How Chaos Theory Explains Trump’s Rise To Power | Amanpour and Company
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- Опубліковано 2 чер 2024
- In his new book, political scientist Brian Klaas asks whether every move we make could potentially produce a domino effect. With reference to the mathematical concept of chaos theory, Klaas draws attention to the fact that small, seemingly trivial events can have far-reaching consequences. The author speaks with Walter Isaacson about his belief that randomness shapes our world, from personal circumstances to geopolitical events.
Originally aired on February 6, 2024
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Amanpour and Company features wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with global thought leaders and cultural influencers on the issues and trends impacting the world each day, from politics, business and technology to arts, science and sports. Christiane Amanpour leads the conversation on global and domestic news from London with contributions by prominent journalists Walter Isaacson, Michel Martin, Alicia Menendez and Hari Sreenivasan from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center in New York City.
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The scathing joke at the WHCD was by Seth Meyers, not Obama. The joke was, "Donald Trump has been saying he would run as a Republican, which is surprising, because I assumed he was running as a joke."
That's true, but Obama also mocked him as a "carnival barker." Don't forget that he was already pushing the birther conspiracy, and Obama was eager to delegitimize that.
@@rickknight1810
Yes, if memory serves, that WHCD was a day or two after Obama had released the "Long Form" of his Hawaii Birth Certificate.
He literally had to send an Aide to Hawaii to get the thing and bring it to DC, where everyone, including "the Donald", could see that Obama was "Born in the USA"!
And Obama said, now that the Birther Issue is no more, "Trump can focus on the 'real important things', like "Who Faked the Moon Landing?" and "Who killed Biggie Smalls?"
Trump is the world's biggest snowflake
But Trump actually IS a running joke!!
That's wild. Just talking to wife today about that. Couldn't remember who made the joke. Thanks.
We need more smart, insightful people like this in our public discourse.
In Congress
Anyone can be a senator or even president, unfortunately.
Finally!!! Solid journalism. I have been missing Harry Reasoner, and Charlie Rose type interviews
Charlie Rose? I found that the man would never shut up. He kept interjecting while interviewing.
@@nsnopperNON STOP interjections from Chuck Rose👏👏👏👏👏👏mmm hmm
@@nsnopperand a very abrasive cadence of speech
It's called "iambic pentameter" Rose!!! Even English should be mellifluous goddamn it!
@@ttacking_you"Iambic pantameeter"... Philomena Cunk 😉
Wonderful geeky explanation of ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’
I agree whole-heartedly with the idea that we don't have enough slack in our day to day support systems that leaves us vulnerable to fluke events. My career was as a logistician and in my time, we moved from "just in case" inventory and support to "just in time" lean logistics. That makes for very cost-efficient systems, but the high level of optimization also makes them vulnerable to rapid failures when the unexpected occurs. Now we have just lived through supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic, a low likelihood, but high impact event. Others lurk out there if we don't build "shock absorbers" into the many critical systems we rely upon for day to day living.
The place where people fail with JIT is not having robust predictive algorithms to keep that just in time supply flow at the appropriate levels at all times even during peaks and valleys in demand. You can't have a fully integrated just in time soupy chain because demand ebbs and flows so you need to have the slack to upramp or downramp production, or distribute more or fewer at any given moment.
I believe that years ago Amazon experimented with having the most commonly ordered products constantly in motion toward the "last mile" facility even before the items were ordered so that an item ordered at 3 pm today could be delivered by noon tomorrow. At a post office they might receive five boxes of copy paper on Monday because on Mondays at least five boxes get ordered, so the moment someone orders one on monday, they are already unloading a case of five boxes of copy paper.
I think they built a more robust delivery network in the meantime, but in the early days they relied heavily on jit to accomplish next day delivery.
Relative to the broader implications of the topic at hand, I think of my daughter working at a grocery store for the first time. All her coworkers, both young and older, are dispirited and dejected, feeling trapped by their own lack of opportunities in a soulless job that pays very little. They are berated to hurry, hurry, hurry to get the shelves stocked as quickly as possible and then all come in early (5 am) to do inventory once a month; there are companies you pay to do inventory, but the store owners are too cheap to pay for such. Then the flu or COVID gets passed around and the remaining employees are berated to complete what is needed with only half the workers. There's no shock absorbers at all in the already stressed day to day operations; to ask more is impossible.
