Don't Look Up!

Complexity science does study something distinctive - namely the emergent features of systems that are composed of a lot of components that interact repeatedly in a disordered way. The reason why it has been hard to identify what is distinctive about complex systems is that there are many different kinds of emergent properties and products of complex systems, and they are not all found in all complex systems. The common features of complex systems manifest themselves differently in different kinds of systems. 

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There are many important theoretical questions on which complexity science bears, the most obvious ones concerned with relationships between life and nonliving matter, and between conscious and non-conscious matter. The general implication of our analysis for these matters is that the dichotomy between atoms and molecules and advanced life forms is a very crude way of seeing the many layers of structure that are found at different scales.  The only way to understand the emergence of life is by studying the processes that occur in self-organizing physical systems not just physical structures. 

Once the complexity of nonliving systems, such as the solar system and the Earth and its climate, is grasped in detail, the difference between life and non-life seems to be less of a mysterious leap and more of a continuum. 

- What is a Complex System? by James Ladyman and Karoline Wiesner (full review here)

Don't Look Up!! That's the name of the new Netflix movie. 

This is a landmark movie for Netflix not only because of so many popular stars but mainly because of its brilliant screen play. Watching the movie was like reading a new Michael Lewis book - funny, crazy sapiens, scary, greed, underdogs,  and unbelievable stupidly. 

This movie covers all the standard villains from this blog - money, greed, self centeredness, politics, technology, social media, news, talk show hosts, ivy league bullshit echo chamber education,  silicon valley saviors and obsession with space and no respect for this blue planet called home. 

And of course never knowing anything about complex systems leave alone comprehending complex systems.

Leonard DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence rock! This is now one of my all time favorite movie. 

Kate Dibiasky: We have exactly six months, ten days, two hours, 11 minutes and 41 seconds, until a comet twice the size of Chicxulub tears through our atmosphere and extincts all life on Earth.

Dr. Randall Mindy: When did you do those calculations?

Kate Dibiasky: I put the moment of impact on a diet app. So, impact is when my diet ends. Only I'm not on a diet. I'm just crying five times a day.