How to Deal With the Concept of Average in a Complex World

In a complex system, wide distributions rule. The more complex, the wider the distribution and in particular the ‘long tail’ of the distribution. As our world becomes more and more complex, the concept of average disappears.

We know for some time that extreme events shape our environment: storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis have instant transformation power, changing our environment more in a few minutes than changes brought slowly in decades. It is the same when it comes to financial crisis or bankruptcies of companies. A sudden, extreme event challenges the normal.

Increased complexity also creates the increasing disparity in wealth and revenue, making the concept of average or median a much less useful concept. In fact as this entertaining article ‘On Average‘ shows, the concept of average might have been useful but has had adverse consequences before ergonomics was invented to allow to adapt our immediate environment to our personal particulars. The anecdote of the consequences of the concept on the death rate of military pilots is particularly enlightening.

Average is not useful concept. Let’s ditch it to favor more realistic concepts. Average was a concept of the Industrial Age. Today, large spreads and change through extremes is the norm.