It’s possible that these are the three most powerful forces in the world. It’s also possible that they aren’t, and we probably don’t need to view the world according to top 3′s, top 10′s, or top 13′s.

Regardless, here’s a powerful excerpt from Chris Anderson’s review of the book Out of Control:

“Our brains aren’t wired to understand the wisdom of the crowd. Evolution, democracy and capitalism don’t work at the anecdotal level of personal experience, the level at which our story-driven synapses are built to engage. Instead, they’re statistical, operating in the realm of collective probability. They’re not right–they’re “righter”. They’re not predictable and controllable–they’re inherently out of control. That’s scary and unsettling, but also hugely important to understand in a world of increasing complexity and diminishing institutional power (mainstream media: meet blogs; military: meet insurgency).”

We need to be able to acknowledge complexity and chaos if we’re going to work with them. It’s important to grow beyond counterproductive attempts to control some macro forces – some are beyond our human capacity to control. This isn’t easy territory to define, and perhaps CYA culture drives us to ignore the territory completely. For whatever reasons, it’s common for corporate decision makers to err on the arrogant side; to imagine themselves capable of using human chains of hierarchical accountability to reduce complexity. Many business leaders falsely believe they can command and control their environment. It’s not an issue of hard or soft technology. There are forces we can’t control. Like it or not, our universe is in a constant state of entropy.

Thanks Chris for drawing my attention to this book; never heard of it before, and if it’s as compelling as your description, it will be a great read.[tags]evolution, democracy, capitalism[/tags]