Rates and States

The state of something is a result of the rate at which things are happening.

For example - the state of my health is a result of the rate at which I exercise. The state of my finances is a result of the rate at which I earn [and spend].

On a larger scale - the state of the atmosphere is a result of the rate at which fossil fuels are burned. The state of AI is a result of the rate at which the technology is developed.

These are all over-simplifications - each of those examples is more complex than I have made them sound in a single sentence … and boiling something complex down to a pithy one-liner risks missing things.

[For example - my health is also related to my finances - what food can I afford to buy? And my finances are related to my health - am I well enough to work? And AI software is powered by the burning of fossil fuels … and we run AI software in the hope it will help us with the energy transition. None of these things exist in isolation].

However - as long as we don’t ignore the complexity, the framing of ‘rates and states’ is a useful one.

It’s easy to get frustrated if I only focus only on the ‘state’ of something. Whether that’s my health or that of the planet - I can’t immediately change the situation. But if I focus instead on the ‘rate’ at which things happen, then I have agency - I can affect the outcomes.

I heard this from Tom Chi in a recent episode of Nate Hagens’ podcast. It was a brilliantly insightful conversation - and this idea of ‘rates and states’ is just one of many great ideas Tom shared.

It also made me think of Bayo Akomolafe’s idea that when the world is moving fast, we need to slow down …

Perhaps our responses should not always be to ‘increase the rate’?