By Dee Smith
The continuously escalating complexity of the world that we have built has arguably outstripped our ability to understand and deal with it. The tools we have are insufficient. Change is becoming more radical, meaning that it takes us further and further away from what we have known, and from what we have assumed would exist in the near future. This accelerated, non-linear, radical change has very real and immediate effects on us all.
Enter the “hyperobject.” This is a term that came to public attention in the mid-2010s through the work of Timothy Morton (it had been used by computer scientists since the mid-1960s). Hyperobjects, as Morton described them, are massive agglomerations of people, institutions, technologies, ideas, and other elements that we can barely comprehend, let alone control or make sensible decisions about. They increasingly constitute the world today. In technical terms, hyperobjects are “n-dimensional non-local entities.”
Examples of hyperobjects include . . . oil spills, all plastic ever manufactured, capitalism, tectonic plates . . . the solar system . . . the sum total of Styrofoam and plutonium we have littered across the Earth over the past century, which will remain for millennia. A human being may see evidence of hyperobjects—pollution here, a hurricane there—but try gazing off into the distance to see the totality of them . . . and they disappear into a vanishing point.
Hyperobjects engender and embody non-linear risk. A great deal was learned about non-linear complex systems during the 20th century. Sophisticated mathematical analytical tools to understand them were developed. Very generally put, the more complex a system is, the more non-linear it becomes. The more non-linear it becomes, the more unpredictable its effects and outcomes will be. And the more suddenly it can change. Since we have the most complex human system ever to exist, we are dealing with levels and types of risks that we never imagined: risks that are unexpected, sudden, long-tailed, fat-tailed, multiplicative, and cascading.
Our incumbent complex systems developed during a time of relative stability, from the end of WWII until just a few years ago. That period, it seems clear, is now ending.
All of these changes drastically increase the incidence of “wicked problems.” A term developed by city planners, a “wicked problem” is a singular problem that typically has no clear definition, in part because it overlaps with other problems. It can probably never be completely solved. Wicked problems have multiple causes and exhibit effects at multiple levels and scales. They also have multiple stakeholders (affected parties), who have conflicting agendas and needs. Wicked problems cut across organizations, disciplines, and sectors. Even attempting to understand them and evaluate possible solutions is very difficult. When applied, such solutions often ricochet unpredictably across the system. Solutions are only better or worse, not right or wrong.
Sound familiar?
Hyperobjects engender such wicked problems, which can manifest in “polycrises”—although that is far too linear a description of the processes, which is filled with hidden, “n-order” feedback loops. According to historian Adam Tooze, a polycrisis represents the “coming together at a single moment of things which, on the face of it, don't have anything to do with each other, but seem to pile onto each other to create a situation in the minds of policymakers, business people, families, individuals.” In other words, a polycrisis occurs when multiple separate but interconnected crises amplify one another, with wide, systemic, sometimes irreversible effects. This “piling on” effect is devastating to our ability to manage such crises—and to our individual or collective physical and psychological well-being. It has always been the American way—the ethos of the entire modern world, really—to tackle problems one piece at a time, until we can wrestle them to the ground. Polycrises make this extraordinarily difficult.
Now to the U.S. elections and North Carolina in particular. An important swing state, North Carolina was devastated by Hurricane Helene’s massive rain in early October: a release of water due to the much warmer-than-“normal” ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico feeding the storm—which is a result of climate change. Large sections of important road arteries were simply washed away, leaving no way to reach many communities by ground. Absentee ballots were in the mail, and many have probably been destroyed. At least one post office in Ashe County is reported to have been flooded and hundreds of mailboxes simply lost. We do not yet have a reliable estimate of the total destruction.
One storm and one election! Think about it. This is not at all theoretical.
What if polling cannot be restored to a sufficient level by Election Day for the votes of North Carolinians to be accurately recorded and counted? Is North Carolina simply ignored? What if the situation randomly skews the results by enabling voting in an area that is strong for one party, while removing it in an area that is strong for the other? What if another storm creates similar effects in another state? (Milton? Florida?) Where is the line crossed . . . and indeed, what is the “line” that might be crossed?
An additional part of this polycrisis concerns the flooded mines in Spruce Pine. This one mountain produces about 90 percent of the world’s ultra-pure quartz, a pristine sand essential for producing the high-grade silicon on which semiconductors rely. It is not known the extent of the damage or length of time that the mines may be offline, nor the effects on global semiconductor manufacturing. It is, however, a clear demonstration of the fragility of our systems, with their single points of failure.
Put simply, socio-economic systems developed in the last 300 years, honed and applied particularly in the last half of the 20th century, were attuned to conditions that no longer exist. We and our legacy systems are woefully unprepared for the kind of future we face. We are on very thin ice.