Our country is that grocery store. Employees quit, move on, or deal with their lost souls with alcohol, drugs, pent up anger, hatred, even suicide, etc. The pot eventually boils over either by unionizing, if they can make that happen, or by killing the business. There's no need for extreme efficiencies to make the very few rich. Government needs to regulate the economy more aggressively, but the rich bribe government people to maintain the status quo and we, the people are powerless.
So true! Grocery chains...a giant pile of sand.
Very true - I also think that our world - is constructed in such a way that efficiency is always valued the highest and I think there are instances where that is not always the case.
@@virginiamoss7045 You nailed it IMO Virginia
Excellent presentation, such good questions and insightful answers, I think the guest speaker is brilliant. Yes to "pattern seeking machines" I really enjoyed this, thank you PBS and Amanpour.
What a brilliant mind. Whether he's correct or not, he moves from one innovative idea to the next without skipping a beat. Leaves us with so much to keep reflecting upon after 18 minutes.
It is a trail of inductive reasoning explored and researched in good faith. Being correct or not doesn't really enter into it. It is a possible model and therefore useful as a tool. A heuristic.
His arguments about the vulnerabilities of "creating a world of less slack" reminds me of Nassim Taleb's book Anti-Fragile.
It’s an old saying: “if you can’t convince them, confuse them!”
Then they go around in circles. Clever strategy, lest we all become enlightened.
wow!
@@user-gl9jd3ih8h that is a perfect description of " Chaos" .
@@UnashamedCaliforniagirl thanks. Maybe I should have added, "divide and conquer"! Warm greetings from Australia 🦘 Have a beautiful, holy Easter.
Love this guy. Understands how conspiracy theories affect a lot.
When the majority of "conspiracy theories" true out to be true then they aren't conspiracy theories. This is why elites called people conspiracy theorists when they try to push back against media's lies.
But srsly tho have you seen the Detroit Lions at Dallas ever
No slack; highly optimized; finely tuned to control an unstable situation; tall sand pile: these clearly describe many commercial and government enterprises today. Inequality and oppression is a source of "free energy" (borrowing a term from thermodynamics). If any one thinks that inequality can be sustained by secret police, barriers, walls, surveillance cameras, torture, etc. (China, Israel, East Germany) are in for a rude awakening at some point. Other situations are high debt, highly leveraged companies, and optimizing efficiency with little slack for safety (Boeing).
Good point except there is only east Germany as geographically distinct from west Germany, but they are still one country. It is the most conservative east Germany that poses a risk of instability in politics in the future and that may be imminent as Germany is in serious financial decline unlike anything they have seen for some time. This further threatened to destabilize the EU as the Euro has now dropped to equal the US dollar.
Get YOUR ENERGY Back. In your hands. Buy NonETF bitcoin and cold wallet it. Let it grow as the dollar dies. Tml
And yet, we're getting ready to try it here in THIS country next year!
I am not sure if Dr. Klass realizes that what he discovered is a well established principle of sociology, that the more complex and technically advanced a society is the more susceptible it is to being disrupted.
Finally someone has hit the nail on the head: Any idiot that can use a mobile phone can be a journalist, editor, and publisher all-in-one without any capacity to be any of them.
Finally? That's hardly a novel insight.
Hmm......you must've gotten that straight from Tucker Carlson's bio!!
Citizen journalism sounded good in theory. It doesn't account for the vast numbers of people who view everything as an opportunity to exploit. Naomi Klein really understand this "shock doctrine" approach.
I wrote several PHP modules for WordPress that use chat gpt to act as editors, writers and and researchers to build files that become articles. I input a word or phrase and the end result is a factual article published on a website.
Honestly, I believe these scripts do a better job of writing articles than most people. If you read any of them you would probably not realize they were totally computer generated.
Not to mention all the armchair econ and foreign relation experts...
Excellent points
Excellent questions. Good answers.
Isaacson is brilliant
Excellent food for thought. Bravo!!!
I love chaos theory. Tipping points, phase shifts, butterfly effects, chaos, flow, thresholds. To paraphrase the author, "Noise was never irrelevant."
Cross discipline understanding, for example, chaos theory, mathematical theory and the social sciences, is a necessity for our understanding and our adaptation. Newtonian determinism never fully fit the bill.
