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hammo 's review for:
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
by Donella H. Meadows
Incredibly bad.
Simplistic. Sanctimonious. Pseudo-profound. Almost no technical content.
Reads more like a Buzzfeed listicle than a primer. "10 Ways Systems Theory Can Fix Capitalism and Improve Your Sex Life."
NOTES:
"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way did not become still more complicated." - Poul Anderson
When a system tries to return to a set point, this is called "homing behaviour".
Doubling time equals approximately 70 divided by the percentage growth rate. When I plotted it, it looks like this approximation gets more accurate as you get closer to zero growth. For large values it seems to undershoot by 0.4. I'm surprised by how accurate this is. The derivation isn't given in this book, but we can get it with a Taylor expansion of ln(x) around 1: ln(2)/ln(x/100+1) ~= ln(2)/(x/100) = 100*ln(2)/x ~= 69/x. The heuristic should be given as 69/x, not 70/x. Much more memorable.
"To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering." - Aldo Leopold
"It's one thing to know how to fix a system, and quite another to wade in and fix it." - Donella Meadows
Simplistic. Sanctimonious. Pseudo-profound. Almost no technical content.
Reads more like a Buzzfeed listicle than a primer. "10 Ways Systems Theory Can Fix Capitalism and Improve Your Sex Life."
NOTES:
"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way did not become still more complicated." - Poul Anderson
When a system tries to return to a set point, this is called "homing behaviour".
Doubling time equals approximately 70 divided by the percentage growth rate. When I plotted it, it looks like this approximation gets more accurate as you get closer to zero growth. For large values it seems to undershoot by 0.4. I'm surprised by how accurate this is. The derivation isn't given in this book, but we can get it with a Taylor expansion of ln(x) around 1: ln(2)/ln(x/100+1) ~= ln(2)/(x/100) = 100*ln(2)/x ~= 69/x. The heuristic should be given as 69/x, not 70/x. Much more memorable.
"To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering." - Aldo Leopold
"It's one thing to know how to fix a system, and quite another to wade in and fix it." - Donella Meadows