The Second Law of Technodynamics

Socio-technical systems work within the tension between autonomy and cohesion. Every mechanism of cohesion has an autonomy cost, and some also bring autonomy gains. Cohesion is dynamic and exhibits recurring regularities. One such regularity is concentration. A handful of platforms hold the world's attention, three cloud providers its infrastructure, and one company its chipmaking. Similar patterns recur throughout history. Attempts at alternative forms of governance repeatedly drift in the same direction.  This talk examines technodynamics through the autonomy-cohesion lens. It reveals two phenomena.  The first is the clustering of cohesion regimes according to how they affect the autonomy of participants. This reveals how different cohesion mechanisms produce different kinds of autonomy and how systems move through the autonomy space. Where dependence runs through a node that cannot readily be replaced, autonomy is held on lease, at a rent paid in money, compliance, or conformity.  The second is the tendency for coordination control, in the absence of counter-action, to concentrate. Like the layer of cohesion on which it operates, this concentration is driven by several interacting forces and technologies. Counter-actions can, at least temporarily, restore the replaceability that autonomy requires. But they can also reinforce the very drivers they are intended to counter.  In the absence of counter-action, concentration does not simply persist forever. It consumes the slack that absorbs shocks, gets fragile and eventually collapses. Historically, it was collapse that dispersed concentrated control rather than reform.