09.《规模》The Scale

This time we are talking about Scale.
Understanding China from the perspective of The Scale. The explanations are, I think, very powerful and inspiring. For example, it is because of China's size that it has been possible to preserve Chinese civilisation, which has continued to flow for 5,000 years. The continuity of Chinese civilisation is closely related to the sheer size, diversity and complexity of the country.
 Another example is that China's high population base and large market have given the Chinese supply chain a solid foundation, but due to the uncertainty of market demand, especially the need to respond flexibly to small orders for production abroad. The Chinese supply chain is then constantly subdivided into countless Lego blocks. Even if there are large changes in the market, these tiny companies are able to transform themselves flexibly, creating a highly dynamic and diverse organisation.
 This is looking at the country through the lens of scale.
And to take that perspective and make another migration. Look at companies through the lens of size and you find that size is also a factor that cannot be ignored for a company. The level of complexity that a system can accommodate is what really makes the organisation worthwhile. But if the complexity is internalised in a system, such as a business or a team, then internal friction can instead drain the dynamism from it. This is the difference between spontaneity and coercion, that is to say, dynamism is not designed, it is grown.
 I think the inspiration of this passage is that complexity is a result of natural evolution, and it is difficult to design it deliberately. If we had to define a starting point for complexity, it would be inclusion. That is, an environment that embraces diversity and includes everyone. Then complexity will emerge naturally.
 First of all, to understand emergence, we need to know that the whole is not the sum of its parts. There are many complex systems in the world, such as living organisms, where the function of the parts coming together does not equal the function of the whole. Humans recognise that improving the performance of the whole is far more than simply improving the performance of each part. For example, an Apple phone is not necessarily better than its competitors' when each part is taken apart, but its overall performance is outstanding. Similarly, improving overall performance is not possible by changing all parts at the same time, but also requires incremental changes, part by part. Given limited resources and time, the law of how to decide what to change first and what to keep for the time being is Amdahl's Law. That is, the high-impact bottlenecks that lie on the critical path are addressed first.
 Emergence is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the whole presents a level higher than the parts. It is when a bunch of things come together, and at a higher level, a completely new thing or phenomenon emerges. The ant society, for example, is an example of this emergence. Individual ants are so small that they do not have enough "brain capacity" to store complex intelligence and can only perform particularly simple actions. But if you look at the behaviour of an entire colony of ants, it is incredibly sophisticated and complex. Ants can build huge castles, have a clear division of labour, can gather and fight, and even engage in animal husbandry. An ant colony is not the simple sum of individual ants, you can even think of an ant colony as a separate intelligent being. Each ant has a low IQ, but once they form a colony, they exhibit a very high level of intelligence - this is called 'emergence'.
译文：
这回我们要说的是《规模》。
从《规模》的角度，去理解中国。我觉得，这些解释非常有力，也让人很受启发。比如，正是因为中国的大，才得以保存中华文明，5000年不断流。中华文明的延续，跟规模的庞大、多样性和复杂性，都有密切的关系。
 再比如，中国人口基数高，市场大，给中国供应链夯实了基础，但是由于市场需求的不确定性，特别是要灵活应对国外的小订单生产。中国的供应链就不断细分成无数的乐高积木块，就算市场有较大变化，这些微小企业也能灵活转型，形成了具有高活力的多样性组织。
 这是用规模的视角去看待国家。
而把这个视角做了另一种迁移。用规模的视角来看待公司，你会发现，对一个公司来说，规模也是一个不容忽视的因素。一个体系能容纳的复杂程度，是这个组织真正值得重视的。但是，假如把复杂程度内化到一个体系，比如一个企业、一个团队，那内部的摩擦反而会消耗其中的活力。这就是自发性和强制性的区别，也就是说，活力不是设计出来的，而是成长出来的。
 我觉得这段话的启发在于，复杂其实一个自然演化的结果，它是很难被刻意设计的。假如一定要给复杂定义一个起点的话，那么它应该是包容。也就是，有一个能够包容多样性的环境，把大家都纳入进来。然后复杂就会自然而然地涌现出来。
 首先，要理解涌现，我们得先知道，整体不等于部分之和。世界上有很多复杂的系统，比如生物体，部分的功能凑到一起不等于整体的功能。人类认识到提高整体性能，远不是简单提高每一个局部的性能就可以达到的。比如，苹果手机每一个部分拆下来并不一定比竞争对手的好，但是它整体的性能却很突出。同样，提高整体性能也不可能所有的部分同时改变，也需要一部分一部分渐进地改变。在资源和时间有限的条件下，如何决定先改变什么，暂时保留什么的规律就是阿姆达尔定律。即先解决影响大的，位于关键路径上的瓶颈问题。
 涌现就是整体大于部分之和，整体呈现了比部分高出一个层次的特征。就是当一堆事物聚集在一起的时候，在高一个层次，出现了一个全新的事物和现象。比如蚂蚁社会就是一个涌现的例子。单个蚂蚁那么小，“脑容量”根本不足以储存复杂的智慧，只能完成特别简单的动作。可是如果你观察整个蚁群的行为，却是无比精巧和复杂。蚂蚁能修筑庞大的城堡，有明确的分工，能采集能战斗，甚至还搞了畜牧业。蚁群不等于单个蚂蚁的简单相加，你甚至可以把蚁群想象成一个独立的智能生物。每一只蚂蚁的智商都不高，但是它们一旦组成了蚂蚁群落，却体现出极高的智能水平，这就是“涌现”。