Ecological Thinking, Applied

In complex systems, niches exist. A niche is a property of the system, independent of any agents who happen to be filling the niche. Agent behavior is explained by the niche, rather than by properties of the agents themselves (at least when using the ecological mindset). And finally, when looking at problems that arise in a system, it's often more

What's powerful about this way of thinking is that it abstracts away from individuals, and allows us focus on the properties of the system that are causing different types of behavior. In the process, it suggests completely different types of solutions to a lot of big, thorny problems. It asks us to stop thinking about the players, and get to work

A system can be analyzed as an eco system if it has independent, competing agents who can change and adapt to their environment.

In ecological thinking, agent behavior is a property of the system, rather than the other way around.

National politics

If you want to change the world and politics is your scene, lining up on your 'side' and playing tug-o'-war is the least valuable thing you can do. Instead, you can have a much bigger impact if you work on changing the game.

Three examples of game-changing levers in politics are laws, technology, and education. Laws include things l

The idea in my previous post is that complex systems have niches, and it's often more productive to think about behavior as a property of the niche rather than the actors who inhabit the niche.

To reduce the amount of politics in your workplace, it's not enough just to say, "We'll fire people who play politics." Instead you'll want to think about how, where, and why politics occurs. What gains do people feel they can achieve by playing politics, and how can you change the system to make politics less rewarding?

And like all niches, the drug-dealing niche exists independent of any actors who might be filling it. Take out the kingpin and the niche is unfazed; someone else will soon step in to replace him. The only way to win is to change the game — treat drug abuse as a medical issue rather than a criminal one, for instance.

It's unintuitive at first, but in biology, ecological thinking doesn't concern itself with individual organisms, but rather with entire species . This is because individual organisms aren't adaptive enough to change their behavior in meaningful ways. A tree, a shrub, a weed, a bacterium, even a snail or a bat — these individual organisms have behav