A set of feedback loops that can restore or rebuild feedback loops is resilience at a still higher level—meta-resilience, if you will. Even higher meta-meta- resilience comes from feedback loops that can learn, create, design, and evolve ever more complex restorative structures. Systems that can do this are self-organizing, which will be the next

Prices that reflect full costs will tell consumers how much they can actually afford and will reward efficient producers. 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

The trick, as with all the behavioral possibilities of complex systems, is to recognize what structures contain which latent behaviors, and what conditions release those behaviors—and, where possible, to arrange the structures and conditions to reduce the probability of destructive behaviors and to encourage the possibility of beneficial ones.

The more users there are, the more resource is used. The more resource is used, the less there is per user.

Reducing the gain around a reinforcing loop—slowing the growth—is usually a more powerful leverage point in systems than strengthening balancing loops, and far more preferable than letting the reinforcing loop run.

A system* is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something.

When there are long delays in feedback loops, some sort of foresight is essential. To act only when a problem becomes obvious is to miss an important opportunity to solve the problem.

The least obvious part of the system, its function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behavior.

THE TRAP: SHIFTING THE BURDEN TO THE INTERVENOR Shifting the burden, dependence, and addiction arise when a solution to a systemic problem reduces (or disguises) the symptoms, but does nothing to solve the underlying problem. Whether it is a substance that dulls one’s perception or a policy that hides the underlying trouble, the drug of choice