"Humans are pattern detection machines.". Brilliantly simple explanation with which I couldn't agree more. Sometimes our pattern recognition is false which creates behavioral and societal problems, cognitive dissonance and logical fallacies, prejudiced if you will, but that's a whole other discussion. Certainly our pattern recognition systems can easily create chaos all by itself.
Please note: This is also an explanation of why democracy is so important. Can democracies be wrong? Well, yes. But one factor that democracy introduces into political systems is a monitoring of the effect of government on people and their lives. People, like organisms and ecosystems, the same for governments, must adapt. A lack of adaptation is stagnation. Stagnation cannot adapt to change which inevitably leads to systemic or ecological collapse, extinction, incrementally induced chaos, if you will. All legislation must be continuously monitored and changed to adapt. This concept was explored by Michael Crichton in his explanation on why climate science regulations needed to be constantly monitored to see the extraneous effects caused by the legislation. Democracies are, by nature, legislation monitoring systems.
The forces preventing healthy adaptation are also potent factors in creating systemic stress and potential chaotic collapse. Another brilliant insight by the speaker in the video, to paraphrase,"the past cannot necessarily present a solution for the present and the future; AI can only fully evaluate closed systems." This isn't to say that the past can never offer solutions, only that solutions must be based on the stress or relief of stress these solutions introduce into the system.
In college I read all of Herman Wouk. The Winds of War about war in the Pacific was amazing. A lot of it was a fluke after grand planning. Not what intended but somehow we survived. I'm 74 now and this is still with me. Needing or believing in control has consequences. We now know DNA is fluid. How we live matters.
That was one of the books I also read in college. It is still influencing my thinking. I'm 73 years old -- that was some book! 😊
Excellent guest, thank you.
Brilliant. The only thing I disagree with is at the very end when he says, “we need to have a little less hubris.” In fact we need to have a lot less hubris, not a little.
Like that train wreck a couple years ago….the company was down to 2 employees per train with trains running all day everyday, so the one fluke was catastrophic.
This is brilliant
Excellent part at 8 min on the persistence/appeal of conspiracy theories (our brain's predilection to search for patterns/stitch together narratives out of random events). Also how social media algorithms amplify conspiracy theories.
Isaacson is a great interviewer--and author of course.
What a fascinating discussion with a very good guest! He makes so much sense of describing the rise and spread of conspiracy theories. I live in the Midwest, and people here accept those absurd theories because they have been searching for decades for the cause of so many industries moving out of our part of the country, leaving millions in financial distress. Even I have wondered why no political figure realized the hornet's nest that was being built here simply because of that. Hopeless people always seek answers, but they often don't get the correct ones. Too often, they become vulnerable to false notions, some of which will actually harm them. In the case of the "Rust Belt", no one seemed to care about the millions of people being left behind. THAT was the danger - and the shame of our government - which permitted MAGA and Trump to appear and take hold, even of their minds.
It was known - you might not have been aware of it. If you were around or can recall the 1992 presidential election - that Bill Clinton defeated George HW Bush. there was a 3rd Party candidate that was a populist hero - Ross Perot - he was the grandfather of the Trump candidacy in a way - except he was much more about practical solutions. One of the major concerns of that election was - Trade - specifically - NAFTA - North American Free Trade Agreement. It was initiated by the Bush Administration, implemented by the Clinton administration - the result was removal of tariffs from the respective countries - encouraging wider scale trade. Ross Perot said during the debates that if NAFTA were to be implemented - "all you will hear is a giant sucking sound" what he meant was the evaporation of the manufacturing sector jobs from the United States. That is of course exactly what happened. The so called "rust belt" was classic middle America where those manufacturing skilled and unskilled jobs had been the norm for several generations - are what created the conditions for Americans to turn to someone like Trump for President. It did not help that his opponent was the wife of the president at the time when NAFTA was instituted. Again people falsely blame Clinton administration for creating NAFTA - they didn't but they did not stop it either - and when that happened - the democratic party lost its connection to "working people " that really they have never recovered from.
Chaos theory is a useful way to examine any and all social change, for better or for worse. As far as I know Rianne Eisler was the first to do this in her 1987 book The Chalice And The Blade. Strange attractors and equilibrium disruptions... Suddenly a seemingly insignificant or even unknown attractor becomes a steady attractor by virtue of being in the vicinity at the time of equilibrium disruption. We spend a lot of time talking about History and Progress and Society in ways that don't track with reality when we examine all known factors and allow for unknown factors.
