Application of force-directed layout to Club of Rome reports

Interactive Polyhedral Configuration of Preoccupations (Part #6)

The Club of Rome has now celebrated a half-century of contributions to reflection on global strategic issues (Ugo Bardi and Carlos Alvarez Pereira, Limits and Beyond: 50 years on from The Limits to Growth, what did we learn and what’s next?, 2022). It is appropriate to consider the coherence of the pattern constituted by these contributions, as previously argued (Club of Rome Reports and Bifurcations: a 50-year overview, 2018). As noted in that review, for extended periods the Club had little interest in presenting a systematic indication of the array of reports it had engendered.

It is noteworthy that few of these reports appear to have cited one another as complementary instances of systemic perspectives. It is only recently that the digitization of its production has been proposed in a detailed university thesis -- however this may be constrained in practice by copyright (Laura Gabriel Ramirez Baquero and Maria Alejandra Leal Restrepo, Archiving the Future: from physical archives to a digitized network ("The Club of Rome Archive"), Polytechnic of Turin, 2019). When this is achieved, it may then prove possible to honour the systemic coherence of that initiative through content analysis. The digitization proposal is however especially interesting in the range of visual presentations of potential value to such a perspective.

In quest of degree of coherence in anticipation of such future developments, the array of reports offers the immediate possibility of experimental interactive representation through force-directed layout. An obvious question is how the reports could be distinguished and related in any such display. In the absence of any citation analysis, a form of coherence can be suggestively explored by using data on the degree to which the reports are cited. A crude but indicative measure, in the absence of any other, is the number of search results ("hits") from a search engine such as Google. An unexplored alternative would focus on report authors using the citation analysis metrics provided by Google.

Google makes provision for the extraction of such data for a fee by program (Google Knowledge Graph Search API, Extract the number of results from google search). Given the limited number of reports (65), it proved easier to extract the search results manually using as search string: "Name of report" "Club of Rome". This implies a variety of assumptions which could challenge their use in any display. [Somewhat relevant to the challenge of extracting such data was the interruption of the succession of searches by Google security requiring an indication on 5 occasions of whether the queries were being made by a human or a robot]

The range with the most hits included: Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth... (564,000), On the Edge (437,000), The Multimedia Society (352,000), Beyond the Age of Waste (347,000), The Limits to Growth (263,000), The Blue Economy (232,000), Come On! Capitalism Short-termism, Population... (202,000). As a crude ranking these took no account of other language editions and other factors. The results were used to order the reports so as to enable those ranked highest to appear in any polyhedral display of the lowest complexity -- as indicated in the screen shot on the left below -- with others in the "cloud" surrounding it. Using a more complex polyhedron, most in the cloud were incorporated into that configuration as shown below light.

Coherence of Club of Rome preoccupations as indicated experimentally by use of force-directed display
Coherence via a cube	Coherence via a snub dodecahedron

Interactive variant	Interactive variant

Double-clicking on the nodes in the interactive variants provide access to the report in question (where available) or -- more typically -- to a summary of it. As indicated above, such displays call for much further refinement (with far greater technical expertise) in terms of readability, comprehensibility and aesthetic appeal -- from a design perspective.

Totalling 64 reports in the dataset, there is a delightful irony to any "correspondence" with the 64 conditions of the Yi Jing featuring in a previously mentioned experiment. Given the conclusion in that case to use as polyhedron the 4-frequency octahedral geodesic sphere (66 vertexes; 192 edges), that is also offered as a possibility for the set of Club of Rome reports (Experimental Polyhedral Configuration of 66 Club of Rome-related Documents) -- with 2 named as "undefined".

Application to a 5-fold strategy?: The use of this approach is most readily adaptable to even numbered sets of preoccupations, therefore challenging its relevance to odd-numbered preoccupations. This is especially obvious in the focus on 5-fold strategic preoccupations, as discussed separately (Requisite dimensionality: coherence in 4-fold, 5-fold or 6-fold terms? 2023).

Examples of 5-fold articulations are also presented in that context as instances of Five Principles of Strategic Communication. They include the 5 Turnarounds of Earth4All (to create wellbeing for all), 5 Dimensions of Inner Development Goals, 5-fold Viable System Model, Chinese 5-phase Wuxing cycle, the Hygieia Pentagram of Pythagoreans, . Buddhism distinguishes a 5-fold a set of hindrances (Kleshas): ignorance, attachment, aversion, pride, jealousy. A 5-fold set tends to be presented in 2D as a pentagram of some kind.

