Introduction to Abundant Systems

Let's start by looking at systems through the lenses of scarcity and abundance

What do you think of when you think of abundance?

Abundance can look like a lot of things

In my research, I’ve uncovered something that has changed how I view abundance. You might have seen people talking about the need to change your mindset and have an abundant mindset instead of a scarcity mindset. That’s where I started from too. If we could all change our mindsets, the world would be a better place.

But now, I believe we should engineer abundant systems. We can take the pressure off of the individual and instead, let the systems we exist within provide the abundance. 

So what’s a system?

For this series of essays, let’s define a system as a group of people that interact with each other within a shared context. That means there are three main components to identify when looking at a system: the people, the interaction (i.e. the sharing of information), and the shared context (i.e. what that group of people have in common).

With that definition in mind, let’s now define an abundant system. 

An abundant system is a system in which any individual in a system acting to achieve their own goals does not negatively impact the other participants’ pursuit of their goals. Another way of saying this is that the system isn’t a zero-sum game. Someone winning doesn’t mean someone else loses. Instead, it’s a positive-sum game, and everyone can achieve their goals independently, and that can work out for everyone in the system. As a contrast, a scarce system is one in which there are limited resources and one person in the system getting those resources means that everyone else can’t have those same resources. A zero-sum game. 

Now that we’ve got systems and abundant systems defined, let’s take a closer look at some of the higher level systems we have participated in throughout our lives. There’s the education system. There’s the economy, which is a highly complex system. And there’s our community. 

With the educational system, there are a number of subsystems - there’s the school district, the individual school, the individual classes. Each a system of its own, with a role to play in the larger system.

The economy is the same, with subsystems consisting of industries, companies, and teams.

And, what I want to focus on in this series of essays: algorithms.

Algorithms are simply subsystems of the companies that create them, so when we want to examine the systems we use and are a part of, it is an extremely helpful lens to use. Since algorithms are systems, they can be scarce systems or abundant systems. 

And, since social media algorithms are at the forefront of discussion right now, due to the number of people impacted by them, let’s understand those algorithms through the lens of scarcity vs abundance.

As an example we can work with, assume we have two programmers who want to be creators, i.e. they want to start sharing what they know with the world. They have the same knowledge, experience, and skills. But they are taking two different paths toward content creation.

The first has decided to learn all they can about content creation and how to get their ideas to spread. The second has decided to learn all they can about programming and simply shares what they are learning along the way. So who’s going to be more successful? In the short term, it will be the first. Their ideas will be crafted in a way that allows others to more easily understand them, they’ll be shared by those around them, and their audience will grow.

But in the long-term, it will be the second, who focused on the actual subject as their primary topic of study, and learned over time how to package those ideas up effectively. People will eventually realize that the second creator has a much better understanding of the topic they are talking about.

This shows the contrast between scarce systems and abundant systems: scarce systems do what is most likely to succeed right now, because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Abundant systems assume that tomorrow will be there, so it’s ok to focus on longer term goals.

Now, let’s take a look at the second-order effects on the audiences of those two creators. Those who start by following the content of the first creator will start to pick up the ideas being shared. However, those ideas aren’t going to be as valuable as the ideas of the second creator, because they won’t be as deeply understood. So the audience of the first creator will have a long-term disadvantage against the audience of the second creator, because they’ll have to learn the missing pieces, or in the worst case, unlearn things that were incorrect, because the goal of the information was to have it spread, not for it to be the most accurate or valuable. 

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

― Mark Twain

Now, you should have a better understanding of what a system is, what an abundant system is, and how scarce systems can result in long-term inefficiencies. The next step is to better understand the incentives at play and how those incentives are changing over time. In the next few essays, I’ll talk about how companies start and the incentives at play, how the formation of companies and the incentives involved are changing over time (hint: moving toward abundance), and finally, share some examples of abundant systems in action.