It's quite legitimate to consider societies as engineering problems. More so in fact than as economic…

It's quite legitimate to consider societies as engineering problems. More so in fact than as economic problems. How pilot-induced oscillations in flight have lessons for a pandemic. h/t to @YouAreLobbyLud for a conversation that made me think about this. /1 https://t.co/kyvUJdLvkE

Pilot-induced oscillations are when a plane ends up flying in a 'porpoising' way, as in the diagram. Up and down in repeated waves, like a porpoise swimming. More generally called aircraft-pilot coupling. Because the cause is the 'coupling' of aircraft and pilot response. /2 https://t.co/8Z3szcxDPg

Most simply, a lag in the pilot's response, leading to an over-correction for deviations from the desired level of flight, in turn driving the next deviation, etc. The important thing here is the coupling. The relationship between plane and pilot, which creates the 'wave'. /3 https://t.co/aDMBgum7Fa

There are a variety of things which can create that coupling, not all pilot-induced. But the wider importance of this for a pandemic is the concept of coupling between individual and environment. Creating feedback loops. /4 https://t.co/zzriNQRKjC

I'm sure the shape of porpoising will remind many of the shape of an epidemic/pandemic curve of infections/hospitalisations. 'Waves'. That's not an analogy I don't think. Both are dynamic system phenomena. Coupling. /5 https://t.co/6UPXyGiQ5j

Earlier in the pandemic some noted a bit how this works. As cases rise, individuals respond to the increasing infection they see around them, by reducing their risky behaviour. Then as infections drop, they do the opposite. They take on risky behaviours. /6

In both cases there's significant lag between the outcomes they're seeing (infections, or plane rising or dipping, in flying), and their individual input. Which is why you get this perpetuating wavy outcome. Only intervention will stop it. /7

Regulation. Also an engineering term, to regulate the flow or input or whatever, of something. Again, this isn't just an analogy. Human societies regulate for the same reason. Not to oppress or restrict (libertarian fantasies), but to create social 'level flight'. /8

To dampen the oscillation. This is the incredibly frustrating thing about being stuck in a widespread culture of libertarian politics. That attacks the regulatory mechanisms which create open, free and stable societies. Safe, level flight. /9

Adolescent cultures that see all regulation as restriction. Like being grounded, as a teenager. Regulation enables, it opens up societies to greater freedom. By freeing them from destructive oscillations. /10

The economy is the same. Endless cycles of boom and bust. Because we refuse to regulate. It's an engineering problem, not an economic one. Without regulation, our social plane just keeps crazily flying up and down. /11

We're coupled to our collective infrastructure and lives. We're not separate 'free' agents. That coupling needs to be regulated, to be dampened. To create social level flight. In infectious disease, in economic activity. Everything. /12

Humans acting collectively are physical agents, in that engineering sense. Regulation regulates the physical flows of energy, pathogens, water, food, etc. Economics and its libertarian market fantasies are a terrible guide for societies. /13

It's why and others have said since the beginning of this pandemic - LET THE ENGINEERS FINISH IT FOR US. Not the economists. Definitely not the politicians. They will generate endless waves of rising and dipping 'trending' enthusiasms. And deaths. /end