Societal Feedback

This essay examines the nature of a potential societal information system. If we take the modern manage ment-control system as a prototype, the societal system would be broader based, multifunctional, and more open-ended. The general functions of any information system are detection, evaluation, diagnosis, and guidance to action. The exercise of these functions is easier, to the extent that the problems dealt with are of a relatively narrow range and a relatively repetitive nature. The problems toward which a societal in formation is directed are not only widely varied but also com plex and unique. Given the breadth, complexity, and unique ness of the problems, the number of actors and evaluators whose information needs must be met, and the lack of con sensus on any model of our society, one cannot devise a set of social indicators closely tailored to more than a few of the potential uses to which they are to be put. In the selection of the indicators themselves, one must to a large extent rely on consensus that certain aspects of the society are "important" regardless of the societal model one holds. A system such as this is highly reliant on rapid feedback because it is weak on pro viding anticipations of the full range of consequences of one's actions. Furthermore, the causal relations between one's actions and changes measured by a broad societal information system are indirect and diffused. A good deal of ad hoc, analytic research is required to bridge the gaps of inference in such a system.