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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
informative
informative
reflective
medium-paced
"Garrett Hardin has suggested that people who want to prevent other people from having an abortion are not practicing intrinsic responsibility, unless they are personally willing to bring up the resulting child." -- Dr. Meadows on locating responsibility in the system.
This book is a key reference as part of our research. Hence, my review will be long.
It is four stars because Dr. Meadows' writing is slightly difficult to read/follow, a haphazard that comes with many fellow senior researchers in my field. The other reason is the implicit assumption made throughout the work such that the "ability" or "tool(s)" to fix/adjust are inherently available in or part of the system. This, we believe, is not the case with complex systems. However, Meadows seems to make this assumption in her chapters.
That being said, this is brilliant work for anyone doing inter-disciplinary research. Meadows reminds us that in spite of what you majored in, or what the textbooks say, or what you think you are an expert at, follow a system wherever it leads. It will be sure to lead across traditional disciplinary lines. To understand that system, you will have to be able to learn from – while not being limited by– economists and chemists and psychologists. You will have to penetrate their jargons, integrate what they tell you, recognize what they can honestly see through their particular lenses, and discard the distortions that come from the narrowness and incompleteness of their lenses. They won't make it easy for you.
In this incredible work, Meadows pushes us to think about the following questions:
Why is it that periods of minimum structure and maximum freedom to create are so frightening? How is it that one way of seeing the world becomes so widely shared that institutions, technologies, production systems, buildings, cities, become shaped around that way of seeing?
How do systems create cultures? How do cultures create systems? Once a culture and system have been found lacking, do they have to change through breakdown and chaos?
Why are people so easily convinced of their powerlessness? How do they become so cynical about their ability to achieve their visions? Why are they more likely to listen to people who tell them they cannot make changes than they are to people who tell them they can?
The most influential chapter is "Leverage Points– Places to Intervene in a System" where Meadows lists 12 points to leverage in complex systems. Among these 12 leverage points, the most influential ones are:
Delays– The lengths of time relative to the rates of system changes
It is usually easier to slow down the change rate, so that inevitable feedback delays won't cause so much trouble. That is why growth rates are higher up on the leverage point list than delay times.
And that is why slowing economic growth is a greater leverage point in Forrester’s World model than faster technological development or freer market prices. Those are attempts to speed up the rate of adjustment. But the world’s physical capital stock, its factories, its working technologies can change only so fast, even in the face of new prices or new ideas– and prices and ideas do not change instantly either, not through a whole global culture. There is more leverage in slowing the system down so technologies and prices can keep up with it, than there is in wishing delays would go away.
Balancing Feedback Loops – The strength of the feedbacks relative to the impacts they are trying to correct
A complex system usually has numerous balancing feedback loops it can bring into play, so it can self-correct under different conditions and impacts.
The strength of a balancing feedback loop is important relative to the impact it is designed to correct.
Take markets, for example, the balancing feedback systems that are all but worshiped by many economists. Companies and governments are fatally attracted to the price leverage point, but too often determinedly push it in the wrong direction with subsidies, taxes, and other forms of confusion.
These modifications weaken the feedback power of market signals by twisting information in their favor. The real leverage here is to keep them from doing it. Hence, the necessity of antitrust laws, truth-in-advertising laws, attempts to internalize costs (such as pollution fees), the removal of perverse subsidies, and other ways of leveling market playing fields.
Reinforcing Feedback Loops – the strength of the gain of driving loops
A balancing feedback loop is self-correcting; a reinforcing feedback loop is self-reinforcing.
Reducing the gain around a reinforcing loop (reducing the self-multiplying power) – slowing the growth– is usually a more powerful leverage point in systems than strengthening balancing loops.
Population and economic growth rates in the World model are leverage points, because slowing them gives the many balancing loops, through technology and markets and other forms of adaptation (all of which have limits and delays), time to function.
