Offloading and 5GW

Offloading

off·load or off-load

v., -load·ed or -load·ed, -load·ing or -load·ing, -loads or -loads. v.tr.

1. To unload (a vehicle or container).
2. Computer Science. To transfer (data) to a peripheral device.
3. Slang. To get rid of and pass on to another: “He does come close to offloading some of the blame for the launch on … the dear old media” (Meg Greenfield).

v.intr.

To unload a vehicle or container.

— Answers.com

offloading - the utilization of the fiscal framework to shift financial responsibilities for services from one order of government to another


— Indian and Nornthern Affairs Canada, glossary.

offloading

Definition 1

Unloading of cargo from the transporting vehicle or vessel. Also called discharging.

Definition 2

Selling gladly at the offered price.

— BusinessDictionary.com

“TCP/IP offload engine”

In recent years, the communication speed in Ethernet systems has increased faster than computer processor speed. This produces an input/output (I/O) bottleneck. The processor, which is designed primarily for computing and not for I/O, cannot keep up with the data flowing through the network. As a result, the TCP/IP flow is processed at a rate slower than the speed of the network. TOE solves this problem by removing the burden (offloading) from the microprocessor and I/O subsystem.

The manner in which TOE is implemented depends on the needs of the customer. Considerations include flexibility, scalability, and performance. Network performance and scalability are optimized with application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implementation. Network flexibility is optimized with processor-based implementation.

— SearchNetworking.com

My take, from a previous discussion on D5GW:

“Freedom from” and “Freedom to”

…freedom to be responsible for A, B, and C, may mean freedom to not have to hassle with X, Y, and Z. To the degree that we are each quite limited, with only a small range of operational and observational capability, and are therefore restricted to some A, B, and C — unable to be all places at once, as it were — then freedom from having to worry about D, E, and F, would be beneficial. (Worrying about anything but A, B, and C would distract us from those, or limit our ability to be responsible for those efforts.)

Naturally, this would raise some serious questions about the natures of democracy and capitalism. The vote is a kind of salve for our limitation, by which we delegate responsibility for X, Y, and Z to others. This delegation in turn produces a system 1) that is characterized by very indirect chains of cause & effect, in which individuals may only claim indirect and weak responsibility for X, Y, and Z, if even that; and 2) that allows individuals to disregard X, Y, and Z, as being none of their concern or in fact quite foreign to them, perhaps opposed to them.

Cognition and OODA

I have previously given an example, via my re-tooled OODA diagram, of three general kinds of activity:

1. Impulsive Activity
2. Focused Activity
3. Reflexive or Habitual Activity

Generally speaking, #2 and #3 follow a cognitive act of understanding, memorizing, etc.; meaning, that we consciously decide to act a certain way after we have built an understanding of circumstances (2), or in fact over time we may develop habitual or reflexive manners of reacting to circumstances (3).  D5GW contributor Dan tdaxp would perhaps refer to #3 as automaticity:

Automaticity

- taking in information and perform a task automatically
- rearrange minds, exploit implicit guidance & control
- enables fast OODA cycling
- relation to fingertip-feeling

[“Cognition & Instruction in the Context of Human Struggle”, tdaxp]

#1, impulsive activity, results from an interruption of the OODA process.  Information cannot be processed, so no mental act resulting in understanding, memorization, or “ideologizing” may occur.  The introduction of (new) information cannot be synthesized with prior learning, either because its presence is entirely unanticipated (does not flow from a prior conception of prevailing circumstances) or else because the information is quite foreign to the individual’s prior understandings of the world.  E.g., a type of EBO operation that is quite kinetic which came suddenly (without any forewarning; i.e., unexpected but not entirely new data), could leave the target in a state of shock, unable to process what is occurring, or else might provoke impulsive acts reminiscent of a chicken running about once its head is cut off.  Alternatively, consider a party-goer who arrives at the party with a pre-plan to woo the party host, and succeeds in leading said host into the bedroom — whereupon, he discovers that she is a he:  the impulsive act may be leaping from the bed or something more violent. (Unexpected and entirely new data.)

