term is usually understood, that we have to discuss how things should go or be rather than just working with and abiding by how things are at that moment. I sometimes wonder how small the set of explicit rules could be that would still allow a complex system like a city to function. I think the general rule is about half as many as are in place. I'm not sure there is a way to test this in the abstract but empirically you have tested it every time you travelled to a place with a different culture. Try ordering food in Rome, for example. It's a clusterfuck for North Americans and most Northern Europeans because people don't form lines - which happens spontaneously here even when no one suggests it should. Instead, people just yell to get the attention of someone behind the counter. Crossing the street is another example. Here, you wait for a light or sign or break in traffic; in Rome, you just step into the road and trust the cars not to hit you. I strongly suggest finding a beautiful woman and using her as a shield the first few times. A beautiful woman can step into the densest, most hideous traffic at any moment and cross with impunity, you just follow in her wake (unless you are a beautiful woman, then you can do whatever you want). Before I went to Rome my mother (a retired school teacher) told me when it comes to crossing the road, just grab your balls and tell yourself, "Don't be a bitch!" This piece of advice was extremely helpful to my classmates.

The farther you travel geographically, the more the unspoken consensus changes and the more likely you are to get yourself in serious trouble through nothing more than ignorance. Every traveller has at least one story of causing a situation (or finding themselves in one) both completely unexpected and really really odd. My brother travelled to India and, while there, lost control of a rented scooter and landed badly. Before he knew what was happening the crowd of people who just happened to be there scooped him up in the air and were running for the nearest hospital with him held over their heads (not an easy feat with a man who is more than 6 foot and 200 pounds). When he made the mistake of complaining (freaking out more accurately) they dumped him on the ground and started cursing him out for shockingly ill-mannered behaviour. His host had to spend several anxious minutes explaining to the assembled crowd he was a barbarian with no knowledge of how to behave before the crowd dispersed.

Different places have different expectations, different consensus agreements about how to behave when the official rules either don't apply or don't work. And yet no one in Rome, or India for that matter, would be able to verbally articulate the set of rules they abide by - just as no one here can. We can partially explain particular instances but mostly it is non-verbal (non-declarative) knowledge, nothing more or less than how we live.