Here, Meadows talks about the “success to the successful” trap. For example, anti-poverty programs are weak balancing loops that try to counter these strong reinforcing ones. That’s what progressive income tax, inheritance tax, and universal high-quality public education programs are meant to do. If the wealthy can influence the government to weaken, rather than strengthen, those measures, then the government itself shifts from a balancing structure to one that reinforces success to the successful!
We should look for leverage points around birth rates, interest rates, erosion rates, “success to the successful” loops, any place where the more you have of something, the more you have the possibility of having more.
This book is a key reference as part of our research. Hence, my review will be long.
It is four stars because Dr. Meadows' writing is slightly difficult to read/follow, a haphazard that comes with many fellow senior researchers in my field. The other reason is the implicit assumption made throughout the work such that the "ability" or "tool(s)" to fix/adjust are inherently available in or part of the system. This, we believe, is not the case with complex systems. However, Meadows seems to make this assumption in her chapters.
That being said, this is brilliant work for anyone doing inter-disciplinary research. Meadows reminds us that in spite of what you majored in, or what the textbooks say, or what you think you are an expert at, follow a system wherever it leads. It will be sure to lead across traditional disciplinary lines. To understand that system, you will have to be able to learn from – while not being limited by– economists and chemists and psychologists. You will have to penetrate their jargons, integrate what they tell you, recognize what they can honestly see through their particular lenses, and discard the distortions that come from the narrowness and incompleteness of their lenses. They won't make it easy for you.
In this incredible work, Meadows pushes us to think about the following questions:
Why is it that periods of minimum structure and maximum freedom to create are so frightening? How is it that one way of seeing the world becomes so widely shared that institutions, technologies, production systems, buildings, cities, become shaped around that way of seeing?
How do systems create cultures? How do cultures create systems? Once a culture and system have been found lacking, do they have to change through breakdown and chaos?
Why are people so easily convinced of their powerlessness? How do they become so cynical about their ability to achieve their visions? Why are they more likely to listen to people who tell them they cannot make changes than they are to people who tell them they can?
The most influential chapter is "Leverage Points– Places to Intervene in a System" where Meadows lists 12 points to leverage in complex systems. Among these 12 leverage points, the most influential ones are:
Delays– The lengths of time relative to the rates of system changes
It is usually easier to slow down the change rate, so that inevitable feedback delays won't cause so much trouble. That is why growth rates are higher up on the leverage point list than delay times.
And that is why slowing economic growth is a greater leverage point in Forrester’s World model than faster technological development or freer market prices. Those are attempts to speed up the rate of adjustment. But the world’s physical capital stock, its factories, its working technologies can change only so fast, even in the face of new prices or new ideas– and prices and ideas do not change instantly either, not through a whole global culture. There is more leverage in slowing the system down so technologies and prices can keep up with it, than there is in wishing delays would go away.
Balancing Feedback Loops – The strength of the feedbacks relative to the impacts they are trying to correct
A complex system usually has numerous balancing feedback loops it can bring into play, so it can self-correct under different conditions and impacts.
The strength of a balancing feedback loop is important relative to the impact it is designed to correct.
Take markets, for example, the balancing feedback systems that are all but worshiped by many economists. Companies and governments are fatally attracted to the price leverage point, but too often determinedly push it in the wrong direction with subsidies, taxes, and other forms of confusion.
These modifications weaken the feedback power of market signals by twisting information in their favor. The real leverage here is to keep them from doing it. Hence, the necessity of antitrust laws, truth-in-advertising laws, attempts to internalize costs (such as pollution fees), the removal of perverse subsidies, and other ways of leveling market playing fields.
Reinforcing Feedback Loops – the strength of the gain of driving loops
A balancing feedback loop is self-correcting; a reinforcing feedback loop is self-reinforcing.
Reducing the gain around a reinforcing loop (reducing the self-multiplying power) – slowing the growth– is usually a more powerful leverage point in systems than strengthening balancing loops.
Population and economic growth rates in the World model are leverage points, because slowing them gives the many balancing loops, through technology and markets and other forms of adaptation (all of which have limits and delays), time to function.
