e-Human Grid Ecology: Understanding and ...

e-Human Grid Ecology: Understanding and Approaching the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons in the e-Grid Society Tobias A. KNOCH a, c, 1, Volkmar BAUMGÄRTNER d, Luc V. de Zeeuw d, Frank G. Grosveld b and Kurt EGGER f a Biophysical Genomics & Erasmus Computing Grid, bDept. Cell Biology & Genetics, Erasmus MC, Dr. Molewaterplein 50, 3015 GE Rotterdam, The Netherlands. c Biophysical Genomics, Genome Organization & Function, BioQuant Centre / German Cancer Research Center, Im Neuenheimer Feld 267, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany. d Regionalverband Mittlerer Oberrhein, Baumeisterstr. 2, 76137 Karlsruhe, Germany. e Institute for Communication, Media & Information Technology, Hogeschool Rotterdam, G. J. de Jonghweg 4-6, 3015 GE Rotterdam, The Netherlands f Emeritus Institute for Plant Sciences, University of Heidelberg, Pleikartsförsterhof 2, 69124 Heidelberg, Germany. Abstract. With ever-new technologies emerging also the amount of information to be stored and processed is growing exponentially and is believed to be always at the limit. In contrast, however, huge resources are available in the IT sector alike e.g. the renewable energy sector, which are often even not at all used. This underusage bares any rational especially in the IT sector where e.g. virtualisation and grid approaches could be fast implemented due to the great technical and fast turnover opportunities. Here, we describe this obvious paradox for the first time as the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons, in contrast to the Classical Tragedy of the Commons where resources are overexploited. From this perspective the grid IT sector attempting to share resources for better efficiency, reveals two challenges leading to the heart of the paradox: i) From a macro perspective all grid infrastructures involve not only mere technical solutions but also dominantly all of the autopoietic social sub-systems ranging from religion to policy. ii) On the micro level the individual players and their psychology and risk behaviour are of major importance for acting within the macro autopoietic framework. Thus, the challenges of grid implementation are similar to those of e.g. climate protection. This is well described by the classic Human Ecology triangle and our extension to a rectangle: invironment-individual-society-environment. Extension of this classical interdisciplinary field of basic and applied research to an e-Human Grid Ecology rational, allows the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons of the grid sector to be understood and approached better and implies obvious guidelines in the day-today management for grid and other (networked) resources, which is of importance for many fields with similar paradoxes as in (e-)society. Keywords. Grid infrastructures, inverse tragedy of the commons, autopoietic subsystems, risk deep psychology e-society, e-human grid ecology. 1

Corresponding Author: [email protected]

Introduction With ever-new technologies emerging from research and development, the amount of information to be stored and processed is growing exponentially and believed to be always at the limit. IT has become the key to success in nearly all sectors of live with nearly complete dependence. Thus, currently, the demands of modern IT outweigh the used resources by far resulting especially in the public funded areas in a resources struggle for improved competitive advantage. Such limits of growth to resource usage as in IT are nothing new [1, 2] and are even a major driving force for evolution [3]. Also waste and pollution lead fast to existential sustainability questions, materialistic as well as cultural as e.g. in the climate challenge [4]. The so called (Classic) Tragedy of the Commons [5-10] describes this dilemma in which (multiple) independently acting individuals due to their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource although it is not in the long term community interest. Nevertheless, as a solution e.g. in IT huge resources exist which could be made available: Due to the pervasiveness of personal computers, their number has grown to >109 (100 times that of computing centers). Since their capacity is oriented on the peak performance, they are potentially available 99% of the time and could be used in such a highly networked environment by grid technologies. The monetary investment with all future costs have also already been made: In the case of e.g. the Erasmus Computing Grid [11] with ~15,000 PC (~30,000 cores, ~30 Tflops), i.e. a ~22 M
investment. Thus, in the notoriously under-funded public domain more efficient resource usage by means of grid is of major importance for the well being of society. Other complex examples are e.g. the integrated production in the chemical industry [12, 13] or sophisticated agro-forestry systems [14, 15], being considered one of the biggest cultural achievements [15]. In both cases the efficiency ratio input/output beats every other kind of process or management [16]. Therefore, we here approach the dare-to-share attitude and efficiency resistance to implement integrated holistic ecology like system strategies such as grid baring any obvious rational [17]. We identify this for the first time as the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons, i.e. resource under-exploitation. The grid challenges on the micro level of the individual and security/risk psychology [18] and the macro level of autopoietic social sub-systems [19-21] are combined. Alike climate protection challenges we extent the classical Human Ecology framework [22, 23] to invironment-individualsociety-environment and propose an e-Human Grid Ecology rational implying important guidelines for the day-to-day management of grids and thus the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons of grids and similar paradoxes as in (e-) society.

