loss of complexity (monoculture, reduction of species count per acre) reduces overall biotic productivity and simultaneously reduces resistance and resilience in face of pests, adverse weather, etc. this seems to be true whether the ecosystem is a reef, a farm, a town, a city, a compute cluster, a power grid, or an economy.
monoculture equals increasing risk of single point catastrophic failure with poor/costly/slow recovery prospects.
the lesson I derive from this is that Wal*Mart is inherently a bad thing, and so are company towns. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
Gaia theory is criticized along the lines that individual organisms or species cannot cooperate since "altruism" is not beneficial to them; organisms waste resourses only for themselves. But if the uncompromisingly selfish behaviour would be optimal, then all species would behave like locust:
Very few species have the luxury of eating up everything they come accross. Most species probably have instinctive or genetic stops not to destroy their own environment. After all, surviving throughout long millenia means not only overcoming stuggle to establish your own niche, but also surviving your own success. The Earth had seen many species that "discovered" unbounded success, and perhaps many of them learned to control their vitality so to keep livable environment.
This morning I woke up with an idea for a diary Against Efficiency. We'll see whether it happens. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
There is also a series of short novels by Frank Herbert where the hero comes from the Sabotage Bureau (or something) which was created to fight the super efficient bureaucracy made possible by a special kind a aliens, by sabotaging it and making it work slower. It sounds strange, but there is, as always with Herbert, some very interesting background and thought involved. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
