In a work published in 1992, Mitchell Waldrop ("Complexity", M. Waldrop, Touchstone Press, New York, 1992, Q175.W258.1992) discusses the amazing phenomenon of complex systems which  through extended interactions arrive at a self-organized state.  He says (pp 12-13):
 

"...(T)hese complex, self-organizing systems are adaptive in that they don't just passively respond to events the way a rock might roll around in a an earthquake.  They actively turn whatever happens to their advantage.  ...

Finally, every one of these complex, self-organizing adaptive systems possesses a kind of dynamism that makes them qualitatively different from static objects such as computer chips or snowflakes, which are merely complicated.  Complex systems are more spontaneous, more disorderly, more alive than that.  At the same time, however, their peculiar dynamism is also a far cry from the weirdly unpredictable gyrations known as chaos. ... (C)haos by itself doesn't explain the structure, the coherence, the self-organizing cohesiveness of complex systems.

Instead, ... these systems have somehow acquired the ability to bring order and chaos into a special kind of balance.  This balance point -- often called the edge of chaos -- is where the components of a system never quite lock into place, and yet never dissolve into turbulence, either. The edge of chaos is where life has enough stability to sustain itself and enough creativity to deserve the name of life. The edge of chaos is where new ideas and innovative genotypes are forever nibbling away at the edges of the status quo..."

I submit that this descriptions provides the basis for completely answering all the foofara about how the Mudcat "should" operate by describing the real way that it does operate. This concept also addresses what I was trying to say about the Malthusian panic in the "world population day" thread.

Regards,

Amos