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286 Adaptation

The advantages would be similar to those in the educational context: There
is no need to anticipate all possible errors or types of failures. If the expert
operator can write down a specification of acceptable functioning in terms
of constraints, and if the system provides information that allows continuous
monitoring of the constraints, then pre-failure states can be recognized as such
even if they were not anticipated. This safety technique is as yet untested.
In short, people manage complex systems better over time. Social prac-
tices emerge that allow system designers and operators to learn what not to
do. This is error correction writ large. However, safe systems are of little use if
the surrounding society crumbles. The question arises whether the ability for
collective improvement applies at the highest levels of time, complexity and
collectivity.

BIG ERRORS AND THE FATES OF SOCIETIES

The historical perspective on human affairs reveals a punctuated pattern:
Nations, societies and entire civilizations come into existence, mature and flour-
ish for some time and then collapse in a period of time that is short compared
to the periods of growth and maturity. Applying the notions of error and learn-
ing from error to this level of analysis requires some standard of correctness
against which observed outcomes can be compared. The purpose of a society is
to create and maintain institutions and practices that provide the highest level
of prosperity and well-being for its citizens that the historical circumstances
allow. At a minimum, institutions and practices should be designed so as to
avoid societal collapse. The collapses of which human history provides so many
examples cannot have been desired by the people to whom they happened; they
must have caused large-scale suffering; and they were caused to some extent by
the actions of the leaders and the social practices and institutions the leaders
designed. Sustainable prosperity and well­being for the largest number of average
citizens that the material circumstances allow is the standard against which a
nation, society or a civilization can be judged. Deviations from this standard
indicate errors in how a society conducts its affairs.
Scholars who focus on big picture history have identified at least three
courses of action that yield disastrous results and which therefore deserve to be
called errors on the historical scale. The most destructive move of all is to launch
a war when other courses of action are available. By the fall of 1944, Hitler and
the other central figures of the Nazi government in Germany presumably had
second thoughts about going to war against the whole world, although they
do not seem to have left behind any written testimony that says this. Whatever