Sketchplanations podcast photo of Rob Bell, Tom Pellereau and Jono Hey

Sketchplanations is ad-free
thanks to supporters like you.See more on Patreon

Pace layers

Copied!

Pace Layers is the brilliant observation of Stewart Brand that different aspects of the world change at different speeds.

So, Fashion and art change and cycle faster than Commerce, which changes faster than Infrastructure, and in turn, Governance, Culture and finally, Nature.

The outer layers tend to innovate faster and so pull along the slower-changing layers. At the same time, the slower layers also stabilise the faster layers, reducing the chances of chaos.

At the boundaries, you get constructive turbulence, say, between self-driving cars and Governance or between legislation trying to keep up with the growth of electric scooters. Or how the growth in video streaming (Commerce) needs Internet Infrastructure to come along with it.

As a framework for thinking about big, complex things, I find it quite handy.

Also see:

Published 17 Feb 2016

A weekly sketch by email

Learn something new in a sketch each Sunday

Get the book!
Big Ideas Little Pictures

Prefer to listen?
Try the podcast

Sketchplanations is ad-free
thanks to supporters like you.See more on Patreon

Keep exploring

Time hierarchy

Passing on an inside bend

Parallax

Blending buildings

For want of a nail

The frog boil metaphor

A time hierarchy example is how durable dynamic systems have elements, or layers, that change at different rates. Just like for pace layers, the fast layers that change quickly provide innovation, while the slower layers stabilise and remember. In his short article Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning, Stewart Brand gives this evocative example of the time hierarchy of a coniferous forest: "Take a coniferous forest. The hierarchy in scale of pine needle, tree crown, patch, stand, whole forest, and biome is also a time hierarchy. The needle changes within a year, the crown over several years, the patch over many decades, the stand over a couple of centuries, the forest over a thousand years, and the biome over ten thousand years. The range of what the needle may do is constrained by the crown, which is constrained by the patch and stand, which are controlled by the forest, which is controlled by the biome. Nevertheless, innovation percolates throughout the system via evolutionary competition among lineages of individual trees dealing with the stresses of crowding, parasites, predation, and weather. Occasionally, large shocks such as fire or disease or human predation can suddenly upset the whole system, sometimes all the way down to the biome level." It's an example of his wonderful framework of pace layers, which he applies to the working structure of a robust and adaptable civilisation.…A time hierarchy example is how durable dynamic systems have elements, or layers, that change at different rates. Just like for pace layers, the fast layers that change quickly provide innovation, while the slower layers stabilise and remember. In his short article Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning, Stewart Brand gives this evocative example of the time hierarchy of a coniferous forest: "Take a coniferous forest. The hierarchy in scale of pine needle, tree crown, patch, stand, whole forest, and biome is also a time hierarchy. The needle changes within a year, the crown over several years, the patch over many decades, the stand over a couple of centuries, the forest over a thousand years, and the biome over ten thousand years. The range of what the needle may do is constrained by the crown, which is constrained by the patch and stand, which are controlled by the forest, which is controlled by the biome. Nevertheless, innovation percolates throughout the system via evolutionary competition among lineages of individual trees dealing with the stresses of crowding, parasites, predation, and weather. Occasionally, large shocks such as fire or disease or human predation can suddenly upset the whole system, sometimes all the way down to the biome level." It's an example of his wonderful framework of pace layers, which he applies to the working structure of a robust and adaptable civilisation.

Newer

RRandom

Older