Synchronous failure

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According to peace and conflict theorist Thomas Homer-Dixon, synchronous failure is a symptom of an overly complex and interconnected global society and economy. Small groups of people also have the power to kill large numbers of people and sabotage systems they depend on, thanks to the leverage offered by technology, and its inherent fragility:

Increasing connectivity and a structure of networks full of hubs, non-redundant centres for information, energy and material flow, are empowering saboteurs and terrorists more (on a marginal basis) than others. Food supply, water supply, energy and other critical infrastructure is thus the weak point on which the society is based.

With redundant communications capacity, backups, and disaster recovery mechanisms in place, total collapse can be averted but the psychological impact of these attacks can themselves cause some synchronous failures of the institutions due simply to panic, or reactions that make it worse. September 11, 2001 attacks "affected people so much they stopped buying things. The costs to the global economy from the psychological repercussion of the were maybe US$1 trillion, as opposed to the physical damage of less than 1% of that, and the attacks themselves cost only US$100,000," he says.

The choices between certain kinds of technologies and the incentives to develop and deploy them are emphasized as a way to avoid such failures. The attitude that "the more connectivity the better" is seen as the disastrous precursor of synchronous failure.

For example, China's non-participation in the global currency markets is often cited as a stable anchor for the world trade system: because it does not shift in value with the markets, it acts if not as a reserve currency, as a stable store of value for those dealing with China in its own currency. This can be thought of as a hedge on the global markets as a system.

Decentralization as an active value has been promoted in some political movements, notably among North American Greens, who list it as one of their Ten Key Values. Others in the anti-globalization movement seek it as their primary goal.

Conceptual metaphors that make society seem more like a machine, operating on an efficient and predictable basis, probably act to weaken society, Homer-Dixon suggests. Other conflict theorists suggest that those based on ecosystems, which have redundancy, much layering and waste disposal capacity, are probably more likely to prepare us for disaster even if they can't avoid the physical impacts.

See also: ingenuity gap, groupthink