Both reflexive/habitual acts (3) and impulsive acts (1) result from a habit of offloading cognitive processing and are in fact quite related by this feature.  The reflexive/habitual actor offloads onto the environment and other individuals:  he does not have to consciously process, or rationalize, related prevailing circumstances, because his cognition depends upon unchanging, familiar circumstances.  Other actors in his environment are expected to act in expected ways.  The impulsive actor also depends on unchanging and familiar circumstances; but his fault is the offloading of cognition, onto other actors and environmental conditions which he expects to remain the same but do not.

The focused actor offloads least.  He consciously considers other actors and the environment and chooses a course of action based upon what he has seen; he takes responsibility for his own cognitive processes.

However, these are archetypes being considered, and one might often find a focused decision-making process which operates by viewing other actors and the environment in habitual ways rather than purely objectively — this, incidentally, may describe the impulsive actor and the habitual/reflexive actor, both, but is more likely to describe the impulsive actor.  (The habitual/reflexive actor, operating with automaticity, is far less likely to analyze circumstances consciously, or rationally.)

Co-optation, Freedom, and Globalization

Offloading responsibilities becomes necessary in a globalized world.  Specialization will reach its apex, having begun very long ago with guilds and so forth and moved through the assembly-line specialization of industrialization.  A great reason for this is mere complexity and the interconnectivity which further globalization brings: we do not wish to drill for oil and refine it ourselves; we need others to do this, which means we need others to secure those resources as well.  To secure resources, we need technicians who can build satellites, technicians who can build rockets to deliver the satellites, and technicians who can map out oil fields and military forces, etc., based upon the imaging delivered by satellites.  We need diplomats and warriors for negotiating how said analyses will be used.   We need ship captains and ship crews, drilling and refinery crews, truck drivers, gas station attendants, and so forth to deliver it.  We need auto makers to supply us with the machines that will use it. We need investors to keep plugging money into the necessary specialized corporations.  And so forth, for nearly every item we want or need.

Much of the activity upon which we rely is entirely hidden from us or so masked by static — i.e., the criss-crossing and interdependent activities of unknown specialists — we have no choice but to offload responsibilities, cognition, powers, etc.

Naturally, the more we offload responsibilities, cognition, and powers, the more likely we may question our individual freedoms.  I am not free to do whatever I like, no matter what, if I am also dependent on others having the responsibility and power to deliver the products I need or desire.  I cannot shoplift whatever I like whenever I wish; no, I must respect the rules that the given store and governments have designed for the transaction process (or suffer the consequences of my actions).  I am not free to watch cable television until I have bought a television, subscribed to cable, and paid my electric bill — which necessitates more than respecting the rules of transaction with those suppliers; it necessitates respecting the rules of my employer as well (who, it might be said, must often follow a similar but different set of rules himself.)

In a similar vein, the primary argument against the ultimate Global Guerrilla force is simply the fact that Global Guerrillas must follow a chain of rules not entirely created by themselves if they wish to move “freely” and “freely” acquire the weapons, etc., they need for their activities:  a complete destruction of The System™ would be like suicide.  (However, asceticism, or the elimination of many needs and desires, might mitigate this. But then, how shall they defeat The System™ which continues to produce these extra tools and abilities via extraordinary offloading of powers and responsibilities?)

In such light, co-optation is almost a redundancy.  Within The System™, or at least the extreme globalized version (The System™ v2.0), we are already co-opted.  This is what President Bush had in mind after 9/11 when he told us to continue shopping and taking vacations.  This is also what Thomas Barnett has in mind when he says, “Shrink the Gap!”

Interestingly, the old American idea, that we cannot be free unless others are also made free, may answer the question of offloading and freedom and co-optation:  greater general freedom may result in a larger number of “hands in the field” for each person, or more sources for offloading our needs and cognition.  We give them powers and responsibilities so that we need not worry overmuch about X, Y, and Z — although to be sure, we depend upon the successful operation of X, Y, and Z.

Resilience and Consilience

Once while contemplating resilience, I came to the conclusion that resilience would not be enough.  Resilience, which means “bouncing (or jumping) back”, requires a generally unchanging dynamic, or in other words, ossification.  A point or condition to jump back to.  And ossified things can be easily broken.

