Evolution

Full Title or Meme

The gradual process of the changing morphology of living entities in a natural ecosystem.

Context

Evolution and Disruption are the ying and yang of the process of change in any ecosystem. In the General Theory of Living Systems the case is made that an identity ecosystem has all of the characteristics of living ecosystems.

All evolutionary change occurs within a living ecosystem. Each change must improve the success of the species in the exiting ecosystem. Disruptions do occur, but even they must succeed in the existing ecosystem, even as they change it.

Amara's law tells us that we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. Since in the long run we are all dead (including all of the known enterprises), the short run is where we have the most opportunity to improve our odds of success, as well as the place where errors and spell the quick end of any change.

Unicorns are those special enterprises that are early to provide a solution for long term change, but they will need some means to find a way to survive until the big change comes. Their concerns are not addressed here.

Problems

While change has been discussed by philosophers since Heraclitus 500 years BC, human history has been marked by the search for invariants. First with religion and later with physics humans have focused on trying to find the causes of the way of the world. The book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew bible teaches that "there is nothing new under the sun." But the final chapter of the book of causes will not be written until the last bit of free energy is expended forcing changes to continue to create confusion among the various purveys of prophecies. Only then it will be true that "there is nothing new under the sun." Darwin was the first to try to create a theory of change that has since been applied to most areas of life. Ernest Mach in 1890 phased the application of evolution to all areas of knowledge with this quote.

""

We all, human and corporate, do need to make our way in the ecosystem that we do have. The most successful are those that detect imbalances developing in the ecosystem and are able to anticipate changes that will thrive given the changes that are already underway. It is clear to most of us that change in the identity ecosystem is afoot. Our problem is to discern the change that will profit from that change.

Solutions

Solutions in identity ecosystems must be advantageous to three types of entity, where all interesting decisions are generated by the first two:

1. Users or Consumers with a large bundle of desires for goods or service and fear of the unknown.
2. Resources of goods or services that are relying on the identity of those users for their survival.
3. Service providers to either users or relying parties who are evolving to meet the needs of both.