Nice interview with #BrianKlaas. Sounds like a great book. Associative thinker!
There are similarities here to Gunderson and Holling’s Panarchy Theory. A hierarchical model seeking to explain how complex systems adapt at various spatiotemporal scales. The model consists of four “phases” where the system acts in a distinct way to either structure, collapse, or reorganize itself.
Brilliant!
Very insightful and clearly articulated in response to some great questions!
This is brilliant. So many political events can be based on chaos theory and I think the Fluke analysis can be applied to the modern motivational obsession: - 'life is how you make it' 'if you work hard you'll be successful, rich, etc' - when much of life is down to sheer luck and chance. To quote John Lennon: “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans."
'There is no story'. As a terrible story teller, this is heartening. Though, if someone is good at spinning a yarn, with just enough truth (or fact) in it, the effect can be far reaching, for ill or good.
I dig Klaas' juxtaposition of the discovery of fire with AI in the implication that it is like fire a discovery with it's black boxed machine learning nursery and not an invention, but the 'great man of history' notes he's hitting seem problematic.
Very good interview. Can’t wait to read this book.
Also look at his book , Corruptible
As I always ask the universe: "Aye, cut me some slack!" Great interview, thank you.
Maybe I’ve become dull, but this seems more like a book to produce a (lucrative) look. Something brilliant, somehow, gets forgotten quickly and then Kanye West is back in the news making more of an impact than this scholar. I guess that could be explained by chaos theory too - I mean, what isn’t?
This is an elemental understanding that I think is necessary going forward in this uncertain world. Brian Klaas talks about the need for slack in the world to reduce the possibility of flukes that can be so disruptive. Klaas used the example of how different it might have been if the people had been validated for their concerns about not being heard in relation to a host of issues. Then trump would have had no opportunity to come in with his rhetoric that he heard the complaints about the average person.
trump never intended to really follow through with policy to help the mass of people that he really cared, but his stance got him elected because of his constant attacks on the establishment and the rhetoric about concern for the people. . But since trump made everything he did about himself nothing was ever done for the greivances of the middle class.
Ultimately, it was a lost opportunity because if trump's actions had reflected his rhetoric he could made huge changes in society. This is a point all politicians could learn from. And it behooves all of to look at this organisations that seem wrapped to tight or functioning within a very tight profit margins that are at risk for random fluke event which can be a godsend to use a metaphor or destroy the organisation. With a little thought many examples of both come to mind in addition what was mentioned in this video.
“This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”
- Steve Bannon
When he spoke of the poor Tunisian guy who set himself on fire, "igniting" the Arab Spring, I thought of some lines from Longfellows Poem ("The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere"):
". . .and beneath, from the pebbles in passing, a Spark,
struck out by a Steed flying fearless and fleet.
.. . .and yet, through the Gloom and the Night,
The fate of a Nation was riding that Night.
And the Spark struck out by that Steed in its flight,
kindled the land into flame with its heat.. . . "
(if memory serves)
Of course, the American Revolution was somewhat more "controlled" than the "Arab Spring".
With regard to Brian Klass mentioning how our world is "wired" differently", for Flukes to have a greater effect, there is this from Chapter 12 of the Book of Daniel:
Daniel tells the Angel Gabriel : "But Lord, I do not understand these words."
Gabriel tells him:
"Go your way, Daniel, for the meaning of the words of Prophecy
is hidden until the End Times.
"Many will travel about and knowledge will increase. . . .
"Go now, and rise for your reward at the End of Days".
Circa 530 BC/ BCE
Clarity is a wonderful tool.
Great show. I wish the problem that the US tendency to be more religious and rely on non-evidentiary reasoning (e.g., faith) is also a contribution to the proliferation of conspiracy theories.
There is a lot of merit to what you are saying - remember the whole idea is trying to satisfy a very important human need to be able to understand the world around us. We have developed models that we believe do a good job at predicting outcomes - and that gives society enough confidence to go out and try their best at life. When those models fail - there are a contingent that like to attribute it to their all- knowing sky daddy. They don't like science or logic - or masks or vaccines - all their faith is in their sky daddy after all he knows better than us after all. The more darker spirited of that crowd - tend to believe it is some dark alien force is enacting some causes that we do not know about - but they do - and they are the real cause
Brian Klaas wrote another fascinating book called “Corruptible: who gets power and how it changes us.” Highly recommend 🌟
Thank you - I will read the book. Terrific interview.