Here, Meadows talks about the “success to the successful” trap. For example, anti-poverty programs are weak balancing loops that try to counter these strong reinforcing ones. That’s what progressive income tax, inheritance tax, and universal high-quality public education programs are meant to do. If the wealthy can influence the government to weaken, rather than strengthen, those measures, then the government itself shifts from a balancing structure to one that reinforces success to the successful!
We should look for leverage points around birth rates, interest rates, erosion rates, “success to the successful” loops, any place where the more you have of something, the more you have the possibility of having more.
Book would go to 5 stars if it was longer and had more nuance. Touches the surface of some good ideas doe
I was doubting between 2 and 3 stars but I have to give it the disadvantage of the doubt. The idea of systems thinking is very interesting, and this idea is sometimes communicated quite well in this book. Those specific parts I really liked. However, this book seems to me to be a little high on its own supply. It stresses to stay humble while massively tooting its own horn of so-called even buddhist-like 'enlightenment' just because they thought through an issue once, or because they want to prioritize love and not negativity.
This book was recommended by a famous youtuber whose content I do really appreciate, so I was kind of bummed out by this dud of a book. Most people seem to love it as well, so I don't really understand why I don't like it as much. In my opinion, the books reads like maybe 25-35% interesting ideas on what systems are and how to deal with them (the really nice parts), but embellishes this with unequal parts fluff, over- and under-explanations, and just so, so much selfhelp-esque platitudes and clichés.
I appreciate this book for introducing to me a legitimately interesting style of thinking, which I hope to get more (but also not to much) into some time in the future. However, it is so full of stuff that were completely lost on me that I won't be quick to recommend this book (and will immediately stop doing so when I find just anything else that is able to introduce systems thinking either quicker or better).
I wholeheartedly agree with the 2-star review another reader wrote, emphasizing the fluff and lack of clarity in the book:
"This book was meant to grasp the basics of systems thinking, which it does but its writing style is not clear enough. Also some examples are clules and not accuratly relevant. The number of pages could be reduced by at least 40%, without harming the content delivery. If it was will written, it would be an outstanding book, but unfortunately this is not the case."
This book was recommended by a famous youtuber whose content I do really appreciate, so I was kind of bummed out by this dud of a book. Most people seem to love it as well, so I don't really understand why I don't like it as much. In my opinion, the books reads like maybe 25-35% interesting ideas on what systems are and how to deal with them (the really nice parts), but embellishes this with unequal parts fluff, over- and under-explanations, and just so, so much selfhelp-esque platitudes and clichés.
I appreciate this book for introducing to me a legitimately interesting style of thinking, which I hope to get more (but also not to much) into some time in the future. However, it is so full of stuff that were completely lost on me that I won't be quick to recommend this book (and will immediately stop doing so when I find just anything else that is able to introduce systems thinking either quicker or better).
I wholeheartedly agree with the 2-star review another reader wrote, emphasizing the fluff and lack of clarity in the book:
"This book was meant to grasp the basics of systems thinking, which it does but its writing style is not clear enough. Also some examples are clules and not accuratly relevant. The number of pages could be reduced by at least 40%, without harming the content delivery. If it was will written, it would be an outstanding book, but unfortunately this is not the case."
It's a great overview of systems thinking, though perhaps the wrong book for me (who was a little more focused on software and socio-technical)
Not a bad read, but laboured the point a little.
Not a bad read, but laboured the point a little.
Wish I read this book in grade school!
I’d recommend this book to anyone that is willing or curious at opening up their mind to seeing the whole system for what it truly is and feel the urge to make the necessary changes to make it better for the common good! This book will change your entire perspective on whatever line of work you’re currently in.
I’d recommend this book to anyone that is willing or curious at opening up their mind to seeing the whole system for what it truly is and feel the urge to make the necessary changes to make it better for the common good! This book will change your entire perspective on whatever line of work you’re currently in.
informative
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
Inspirational and logic-driven. Full of wisdoms. The fact that it was written in 20 years ago and is so relevant to current affairs, is ultimate proof of its value.