Below are two sets of notes. The first on Philip Ball’s Critical Mass: A new Physics of Society. The second on Dan’s thesis Do we need nature?. This title is taken from the Economist/Shell essay competition, by the way. The winner of this year’s competition is a sharp retort to the question Do we need nature? – An interview with a Fungus on the topic Do we need mankind? Containing the marvellous observation (by the fungus)
Poor quality information tends to ferment into low-grade entertainment. Under the sulphurous glare of continuous, worldwide news broadcasts, human institutions ? government, military, religious, the culture itself ? became subjects of human amusement. This unrelenting, self-referential entertainment left a large part of mankind chronically inebriated and fundamentally uneducable.
There’s more. It’s a good read. But not strictly relevant to these notes, which cover the application of systems theory to economics and politics.