Complex Systems
Complex systems are systems where the collective behavior of their parts entails emergence of properties that can hardly, if not at all, be inferred from properties of the parts.
by Jason Badeaux and · updated 1mo ago
Complex Systems
Keely Adler added 1mo ago
“leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.
from Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System by Donella Meadows
Keely Adler added 1mo ago
The systems analysis community has a lot of lore about leverage points. Those of us who were trained by the great Jay Forrester at MIT have all absorbed one of his favorite stories. “People know intuitively where leverage points are,” he says. “Time after time I’ve done an analysis of a company, and I’ve figured out a leverage point — in inventory
... See morefrom Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System by Donella Meadows
Keely Adler added 1mo ago
Counterintuitive. That’s Forrester’s word to describe complex systems. Leverage points are not intuitive. Or if they are, we intuitively use them backward, systematically worsening whatever problems we are trying to solve
from Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System by Donella Meadows
Keely Adler added 1mo ago
"An investment philosophy on ‘complexity investing’ from NZS Capital"
Investment philosophy on "complexity investing" from NZS Capital, emphasizing the need to embrace extreme events, balance resilience and optionality, and focus on quality, growth, and understanding change in portfolio construction.
by NZS Capital
Juan Orbea added 5mo ago
NZS Capital poses that the economy and the stock market are best studied as complex adaptive systems akin to biology. They emphasize investing in companies that are adaptable, long-term focused, innovative, possess long-duration growth, and maximize non-zero-sum outcomes. The approach involves fewer, larger positions in companies highly adaptive to disruption, high levels of quality, growth, and context, and smaller positions in companies with a wide range of potential outcomes.
- The Theory of Constraints is a good example of how we are surrounded by complicated systems where the optimal strategy, by definition, is always a simple one: in this case, attack the biggest constraint.
from The Midwit Trap by Philo
Stuart Evans added 9mo ago
- our concepts and language cannot keep pace with our technology, by which I do not just mean gadgets and gizmos with helpfully flashing lights, but the economically and culturally hegemonic forces shaping the world in the context of the current mutation of the complex adaptive system that is capitalism through what Shoshanna Zuboff calls Surveillanc... See more
from The Joyous Struggle | Jonathan Rowson | Substack by Jonathan Rowson
Stuart Evans added 10mo ago
- Complexity can be tamed, but it requires considerable effort to do it well. Decreasing the number of buttons and displays is not the solution. The solution is to understand the total system, to design it in a way that allows all the pieces fit nicely together, so that initial learning as well as usage are both optimal. Years ago, Larry Tesler, then... See more
from Living with Complexity (MIT Press) by Don Norman
sari added 10mo ago
sari added 10mo ago
Twelve leverage points
andrea added 10mo ago