N for Nonlinear: The Cause-Effect concept is not outdated

BANI - The origin

The BANI acronym is attributed to Jamais Cascio,  a San Francisco Bay Area-based author and futurist,  who presented it at an Institute for the Future (IFTF) event in Palo Alto, California, in 2018. He is also the author of the article ¨Facing the age of Chaos¨ in which he presented BANI as a response to VUCA. According to him, VUCA is our state of nature, in his own words ¨We eat VUCA for breakfast, so in order to identify the kinds of radical forces that we are facing now, we need a new lenguaje¨. For more on how the acronym BANI helps us deal with today’s world, take a look at the previous articles (B for Brittle and A for Anxiety). 

N for Nonlinear

While being a mathematical concept, essentially, nonlinear means that we do not see a clear connection between cause and effect, and even when recognizing the cause, the effect can be disproportionate, sooner, and/or later than expected. 

In other words, nonlinear systems are about outcomes that are not just hard to foresee, but are unpredictable and open-ended. The COVID-19 pandemic is the most clear example of this, and no surprise the BANI acronym was adopted in these days, despite the fact that it was first presented in 2018.

Is Cause-Effect outdated?

N on the BANI acronym stands for nonlinear and replaced Complexity from the VUCA acronym. 

Everyone of us has been taught from a young age the cause-effect concept as it is believed to help people to engage in higher-order reasoning and think critically about circumstances in life or a specific topic. 

As parents we teach our kids the cause-effect concept every time we praise them for doing something good, or by daily activities such as cleaning their hands after playing at the park. Supposedly, cause-effect helps in understanding the order of operations in math, in better comprehending a story and even history, and in social relationships, cause and effect is a key to engaging with peers. 

Can it be that such a prevalent concept is now obsolete? 

Mark Galley, an investigator and instructor of root cause analysis argues that the reason why cause and effect seems too simple is because it is fundamental and not because it lacks the ability to analyze today's sophisticated circumstances.

According to Galley, when people believe cause and effect is only linear, they are unconsciously  referring to the simple concept they were taught at preschool and undermining the complexity of the foundation. In other words, any effect can have multiple causal paths over a period of time, where more than one cause is required to produce an effect. Changing any of the causes then, might indeed modify the effect, but might not be enough to solve a problem caused. 

I agree with the cause-effect concept being still relevant today, understanding that every single thing is a consequence of something that happened before. When before? We cannot always know. We might not even know what happened, where and to whom but still need to deal with the results. 

Here the question I would ask is ¨Is knowing the cause the only way to deal with an effect?¨. Clearly, knowing the cause could help, but it is for sure not the only way to deal, solve or even turn around an effect. Some effects can be approached by addressing the future, not looking into the past.

An example can be a habit you would like to change, and during the process understanding that the habit was inherited from your father. How will that help? What could help however, is finding a reason that will motivate you enough to stop that bad habit, and the reason can be found in the future, not in the past. For instance, you can understand that the inherited habit is harming your health. 

Another way to explain that will be that a problem can be tackled by understanding one or some of the causes, without needing to relate to the root cause.

In a way, I can say that the Complexity of VUCA still exists, and part of the complexity is having more and more nonlinear systems and relationships that we as humans struggle to embrace because we were set to understand the concept of cause-effect in a linear, traditional way. 

Moreover, we were set to plan and foresee the effects of a cause, but today we need to accept the fact we might be living a consequence of an act that occurred years ago or in a different part of the planet. 

Afterall, the cause and effect concept is, in my view, the best way to take responsibility in life. Afterall, choices we make affect us and everyone surrounding us one way or another.

Finding stability in chaos 

Jamais Cascio who first introduced the acronym BANI, argues that a nonlinear world, where nonlinear asymmetric systems are the common ground, cannot be addressed anymore by the cause-effect we all know. In his own words, we are living in a chaos - a chaos that is aggravated by technology and social developments.

In the book ¨Chaos¨ which I blinked while preparing  for this article, the author James Gleick describes how physicists studied the world as if it ran like clockwork, with signs of randomness and disorders dismissed as flukes. But, in the 1970s, with the help of some technology, these flukes were taken seriously, and it was found that chaotic behavior is everywhere. Later on, it was even demonstrated by mathematicians like Feigenbaum that there is a strange, beautiful order to the chaos of our world.

Mitchell Feigenbaum showed that The scientists Smale and Libchaber agree that nonlinear systems can be much more stable in their average behavior than linear systems. When a linear system receives a slight nudge, it stays off track forever. However, when a nonlinear system receives the same nudge, it somehow finds its way back to its normal state. Libchaber speculated that nature uses nonlinearity as a defense against noise and errors.  

NASDAQ can be a good example. Some will say it is a nonlinear system impossible to anticipate, others will argue that the boom and bust NASDAQ experiences has a strange order that when analyzed in deept, it can be anticipated. All will agree that it is a stable system despite the glitches.

Nonlinear for daily life 

As in every article, I would like to share some thoughts that will help dealing with BANI - this time specifically with Nonlinear. 

So, given the fact nonlinear systems are all around us, I would recommend holding on to the theory that they are more stable than other systems - to gain confidence when encountering them. 

Nonlinear = more stable: Imagine a linear system represented with an infinitive straight  line. Touch the line at any point. It will get off track forever. Now imagine a nonlinear system represented by an up and down curve, and touch it. The curve will get off track but because it has the experience of going up and down, it will eventually return to its nature. Got it? 

The root cause is not key: Another important point is not looking at root causes as the only way to deal/solve current effects. You might find that the drive will come from the excitement that the future holds, and not the past that is out of your hands. Example: knowing that you have low self esteem because of your childhood, might not increase your willingness to work on that as much as thinking of the amazing things you could accomplish if re-gaining self love.

Practice flexibility, adaptability and let it be: You will most probably not be able to change nonlinear systems, so the only way is learning living alongside them. Practice flexibility and adaptability to become more resilient, and embrace change. After all, the most famous nonlinear system is the weather, and most of us are not living their lives listening to the weather report to plan for the day after and we weven adapt when weather is completely unexpected. 

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This article is the 3rd out of 4. 

One article for each letter of BANI: Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible. 

Edited using @wordtune