The Power of Power Laws
John Hagel,
Edge Perspectives,
Aug 23, 2010
"We're shifting from a Gaussian world to a Paretian world," writes John Hhgel, "with profound implications for business." The Gaussian world is the world of the bell curve - of averages, the golden mean, the rule of the middle. The Paretian world is the world of the power law, of a few extreme events and the everyday scattered in the long tail.
The thing with this discussion is, the two types of woprlds are being described as if they are natural phenomena, as though they are patterns that we just fall into. I don't agree with that reading - I think these are patterns we create through the design of our networks and systems. Is this how we want to organize society? I have argued in the past that we want a world that is neither Gaussian or Paretian - a world where neither the golden mean nor the extreme event swallow all else, a world where the graph represents, as much as possible, a horizontal line, a world of balance and harmony.
The thing with this discussion is, the two types of woprlds are being described as if they are natural phenomena, as though they are patterns that we just fall into. I don't agree with that reading - I think these are patterns we create through the design of our networks and systems. Is this how we want to organize society? I have argued in the past that we want a world that is neither Gaussian or Paretian - a world where neither the golden mean nor the extreme event swallow all else, a world where the graph represents, as much as possible, a horizontal line, a world of balance and harmony.
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