Complexity Rising: From Human Beings to Human Civilization, a Complexity Profile. Since time immemorial humans have complained that life is becoming more complex, but it is only now that we have a hope to analyze formally and verify this lament.
This article analyzes the human social environment using the "complexity profile," a mathematical tool for characterizing the collective behavior of a system. The analysis is used to justify the qualitative observation that complexity of existence has increased and is increasing. The increase in complexity is directly related to sweeping changes in the structure and dynamics of human civilization—the increasing interdependence of the global economic and social system and the instabilities of dictatorships, communism and corporate hierarchies.
TEDxCarletonU 2010 - Manuel A. Báez - Crystal & Flame: Form and Process. Butterfly - The Secret Life of Chaos - BBC 4 Preview. Networks, Crowds, and Markets: A Book by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg. In recent years there has been a growing public fascination with the complex "connectedness" of modern society.
This connectedness is found in many incarnations: in the rapid growth of the Internet and the Web, in the ease with which global communication now takes place, and in the ability of news and information as well as epidemics and financial crises to spread around the world with surprising speed and intensity. These are phenomena that involve networks, incentives, and the aggregate behavior of groups of people; they are based on the links that connect us and the ways in which each of our decisions can have subtle consequences for the outcomes of everyone else.