Stephen Downes

This is an interesting framework representing how systems become less connected with reality over time. "Reality becomes compressed into metrics, optimization systems, representations, and narratives..." writes A. Jacobs. "Representation and optimization make reality easier to use while weakening semantic fidelity... reality is compressed through science, institutions, media, public narrative, and individual belief... systems become more internally consistent as contact with original conditions weakens." I think there's something to this; certainly the emphasis on formal metrics obscures complexity, which results in increasing abstraction away from that complexity. Whether we're talking about 'reality' and 'systems', or just a formal property of abstraction, could be a matter for debate.