[sysdyn] The Complex System Rules of Thumb

[siderea]

WOOT! I've been looking for this for years, but I couldn't remember useful enough search terms and I didn't know the author.

Apparently, it's from Draper Kauffman, in "Systems 1: An Introduction to Systems Thinking," (at least according to Gene Bellinger at systems-thinking.com from whom I have grabbed these.) I had originally seen them

Comments

[kelkyag]

Looks like there's a good bit of interesting reading on that site, thank you.

What does "High morality depends on accurate prophecy" mean? The rest are either familiar or make more obvious sense to me.

[indywind]

I take that to mean that one can't very well choose the best course of action without being able to predict the outcomes of the potential choices. If you try to do right, but your estimate of how it will come out is inaccurate, you might end up doing wrong by mistake.

[siderea]

Yes, and even stronger: systems dynamics strongly suggests one is likely to make things worse by attempting to make them better, if one uses a naive model of the behavior of the system (such as a non-systemic one) one is trying to change.

[kelkyag]

Thank you and thank you. I'm surprised I hadn't run into that phrasing before.

[cellio]

Oh thank you. I have seen that list before but didn't have it.

[en_ki]

If we're printing the whole list, it seems a shame to leave rule 0 implicit.

[indywind]

#10 confuses me.

[quantumkitty]

"Positive feedback" and "negative feedback" are not meant in the colloquial sense of "praise" and "criticism." They're meant in the technical sense.

[leora]

I've heard that it doesn't actually work on frogs. Which is sort of a shame, as it is a very good metaphor for some human behavior, just apparently not for frog behavior.