> assume the system will react to resist intervention

Systems don't do that. Only constituents who fear particular consequences do.

Systems also don't care about levels of complexity. Especially since it's insanely hard to actually break systems that are held together by only the "what the fuck is going on, let's look into that" kind. Hours, days, weeks, later, things run again. BILLIONS lost. Oh, we wish ...

At the end of the day, the term Systems Thinking is overloaded by all the parts that have been invented by so called economists and "the financial industry", which makes me chuckle every time now that it's 2025 and oil rich countries have been in development for decades, the advertisement industry is factory farming content creators and economists and multi-billionaires want more tikktoccc and instagwam to get into the backs of teen heads.

If you are a SWE, systems architect or anything in that sphere, please, ... act like you care about the people you are building for ... take some time off if you can and take care of must be taken care of, ... it's just systems, after all.

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catlifeonmars 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Systems don't do that. Only constituents who fear particular consequences do.

These are part of a system. Ignoring these components gives you an incomplete model.

(All models are incomplete, by definition, but ignoring constituents that have a major influence greatly reduces the effectiveness of your model)

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lucas_membrane 3 days ago | parent [-]

You make a fine point. My simplified version of it is that there is no such thing as an isolated system. Things change. A system optimized for one environment is likely to fail when things change. Most of the hugely successful firms of today focus more on controlling their environment than on developing a capacity to adapt to unforeseeable consequences of unforeseen changes in their environment, even the ones that they cause themselves.

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catlifeonmars 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think we were not using the same definition of “system” :)

> there is no such thing as an isolated system.

Very true.

Look no further than evolutionary biology, you see this all the time where extinctions occur because the environment changes such that the system is no longer optimal.

	▲	wtbdbrrr 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> where extinctions occur because the environment changes such that the system is no longer optimal What if we looked at the extinct species as constituents that have been removed because they were obsolete in the system? That way, the system remains optimal, without resisting change. The system of humanity requires a lot. We used to say "survival of the fittest", which meant survival of the fittest and the "most aware", meaning being able to distinguish which survival strategy is the most viable for a given organism. Fight, flight, freeze, dominance, independence, submission, DIY, DOBUY; the latter are especially interesting given how reduced information about the requirements and the sensitivities of the individual body can cripple your organs to a point that is more beneficial for some interest group than it is to you; in other words: someone can make sure you are stupid enough to be abused for some specific task until you can be discarded of. At this point we don't know if the system will survive more than one period because of the interest group or suffer within one or more periods because of that interest group. In evolutionary biology, more symbiotic organisms and systems survived a lot longer that those who were less symbiotic, on scales that modern humans can't put into adequate numbers yet. Isolated systems do exist. They can be isolated and they can self-isolate for various reasons and by various means. This happens even in species/systems we mostly consider mostly unconscious while definitely sentient and aware. Wear and tear and maintenance, leeching and seeding, putting info and questions into words and lurking; none of these really attach a system to another by default, by design or via behavior, reward and punishment. The rules go beyond that and stretch longer time frames than we account for. Thinking out loud here, btw.

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tbrownaw 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>> > assume the system will react to resist intervention

Systems don't do that. Only constituents who fear particular consequences do. <<

For example, the human body is pretty decent at maintaining a fixed internal temperature.

Cities supposedly maintain a fairly stable transit time even as transit infrastructure improves.