Systems
Complex systems don’t respond to intervention the way simple systems do. Push on one variable, others shift to compensate. Optimize for one metric, others degrade. Solve a problem, create two more.
Donella Meadows identified leverage points in systems — places where small interventions produce large effects. But the highest-leverage points (paradigms, goals, system structure) resist change, while low-leverage points (parameters, subsidies) are easy to adjust but accomplish little.
Much of policy failure stems from ignoring system dynamics. The Cobra Effect: bounties on cobras led to cobra farming. Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Jevons Paradox: efficiency gains increase total consumption.
These patterns repeat across domains because they reflect structural properties of complex adaptive systems, not domain-specific features.
Systems develop memory. Hysteresis means the path matters — you can’t simply reverse to return to a prior state. Shifting baselines mean each generation normalizes its starting conditions, slowly drifting without awareness.
The lesson: humility about intervention. Complex systems demand respect. Probe carefully, expect surprises, maintain reversibility when possible.
Related: [[feedback-loops]], [[antifragility]], [[galls-law]], [[selection]]
In this section
- Antifragility Systems that gain from disorder
- Chesterton's Fence Don't remove what you don't understand
- Cobra Effect When incentives make problems worse
- Emergence Wholes have properties their parts don't have
- Feedback Loops How outputs become inputs — the engine of stability and runaway
- Homeostasis
- Runaway Processes
- Gall's Law Complex systems that work evolved from simple ones that worked
- Goodhart's Law When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
- Hysteresis Effects persist after causes are removed
- Jevons Paradox Efficiency can increase total consumption
- Lindy Effect For non-perishable things, longevity predicts longevity
- Selection How complex order emerges from dumb iteration
- Shifting Baseline Syndrome Each generation accepts a degraded world as normal