I just purchased the audiobook. I look forward to reading this. I have been attributing the chaos today to the developing dynamics of modern communication technology. Yes, we are “ pattern detection machines”.
Yep. Smartphones, the widespread adoption of social media and recommendation algorithms have turned our world into a modern tower of Babel where everyone is producing content to be consumed for dopamine huts
Definition of Fluke: Sometimes low probability shite happens.
😂😂😂😂
great discussion. ty both
Liked and shared this gem of a video.
Brian Klauss never disappoints.
Very interesting.
Thank you.
Observing the situation that the US finds itself in, where truth seems arbitrary and news can be manipulated so easily, it’s scary to think how we will respond to a “real” and serious world event in the future…
the movie "Don't Look Up" is a perfect example of how we'll respond to a serious threat
like climate change? as if you arent scared already
Outstanding!! Ordering book NOW!
Also look at his book , Corruptible.
Very good writer
Thx!! @@whazzat8015
It’s a fantastic book! He is a really good writer.
Sooo powerful and important! Thank you!!
Excellent interview! Thank you.
Very interesting video
Smart young man. I look forward to reading, and hearing more from him.
Don't shrink the facts to fit the theory, shrink the theory to fit the facts.
Great video
Excellent talk. Thanks.
Fascinating!! Thanks!!
Awesome insights to which I agree.
Ilya Prigogine won a Nobel Prize for proving "importation and dissipation of energy into chemical systems could result in the emergence of new structures (hence dissipative structures) due to internal self reorganization." Seems like its that marginal addition of energy that turns a system of randomness into one of structure, turning energy into order.
If only we could all use our words as eloquently and effectively as those speaking in this vid, did…ty for sharing.
Saw this episode and waiting for the book to be delivered ..
This guy overestimates these events. There are underlying processes that aren’t nearly as random
He did talk about the pile of sand element, the complexity of context, in his example, the resentment in the country.
True. I’d go so far to say those underlying processes have been there before, sometimes inert. And that some those underlying processes were directly created.
Great video, I learned something :)
Thank you. Loved the book. Great examples.
Excellent discussion
Political butterflies. Excellent interview.
We need a formal measure of how precarious a sand pile has become.
The sand pile condition determines what will happen - the fluke determines when or where an event starts.
This means our means of predicting the future is in measuring the stability of "sand piles".
I look forward to reading this.
Fascinating! I bought the book.
This is absolutely brilliant.
Thank you
Excellent interview. The book sounds very interesting...
Wow, love these interviews! Brian Klass points were exactly how the world feels to me: it’s a hinge-point in history now, if any extraordinary event occurred now, it would not surprise many in tune with geopolitics or socioeconomics, etc. I really thought the sand pile was a good metaphor, and also his statement “there is no ‘slack’ in the system.” An example of a fluke event to me was the laker ship the Edmund Fitzgerald; most people don’t realize it was built to the longest length possible for Great Lakes shipping, which made it even look vulnerable- they still don’t know if it snapped in half or got waterlogged. Again, with its length, it created the sand pile scenario, and the Lake Superior event caused the catastrophe- but there was also ‘no slack’ in the length of the ship which made it more precarious than a shorter vessel.
Another volume for the bookshelves.
Very intriguing.
Right. If Bilbo had not picked up the ring in the dark, LOTR would never had happened.
Love this !!
Very interesting interview. I have already lived a number of flukes that changed my life dramatically for the better. Hoping to avoid bad ones but I suppose some are inevitable over time.
Insightful.
Its a brilliant read - We control nothing but influence everything and changing anything, changes everything, so everything you do matters.
I love when someone puts order to a feeling that I've had. I always kind of thought that certain key moments were bound to happen, it's just a matter of who falls upon it first. it's not true for everything, like penicillin, but for a lot of things.
Wonderful👋👋👋
None of this is actually dicussing choas theory. Bait and switch.
Sensitive dependence on a small event within a dynamic system. I guess he could have defined chaos theory
Conspiracy theories happen mostly where people lose trust and become a bit paranoid. And there are especially many reasons to lose trust in the US where corporate interests rule so much. Politicians just use the distrust to support their own interests.
trump is an example of using conspiracy theory to both trigger more distrust in government and the perceived opposition which in turn benefits his own self-interest.
