Summary: Dynamics of massively multiplayer online role-playing games recapitulate those of the societies of which they are a part. Here we look at “failure cascades”, and see how well they apply to America. This is the second in this series; see chapter one: Lessons from the New Eden galaxy about reforming America.
A cascading failure is a horrific mode of collapse. Engineers describe it as…
… a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of a part can trigger the failure of successive parts. Such a failure may happen in many types of systems, including power transmission, computer networking, finance and bridges. Cascading failures usually begin when one part of the system fails. When this happens, nearby nodes must then take up the slack for the failed component. This overloads these nodes, causing them to fail as well, prompting additional nodes to fail in a vicious cycle. {from Wikipedia}
Today we look at the sociology of cascading failure, as described in Secrets of a Solar Spymaster: Inside the Failure Cascade by Alex Gianturco, Ten Ton Hammer, 16 July 2009 — See an easier to read version at Gianturco’s website. It’s worth reading in full. He speaks of it in the multiplayer game EVE Online, but it applies just as well to political regimes like America’s Second Republic. Here is an excerpt.
A failure cascade is the disintegration of an alliance caused by collective helplessness in the face of sustained and unrationalizable adversity through a process of pilot attribution shifting from the alliance to the corporation or the individual. Failure cascades follow a predictable five-stage causal chain: Sustained Adversity -> Failure of Rationalization -> Collective Helplessness -> Change in Identification -> Collapse and Recovery
When we say that an alliance is in the ‘early stages’ of a cascade, this often means that they are reacting poorly to sustained adversity. “Late Stage” cascade frequently refers to the helplessness phase, because changes in identification are rapidly followed by collapse.
Here’s is a failure cascade at work:
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As you read Gianturco’s description of the stages to a cascade failure, see how well it applies to the dying America-that-once-was, and the rise of New America.
Phase One: Sustained Adversity
Adversity can take many forms, all of which amount to “bad things happening”. … When thinking about adversity, commanders often assume that massive, crushing loss is the most effective way to send an alliance into a cascade. Taking out a capital fleet or a titan is the most commonly-cited method of sending an alliance down the tubes. It is also completely, utterly wrong.
Psychology has shown that humans have an incredible capacity to cope with great tragedy and personal adversity. … If the ability to mentally cope with great loss did not exist, the species would have certainly died out by now.
… Rather than relying on shocking incidents, adversity must be sustained and mundane to the point of being banal. … Unglamorous, everyday loss. … Adversity must also be inescapable.
Phase Two: Failure of Rationalization
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Rationalization is a critical psychological defense. …
It is in this stage of the cascade that the propaganda war takes a deeper significance to all parties. It is usually during this phase, in the face of mounting failures, that there is the most forum blustering from both sides. At the beginning of a conflict, the aggressor is often restrained in their bragging in case the attacks do not go as planned; the defender has not yet experienced sustained adversity, so it is here that we see the most “good fight” rhetoric with each side congratulating the other.
As soon as things turn bad for the victim, however, rationalizations are mustered with alarming vehemence. Accusations fly on the part of the victims as they try to explain their failures away. Similarly, the aggressor does his level best to force the victim to confront the cognitive dissonance between the facts and their defensive rationalizations. This is why there is almost never a ‘clean’ war, without accusations of impropriety – those accusations are part of a critical psychological defense mechanism that is ingrained in all of us. …
Yet regardless of propaganda, if sustained and inescapable adversity is applied to an alliance it becomes difficult for the victims to rationalize their losses as failures mount. … dramatic, painful losses are easily written off, but repeated more mundane failures are difficult to rationalize. … When rationalization fails, helplessness sets in.
Phase Three: Collective Helplessness
Helplessness is a state where a pilot comes to believe that his actions on behalf of the alliance are pointless, impotent, or irrelevant in the face of adversity.
- This can be because he cannot ignore the failings of his alliance and must acknowledge them: “This alliance sucks, what’s the point.”
- It can also be because he feels that no action he can take will make an impact on the situation: “I love my alliance, but I can’t do anything to keep us from getting rolled.”
Regardless of the reasoning, helplessness takes the pilot out of the war until the helpless state is overcome, which will depending on the pilot’s explanatory style. For some, helplessness may be swiftly overcome. Some pilots never give up in the first place, others keep fighting with only short breaks until the bitter end. Others throw in the towel after the first loss.
Phase Four: Change in Pilot Identification
A change in pilot identification is the primary method people use to escape helplessness in a failure cascade. Identification is how a pilot views and describes himself in the context of the game. …
A shift in identification happens because it is one of the only easy escapes from a state of helplessness … In one moment of rationalization, he absolves himself of the helplessness and reassures himself of his superiority over everyone else not in his corporation.
As more pilots are knocked into a state of helplessness by sustained adversity, more shift their identification away from the alliance. … This is the phase where open infighting within the alliance becomes common, as corporations blame each other …
Phase Five: Collapse
… the collapse of an alliance at the terminus of a failure cascade resembles an avalanche. … The collapse has an incredible inertia … Regardless of the circumstances, a cascade is always the other guy’s fault.
Conclusions
By this schema America has slid into phase three, where a large fraction of citizens feel helpless — unable to influence the course of public policy or the evolution of American society.
Phase four begins when people find new sources of identity, and develop new loyalties. If this follows the predictions of Martin van Creveld in The Rise and Decline of the State (1999), these will be either supra-national (eg, religion, ethnic, ideological) or sub-national (eg, regional, local, or even communal groups).
If these are non-political loyalties, allowing our elites to reign undisturbed, this might produce the oligarchic New America. That’s the current trend. If these loyalties are strong and political, then we might enter a pre-revolutionary situation. Current trends suggest that the least likely outcomes are a reawakening of our alligance to the Constitution and a reformed Republic — or a struggle leading to a Third Republic (build on the lessons learned from the Second, as that was built on the lessons learned from the First).
For More Information
See more of Patrick Smith’s photographs at Flickr.
Cascading failure of the Republic:
- Forecast: Death of the American Constitution, 4 July 2006
- See the last glimmers of the Constitution’s life…, 27 June 2008
- Remembering what we have lost… thoughts while looking at the embers of the Constitution, 29 June 2008
- A report card for the Republic: are we still capable of self-government?
- Another step away from our Constitutional system, with applause, 19 September 2008
- Are Americans still willing to bear the burden of self-government?, 27 March 2009
- RIP, Constitution. The Second Republic died this week. Of course, we don’t care (that’s why it died)., 5 December 2011
- More death throes of the Constitution. Nothing remains in the ruins but politics., 20 June 2012
- Slowly more people see the “quiet coup” now in progress, 25 June 2012
- Looking ahead to the next step of the quiet coup, and a new America, 3 July 2012
Looking ahead: this can’t be good
Graphic from Sacred Halls:
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