As with the US Pentagon and the 5-pointed Star of Islam, it can be asked how the coherence offered by this pattern could be rendered otherwise -- notably in 3D or even 4D (Envisaging NATO Otherwise -- in 3D and 4D?: potentially hidden faces of global strategy highlighted through polyhedra, 2017). As discussed there, is there a credible Reframing NATO and The Pentagon?

Application of a force-directed polyhedral approach to a 5-fold articulation calls for preliminary consideration of 5-fold polyhedra -- especially given the probability that 5-fold strategies may be further articulated calling for polyhedra of greater complexity. One indication, for example, is the possibility that the 5-fold pattern might be mapped 12-fold onto the 12 faces of a dodecahedron of 20 vertexes, consistent with other recognized patterns of strategies, rules, methods and insights (Requisite 20-fold Articulation of Operative Insights? 2018).

Rather than the polyhedra used for this exercise, candidates for representation of a 5-fold initiative include the 8 edged square pyramid and the 9-edged triangular dipyramid. What might these suggest for strategic exploration of the Club of Rome's "5 turnarounds" -- framed as the five extraordinary turnarounds to achieve the Giant Leap scenario? (as presented below left). These can be contrasted with its convocation of leading economic thinkers in the Transformational Economics Commission to explore new economic paradigms (as presented below right).

Earth4All initiative of Club of Rome
5 turnarounds	Transformational economics

Reproduced from Earth4All

The fundamental implication of the iconography above is the transformation from a 5-fold to a 6-fold pattern, however that is to be understood -- as previously argued with respect to the symbolism of conflict in the Middle East (Middle East Peace Potential through Dynamics in Spherical Geometry, 2012). This focused on engendering connectivity from incommensurable 5-fold and 6-fold conceptual frameworks. Of potential significance to any such transformation in the Earth4All framing is the fact that in geometric terms (as indicated below) the triangular dipyramid (mapping the 5 turnarounds) is the dual of the triangular prism (mapping the 6 transformations). The obvious geometrical mirroring of the square pyramid in the octahedron also calls for commentary.

5-fold Polyhedral configuration of 5 turnarounds		6-fold Polyhedral configuration of transformational economics
Triangular dipyramid (5 vertexes; 9 edges)	Square pyramid (5-vertexes; 8 edges)	Triangular prism (6 vertexes; 9 edges)	Octahedron (6 vertexes; 12 edges)

Animations prepared with Stella 4D

As a strategy deemed fundamental to current crises of global governance, key categories featured in the depictions above are however questionable. For example, it is unfortunate that focus is given to the "doughnut model", both in the light of its typical 2D depiction and as emblematic of the economics of fast food consumerism which it is hoped to transcend. This can be argued with respect to both a psychological reframing of that model and the merits of a 3D "pineapple model", for example (Exploring the Hidden Mysteries of Oxfam's Doughnut, 2012; Integrating the doughnut, helix and pineapple models towards global strategic coherence, 2020).

Given the focus by Earth4All on the 2D iconography required by many media, it may be provocatively suggested that this reinforces a "flat earth" perspective when any global strategy necessarily calls for engagement with a "global" 3D perspective -- challenging the limitations of 2D understanding..

With the emphasis of Earth4All on economics, potentially far more problematic is the manner in which this is considered fundamental to issues relating to the environment. The problem is highlighted by the fact that economics has traditionally been challenged by recognition of any work which is held to be undetectably remunerated -- as in the case of housework, gardening, crime, prisoners, voluntary work, and the like, all variously vital to the dynamics of social systems in practice. This deficiency is even more regrettable in the failure of "ecological economics" to recognize the work done by non-human species and by natural processes -- as is evident from the focus of the many references to "work" in the extensive summary of that discipline in Wikipedia. Held to be unremunerated, bees, ants, spiders, worms, and the like, are not understood to "work" or to be "employed" -- as with slaves and "beasts of burden".

All non-human "actors" in the global ecosystem are consequently held to be "unemployed". Ironically this justifies the negligence of the International Labour Organization with respect to any "environmental workforce". The "4All" of Earth4All implies humanity alone. The expertise assembled would seem to have a blindspot with respect to its exclusion of the myriad species and processes on which humanity is otherwise recognized to be dependent. "Work" is however recognized more generally by thermodynamics -- a discipline of considerable relevance to climate change and presumably to the energy focus of Earth4All.