@@michaeldeierhoi4096 Yes, very much.
@@michaeldeierhoi4096 yes that is true - but you have to realize that he is a little different - in that he is a malignant narcissitic sociopath - he lies like you or I breathe - with people like that - it is inconceivable that everyone else is not lying, cheating also - I am pretty certain he actually believes that. He has a very warped perception of reality and conspiracy theories can be very useful to create doubt and give him an advantage.
@@pjpredhomme7699 I can't argue with what you say and he is a clear example of someone who must be removed from society because of his drive to divide and misinform people which creates a mob-like mentality in people. And many of those most on the fringe of that 'mob' are the ones who are more likely to commit violent acts e.g. The attack on Many Pelosi's husband.
A grain of sand, gust of wind, slight tremor- all interchangeble catalysts for the same sandpile- not a fluke if the sandpile is at the tipping point. Sandpiles are unstable.
I knew he was going to say " Princess Diana" 😂
Please put the full name of the book and author in the video description
It's also a small flatworm that lives as a parasite inside or on the body of another animal, and can cause disease.
and part of a whale's tail. Not sure how the author's use of the term developed.
I could not agree more!
Horseshit, Chaos theory doesn't explain the rise of authoritarians. It is simply exploitation of our evolutionary inclinations to form tribes. When environmental stressors rise, so does tribalism. Religion and authoritarians are simply the most successful tribal organizing forces in human history. Tribes require alternative truths to differentiate and tribal membership has been a life or death choice since before we left the trees. That's all there is to it. Only critical thinking skills taught in K thru 12 would give us any chance to avoid tribal pitfalls and the ability to face global threats.
In chaos (systems) theory, these are mechanics applied at nodes (events in time and place), which in turn create dynamics. So yes, you just described causality in an open system. And I agree, teaching critical thinking in schools in a democracy that educates everyone is an important systems intervention.
Its a tool; "just say you are opening an investigation and leave the rest to me and my congress ppl to do the rest"
Gets the Lie out first so Truth has to be defended, the weaker stance. Tell ppl you are for something and then tell them you didnt mean what you said "it was a joke". As a civilian, tell congress how to kill a bill in order for that civilian to use as an attack on the incumbent president. Say outloud " I hope the economy Tanks this year " by the person who thinks he is the Only one who can fix it, Tweets messages of threats and how he is the victim as he names ppl for his followers to attack and threaten........a tool to use as a means
Your theory and Brian’s theory don’t exclude one another, they are rather completing each other.
The Tipping Point was a book
Already written. That particular avalanche was already produced.
“For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.” -James 3:16
Humans also have the ability to think rationally. We have the ability to rationally assess a situation, rationally assess information. We are not innocent victims of conspiracy theories, we are choosing. It's also related to emotions, mainly anger and fear. But again, rational thought is the other option.
Brilliant
That was an exceptional roller coaster of a ride. Klaas is right that there is a massive difference between closed cause-and-effect systems which math and physics traditionally deal with quite successfully because those systems are relatively static and therefore quite predictable and open biotic systems which need an understanding of self-organisation within biology, ecology, anthropology, ethology, zoology, botany etc because they are all rubbing up against each other in unforeseen ways within Life-support environments which are also constantly changing that between all their inter-activity can produce quite unpredictable outcomes. That is, the past and the future are indeed not aligned - the future is evolving away from the past with unforeseen step-changes along the away.
Our obsession with control is also a problem especially since we no longer have mutually supporting communities in which cooperative collaboration ensured that humans over the last million years or so have been able to secure their relative continuity in spite of changes around them and without needing any top-down control.
I have 1 huge difference w most sports fans; luck definitely plays a part in most games but most fans either deny it plays any part or they think it’s very minor. Obviously how many of luck in games varies a lot but just don’t pretend it’s a non-factor
It was deliberate.
What creates the sandpile though? From my experience, it seems to be a point where enough people have the same complaint...they are struggling to survive and see no hope to change this. When they are tired of those who have deemed themselves "superior" to them continually striving to survive at their expense. People will only tolerate so much exploitation for so long. Problem is, they know they don't like it. They rarely understand why it exists in the first place to change it. Too many believe in the illusion that it is a default function of human behavior. Not really. It is simply the response to a threat that carries the least cognitive load.
Class struggle endemic to the socioeconomic system imho-good point to bring up!