1. Organization of Grid Infrastructures and their Abstractions Since obviously huge resources available in IT alike the renewable energy sector, despite constant shortage claims, this paradoxical phenomenon can be approached by analysing successful grid infrastructures and their organization: The Erasmus Computing Grid (ECG) [11] exploits ~15,000 PC (~30,000 cores, ~30 Tflops) donated by the Erasmus Medical Center and the Hogeschool Rotterdam via the middleware CONDOR, a new management system and a central entry port – the Erasmus Computing Grid Office. In fact it is one of the largest desktop grids for the biomedical research, education and care sectors according to their mission donating

Erasmus Computing Grid

German MediGRID

10 BioMedical User Groups

Users

30 BioMedical User Groups

ECG Centralized Office

Organizing Broker Organization

Nationwide Distributed Office

Two Donor Organizations

Donor Organization

~ D-Grid Donor Organizations

~15.000 PC Owners i.e. Local PC Owners

Individual Donor

~10.000 Cluster Nodes ~5.000 Medically Secured

Figure 1. Abstraction of the Erasmus Computing Grid [11] and the German MediGRID [24-26] showing the four organization levels of grid infrastructures: i) users, ii) organizing broker organizations, iii) donor organizations, and iv) individual donors. Although, the details may vary the general structure leads to similar changes on the micro and macro level, which can be understood by the Human Ecology rectangle (5.), and thus explain in general the Inverse and Classical Tragedy of the Commons.

public organizations. Its aim is also to be in the future a general broker for computing resources also for industry and other sectors in a professional manner. MediGRID [24-26] with its services branch Services@MediGRID operate the biomedical research and care grid as one of the ~20 community grids of the nation wide German D-Grid. It is a virtual organization with different operational modules distributed within Germany. The mainly cluster resources are donated and maintained by local universities and connected by different middlewares with local and central access points/portals using high-security protocols under medical conditions. With ~30 groups of biomedical users around the world MediGRID is one of the most advanced HealthGrids combining storage, computing and visualizations in the biomedical research and care sectors [24-26]. Obviously, four levels of organization are involved (Figure 1) i) users, ii) organizing broker organizations, iii) donor organizations, and iv) individual donors. More abstract this means i) individuals and ii) associations to different degree on each of these four levels Consequently, there is a micro level from which a macro level emerges, having again an influence on the micro level. The micro level is constituted by an invironment and the macro level creates an environment, which already constitutes the Human Ecology rectangle to which we come back further below (5.).

2. The Inverse Tragedy of the Commons in Grid Infrastructures As the ECG and MediGRID show there are affluent resources being exploited successfully although ideal efficiencies by integrated holistic ecology like systems seem very hard to reach due to the slow emerging of grids. This is especially paradoxical in the IT sector with its huge technical and fast turnover opportunities. In the case of overexploitation as e.g. in the climate change dilemma the same abstraction into a micro and macro level (1.) and the Human Ecology rectangle (5.) can be made and is known as Classic Tragedy of the Commons [5-10]. Logically we denominate the under-exploitation as the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons (Figure 2):

The (Classic) Tragedy of the Commons: A resource belonging to all and being on limited demand is OVEREXPLOITED by the user due to responsibility diffusion! TRANSFORMATION :The INVERSE Tragedy of the Commons A resource belonging to all and being in affluent availability on limited demand is UNDEREXPLOITED by potential users due to responsibility diffusion!

This until now not theoretically caged phenomenon consequently describes exactly the complex interplay between the individual and the society as well as the invironment and environment with the same general aspect of responsibility diffusion and (severe) consequences for sustainable resource management. Also the psychological description for both the micro and the macro level hits the same archetypical traits (Figure 2). The under-used potentials and over-used resources show also clearly how from a virgin opportunity of the general resource basis, concrete objects emerge with their attached burden of limitation (Figure 2). Consequently, the complex emerging field, describes exactly the tension in resource limitation phenomena and evolutionary emergence. I.e. the phenomenological roots allow now completely new opportunities for understanding and the tool set for handling the sustainable creation and managements of grids.