Some who prize the idea of resilience alone are conservative thinkers, not to be confused with the conservative political theory although to be sure, there is overlap.  Conservative thinking might be tied to the OODA and cognition discussed above:  The attempt to create unchanging environments and actors who operate within severely defined & expected limits is an attempt to create a world in which automaticity may predominate.  I.e., a world in which reflexive and habitual activities never lead to situations which provoke impulsive acts but are entirely dependable. On the political front, we might find many such thinkers on either side, the Right or the Left: each is guided by a set of principles, or beliefs about the objective world, and each would make others accept those and only those principles.  Wouldn’t everything be nice if that could just happen?  Then we could offload responsibilities and powers secure in the fact that, well, the world will not change in unexpected and unsatisfactory ways.

Offloading the discovery and creation of new principles is a much scarier enterprise, especially because activities arising from those principles may alter the world in ways which require us to alter our own principles; however, consilience, or pro-active resilience, may demand it.  As I previously wrote,

On the etymology of the two terms in question, I would like to point out that resilience always requires a unifying principle or set of principles — ossification, protocols, consistent world views, etc. — because these things are a precondition for jumping back. There must be a “back” to jump to.   When disruption happens, the resilient entity is not quite changed by that disruption; or, let’s say that even if the entity is changed, the change does not obliterate the routines & protocols & principles, which have thus far guided the entity.  Those routines are capable of being continued, even if the milieu has been altered through disruption, and can be continued even if other rules have changed for the entity.

I suspect, however, that a highly dynamic milieu, of escalating disruptions, will have this effect:  as rules are changed, the set of reliable protocols will continue to diminish, until a singularity is reached.  That singularity is the tipping point for the resilient entity, because beyond is a future in which no guiding principle exists.  However, social consilience offers the benefits we normally associate with democracy, free market capitalism,  liberal education, etc:  when more entities are able to define guiding principles for any given entity in the network, or influence the definition of guiding principles, there exists the possibility of an ever-renewing, refreshing set of guiding principles.

But really, this line of thinking re-introduces the subject of freedom into the equation.  Given the complexity and interdependency within a globalized system, no individual has the power to judge properly what is required for X, Y, and Z but that individual engaging directly with X, Y, and Z.  Furthermore, dis-allowing the creation and formation of principles by those at a distance who are actively engaging X, Y, and Z, would be like shooting ourselves in the foot.  Or the hand.  So it seems that we must be willing to offload that responsibility.

Open Source and Static

On the one hand, offloading responsibility within The System™ may seem to make perfect sense.  Open source initiatives recognize the strength of co-opting many to help build The System™.  No single individual can be all things at once, i.e.

On the other hand, we cannot yet say that a System™ actually exists; no, but there are many ideas of what it is and how it is shaped, many Systems™ (each trademarked by the believer!)

So we see the difference, or may see it, between open source and static — when in fact, those two terms go hand-in-hand.  The explosion of sources of principles and activities, when those sources are each quite limited in their activities as well as cognitively, may lead to static endeavors.  I’ve long put off the correlation between static which is viewed as static and static as an unchanging dynamic, although the correlation has often tweaked my brain.

We cannot consciously offload responsibilities and powers to those we do not see, who act and believe in ways we do not know or even misunderstand.  Is part of our own individual responsibility the act of assessing those others before we decide to offload?  Or do we offload automatically whenever we turn our eyes from those others or otherwise fail to see them?   Is there a static system in fact although the open-sourceness causes it to appear dynamic and chaotic?

Offloading has obvious advantages and automatically creates “hands in the field.”  However, determining what those hands do may require a more conscious method of offloading.  The obvious paradox is this:  If offloading works precisely because no one person can hold in mind all that occurs within The System™, how is said person supposed to be able to understand the others within The System™, and the various and multifarious circumstances well enough to make a rational decision about whether to offload responsibilities and powers?

Given static, how can we trust to open source?

Offloading and 5GW

The obvious answer, though perhaps vague, seems to be this:

Open source works when, despite static, a very general System is held in mind by each actor, or a common goal, though vague and quite general, is held.  In all likelihood, that goal will be, “Good for myself.”  I.e., individual actors may be motivated to work if, and only if, they can have some faith that their own actions will lead to benefit for themselves.  This may mean that each continues to view a System which is not The System™ but is rather a subset of The System™; alternatively, perhaps a vision of The System™ itself — a glimmer — may be communicated to all.  In fact, a 5GW campaign will probably attempt both:  delivering the glimmers while altering the individualized visions bit by bit.

In any case, no 5GW organization will be able to operate without offloading.  There is too much work to be done, too many domains.  The greater dispersal of kinetics goes hand-in-hand with offloading.