Sensitive chaotic systems generate divergent outcomes with no agency

I love this video as an illustration of something we frequently ignore.

I seriously don’t know why I enjoyed watching that video so much. 👏🏻
(🎥 via @BestViralPosts) pic.twitter.com/SciEHSSK6f

— Guys Stuff (@guystufff) February 2, 2020

In sociology, politics, some philosophy, select ideologies, and other fields, it is an axiom that disparate outcomes in human fields of endeavor MUST be the result of biases (conscious or unconscious), institutional discrimination or some other act (usually despicable) of human agency. While that occasionally can be true, it is most often the case that outcome differences are completely or materially an emergent condition arising from multiple loosely coupled chaotic systems.

Classical Liberals of the Age of Enlightenment stripe are comfortable with human universalism and the idea that while people are born with the same natural rights and are equal in that fashion, they are going to have different outcomes due to time, chance, circumstance and chaotic systems. Differences in outcomes is not, a priori, an indication of anything.

Small differences in opening position can have some small influence but the outcomes are widely divergent and a consequence of entirely conditional circumstances. There is no agency involved in the outcomes. Tiny differences in originating position manifest in unpredictable and material differences in outcome positions.

Which is what the video demonstrates. In a completely deterministic world, we should be able to model all the possible interactions as every marble transits the course and therefore also predict the final outcomes. At one scale, everything is deterministic. We aren't talking about magical realism here.

However, at the human scale level, the tiniest and even most imperceptible of differences in each marble and the near infinite possible scenarios of interaction on the course, and the chaotic nature of multiple system influences, mean that it is virtually impossible to predict outcomes and that the outcomes can be highly divergent. Indeed, will be.