3. The Grid Tragedy of Autopoietic Social Sub-Systems The challenge of integrating resources in a virtualized manner with its huge complexity of the macro sociality involves naturally all stakeholders of society (1., Figure 1) and thus can best be described by the complex interaction of autopoietic social sub-systems of Niklas Luhmann [20, 21] and based on the autopoietic concept of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela [19]. Since social systems are obviously systems of communication, many of the conundrums appearing during grid internalization become evident and involve all seven social sub-subsystems definable [21] reflecting the evolutionary emergence from deep psychology to society: i) religion, ii) education, iii) science, iv) art, v) economy, vi) jurisdiction, vii) policy. Since they all have an internal code of communication and different interfaces to other sub-systems huge incompatibility barriers emerge: e.g. between the religious code of (non-)believe, science code (non-)true, economic code (no-)money, and political code (non-)power. Since grids are part of the academic sector [11, 24-26], their internalization into society is immediately victim of what we define and call: The Tragedy of Autopoietic Social Sub-Systems Sub-systems have their own code of communication and are separated from each other in a way blocking in principle a consistent integration although they form a society with all their contradictions this leads to blockage of the system.

Consequently, the successful internalization of grids into society and hence their solution of the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons does clearly depend not only on a more or less complex technical solution but beyond on the participation of all subsystems and the communication with the different stakeholders with stakeholder of other sub-systems. This results consequently in obvious approaches for the sustainable creation and management of grids, i.e. the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons can be understood as the Classic one as social challenge with the opportunity to be resolved.

Inverse Tragedy of the Commons hedonists cool calculating tragic hopeless Under - Exploitation General Basis matter energy information biological psychological societal

Under-Used Potentials

Over-Used Resources

Concrete Objects materials reservoirs memes organisms behaviours cultures

Over-Exploitation indiverent hedonists careless players chronic overstrained Classic Tragedy of the Commons

Figure 2. Generalization of the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons: the classic and inverse tragedy are directly complementary and can on the deep psychology level be associated with complementary archetypical behavioral traits. This is in line with the complementary under-used potentials and over-used resources, which emerge from the potentials by freezing of potentials into concrete objects with corresponding limits.

4. The Grid Tragedy of Security/Risk Psychology Due to the evolutionary emergence of the macro level from the micro level [18] and since every introduction of a new technology is judged by the profit/risk ratio of individuals with own altruism degree, the successful sharing of resources and the commitment beyond the own job/agenda and the own institution, leads even in clear win-win situations without incentive structures this to personal responsibility diffusion. Especially in grids the goals are often hard to communicate and the individual profit/risk matrix is tightly connected to social sub-systems: The Deep Psychology Security/Risk Cascade:

: Autopoietic Sub-System Correspondence

emotional individual security/risk perception rational security/risk knowledge acceptance internalized incidental security/risk behaviour

genetics and deep psychology education and science economics

accepted legal and political security/risk scenarios

jurisdiction and politics

lived religious and cultural security/risk archetypi

religion, art and culture

This matrix describes evidently a similar challenge on the micro level similar to the macro level with conflicting personal positions and internal balancing the invironment with the environment, creating on the micro level a tragedy we define and call: The Tragedy of Security/Risk Psychology Individuals have to balance consistently a complex combination of invironmental and environmental security and risk deep psychology factors whose contradictions lead to responsibility diffusion.

Again the successful internalization of grids into society and hence the solution of the Inverse Tragedy of the Common depends critically on an even more complex, largely unchangeable basis (e.g. genetic base) and the time scales involved tragedy in contrast to the macro level, where bypassing measures and changes can be in principle implemented at will. Nevertheless there are opportunities for grid implementation.

