objects/meadows-complex-control.html

 

Control points in complex systems

recycling or recycle/burn choice systems

"Places to intervene in a system" by Donella Meadows 1997

9. Numbers or metrics

(except for the time delay relative to the growth rate of the system)

8. material stocks and flows

(especially after the system infrastructure has been constructed - Technology time scale of Linstone)

7. Regulating negative feedback loops

(needs to be relative to the impact it's designed to correct)

Adams energy principle- Ashby's Law

6. Driving positive feedback loops

so few because they are so powerful

reduce the gain of positive feedback is the best way to control

5. information flows

making some information visible - creates new loops

putting the electric meter in the living room rather than in the basement

4. rules of the system (incentives, punishment, constraints)

who makes the rules and who can change them

3. power of self-organization

change the characteristics of smaller pieces of itself

selection criteria is part of this

2. the goals of the system

hierarchy of goals in a system

leaders can articulate the goals of governments

1. mindset or paradigm out of which goals, rules, feedback structure arise

paradigm shift, keep pointing out the anomalies until society reaches a threshold

0.