5. e-Human Grid Ecology To overcome the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons with its base tragedies, the Tragedy of Autopoietic Social Sub-Systems and the Tragedy of Security/Risk Psychology shows that a sustainable creation and management of grids can best be done in an ecology-like manner combining the micro and macro level (1.-4.). Human Ecology developed originally by Robert Park (1864-1944) and Ernest Burgess (1886-1966) [15, 18, 22, 23] gives a framework to understand, approach and solve the detailed aspects involved in such a complex dependencies network. To tackle the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons adequately and based on the analysis of grid infrastructures (1.) the classical Human Ecology triangle has to be expanded to a rectangle consisting of: i) the invironment ii) the individual, iii) the society, and iv) the environment (Figure 3). It reflects the mirco level (i and ii) and the macro level (iii and iv) correctly and interestingly also relates to the field of the Classic and the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons with its under-use potentials and over-used resources adequately. I.e. that the “approaches/tool” box to deal with such complex phenomena developed by Human Ecology over around a century can be used in a refined form. Due to the wide-spread appearance of the described tragedies this is of major importance even for society in general. Since e-Society and e-Live to which the grid sector belongs are novel phenomena on a qualitatively different level with e-Invironement, e-Individuals, e-Society, and eInvironment we would like to advance Human Ecology for the grid sector to e-Human “Grid” Ecology using the following definition and inherent proof by change of the still correct classical definitions of ecology (also in respect to 1.), which should lead in its consequence a powerful approaches for the Inverse Tragedy of the Grid Commons: The Definition of e-Human "Grid" Ecology "Under e-Human "Grid" Ecology we understand the complete science of the relationships of grid to the surrounding environment to which we can count all conditions of existence in the widest sense." [27] (e-Human "Grid" Ecology" is)...the relationship between grid and all other e-Social sub-systems." [28]

Conclusion Obviously there are huge resources available in IT as in other sectors such as for renewable energy being under-exploited, despite constant shortage claims. There are, however, clever examples of ecology like approaches of resource management with tremendous efficiencies e.g. the chemical industry, agroforestry systems and IT grid infrastructures. We identified this as the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons with a micro and macro level. Consequently, the day-to-day challenge for internalization of grids are i) the sharing attitude/socialisation based on the security/risk psychology of the individual, and ii) the culture of the embedding institution and society based on the interaction of the autopoietic social sub-systems – similar to the renewables sector. On the macro level the social sub-systems i) religion, ii) education, iii) science, iv) art, v) economy, vi) jurisdiction, vii) policy, have a more or less incompatible code of communication leading to the Tragedy of the Autopoietic Social Sub-Systems. Thus, these have to be integrated for working grid societies by i) approaching the sub-system stickyness of individuals, and ii) a soft bridging of sub-systems. On the micro level the security/risk psychology matrix plays the major role since due to the behaveour of the individual with responsibility diffusion in clear win-win

Society

Invironment (Innenwelt)

Environment (Umwelt)

Individual

Figure 3. The Human Ecology rectangle relates the invironment (Innenwelt), the individual, the society and the environment (Umwelt). It is the extension of the classical Human Ecology triangle, lacking the invironment. The invironement and the environment and the individual and the society are complementary and a complex field. The invironment constitutes the individual, which forms society; for the individual the society is a generaln environment as the invironment constitutes much of society.

situations. Since individuals have to balance constantly between the invironment and the environement, there is also a hard to tackle Tragedy of the Security/Risk Psychology. Here in the daily management the i) the individual perception and the individual well being, and ii) the procedural and institutionalized careful management, have to be analyzed and detailed solutions found. To internalize sustainable grid like solutions the Inverse Tragedy of the commons and its base tragedies (Tragedy of Autopoietic Social Sub-Systems, Tragedy of Security/Risk Psychology) consequently ecology-like approaches combining the micro and macro level is crucial. Here the interdisciplinary field of Human Ecology gives a framework with detailed guidelines. With a little obvious and powerful theoretical extension (Human Ecology rectangle: i) the invironment ii) the individual, iii) the society, and iv) the environment) it can be used to define the corresponding sub-field for e-live and e-society e-Human Grid Ecology. Thus, the Inverse Tragedy of the Grid Commons can be tackled on the micro and macro level: i) participative integration of the individual and acceptance of its invironment, and ii) sustainable integration of esocial autopoietic sub-systems and its environment. In summary, we think that the e-Human Grid Ecology rational, can tackle the Inverse Tragedy of the Commons of grids and other sectors using new efficient strategies, with major importance for many fields where similar paradoxes appear and thus finally for the well-being of the ecosystem we are a part of.

Acknowledgements We are very thankful to the German and International Societies for Human Ecology and their members for discussion of the background of this work. We also would like to thank the Erasmus Computing Grid as well as the German MediGRID and Services@MediGRID consortia and Dr. Nick Kepper for their support. This work was partly supported by the Erasmus Medical Center and the Hogeschool Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, as well as the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) under grant # 01 AK 803 A-H (German MediGRID) and # 01 IG 07015 G (German Services@MediGRID) to TAK.

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