Step One: Get the Beat
January 15, 2022 4:43 PM Subscribe
Dancing With Systems is an essay listing a dozen+ ways of thinking about, working with and enhancing systems. The author is Donella Meadows, one of the authors of environmental classic, The Limits To Growth.
From the list, e.g. "#7. Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
President Jimmy Carter had an unusual ability to think in feedback terms and to make feedback policies. Unfortunately he had a hard time explaining them to a press and public that didn’t understand feedback.
He suggested, at a time when oil imports were soaring, that there be a tax on gasoline proportional to the fraction of U.S. oil consumption that had to be imported. If imports continued to rise the tax would rise, until it suppressed demand and brought forth substitutes and reduced imports. If imports fell to zero, the tax would fall to zero.
The tax never got passed."
"5. Honor and protect information.
A decision maker can’t respond to information he or she doesn’t have, can’t respond accurately to information that is inaccurate, can’t respond in a timely way to information that is late. I would guess that 99 percent of what goes wrong in systems goes wrong because of faulty or missing information.
If I could, I would add an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information. You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information.
For example, in 1986 new federal legislation required U.S. companies to report all chemical emissions from each of their plants. Through the Freedom of Information Act (from a systems point of view one of the most important laws in the nation), that information became a matter of public record. In July 1988 the first data on chemical emissions became available. The reported emissions were not illegal, but they didn’t look very good when they were published in local papers by enterprising reporters, who had a tendency to make lists of “the top ten local polluters.” That’s all that happened. There were no lawsuits, no required reductions, no fines, no penalties. But within two years chemical emissions nationwide (at least as reported, and presumably also in fact) had decreased by 40 percent. "
"5. Honor and protect information.
A decision maker can’t respond to information he or she doesn’t have, can’t respond accurately to information that is inaccurate, can’t respond in a timely way to information that is late. I would guess that 99 percent of what goes wrong in systems goes wrong because of faulty or missing information.
If I could, I would add an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information. You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information.
For example, in 1986 new federal legislation required U.S. companies to report all chemical emissions from each of their plants. Through the Freedom of Information Act (from a systems point of view one of the most important laws in the nation), that information became a matter of public record. In July 1988 the first data on chemical emissions became available. The reported emissions were not illegal, but they didn’t look very good when they were published in local papers by enterprising reporters, who had a tendency to make lists of “the top ten local polluters.” That’s all that happened. There were no lawsuits, no required reductions, no fines, no penalties. But within two years chemical emissions nationwide (at least as reported, and presumably also in fact) had decreased by 40 percent. "
The world could certainly use more systems thinking — it’s what led scientists to warn about the consequences of CO2 emissions before climate change became an obvious reality.
But, the tidbit about public housing being a net harm at the beginning of “Leverage Points” stuck out to me. She cites a study by J.W. Forrester, summarized by Wikipedia:
The essay does go against right-wing narratives elsewhere, e.g., the point about dampening the positive feedback loop of economic inequality with taxation and public education being more effective than anti-poverty programs (and the warning about the rich buying the government to avoid this).
posted by mubba at 6:46 AM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
But, the tidbit about public housing being a net harm at the beginning of “Leverage Points” stuck out to me. She cites a study by J.W. Forrester, summarized by Wikipedia:
The study's findings, presented more fully in Forrester's 1969 book Urban Dynamics, suggest that the root cause of depressed economic conditions is a significant shortage of job opportunities relative to the population level, and that the most popular solutions proposed at the time (e.g. an increase in the amount of low-income housing available, or a reduction in real estate taxes) counter-intuitively serve to make the situation worse by increasing the population but not the availability of jobs, so that the relative shortage increases. The paper further suggests that measures to reduce the shortage -- such as the conversion of land use from housing to industry, or an increase in real estate taxes to spur redevelopment of property -- would counter-intuitively create the result desired when enacting the failed policies.I am not sure how to interpret “make the situation worse by increasing the population” except as “make the situation better by not including those people in our definition of the system.” For the individual people involved, job creation and access to subsidized housing would make them better off, unless you buy into some kind of moral hazard argument or believe there should be shame associated with receiving public benefits. (I haven’t read the book, and maybe there’s some nuance lost in that Wikipedia summary about not concentrating public housing in one place vs. not having it at all, but it sure sounds like right-wing anti-welfare talking points from the 80s and 90s.)
The essay does go against right-wing narratives elsewhere, e.g., the point about dampening the positive feedback loop of economic inequality with taxation and public education being more effective than anti-poverty programs (and the warning about the rich buying the government to avoid this).
posted by mubba at 6:46 AM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Feedback policies are a great idea, and we had the best of them. In Brazil during the Lula/Dilma years minimum wage increases were tied to GDP growth. It was one of the most effective ways for lifting people out of poverty, and that's why nowadays it's been conveniently forgotten.
posted by Tom-B at 7:13 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Tom-B at 7:13 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
interpret...except as...not including those people
I believe you're right to be skeptical, but let's at least start with the benefit of the doubt. I believe they touch on one of the real systemic issues about urban planning practices around housing development (affordable or otherwise):
counter-intuitively serve to make the situation worse by increasing the population but not the availability of jobs
This is basically right, but it elides most of the history of top-down urban planning:
- Area becomes "obsolete" (structural economic cycle, usually not business cycle)
- ...and/or new ethnic migrations lead to white flight and local capital supply sabotages the newcomers
- Central authorities say, "let's make an omelet"
Now one of two things happens:
a) The omelet is made elsewhere. The remaining residents are ghetto-ized as the commercial uses are wiped (mostly) clean and infill development is done to reinforce isolation.
b) The omelet is made here and the residents are relocated (if they're lucky) to a new ground up ghetto (which may be on a recently only mostly cleaned different problem area).
However, the observation above is correct that in each new situation the ratio of job opportunity to population worsens...they just seem blissfully unaware of the structural elements that brought it about.
I mentioned unaffordable housing does this too. We tend not to think of suburbs as ghettos, but they share a lot of characteristics. One of the principle ones is how they factor extremely high transportation costs in order for residents to reach their jobs. This is a cost that is enthusiastically born by the residents (I'm speaking for F150 driving Americans here), but it's a significant cost with even more legion externalities. The scale of those costs become dire as you move down the HH Income spectrum.
Now the flip side of this is that it's amazingly expensive, complicated and difficult to sustain building dense, mixed use urban areas. It's not impossible, but it's no cinch. Some would point to Europe and say, "no problem!", but that's not how you do it. You can't take millennia (not even centuries), import the imperial wealth of the world and have the power of absolute monarchy to work with. It's more instructive even to look at 'new' cities in SE Asia. There's a ton of success there and a lot of good lessons and still, it's no shining city.
This is a long walk to say basically: (1) I think system thinking is really useful and we should do more of it, (2) this is a nice source, so thanks, (3) even with good strategies like this there are messy realities, it always takes more time, and you really need to understand where you started (much of this IS addressed in the OP), (4) I really wish good urbanism came easier, but it doesn't. And while their urban housing example is accurate, it's accurate in the most limited way.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:31 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
I believe you're right to be skeptical, but let's at least start with the benefit of the doubt. I believe they touch on one of the real systemic issues about urban planning practices around housing development (affordable or otherwise):
counter-intuitively serve to make the situation worse by increasing the population but not the availability of jobs
This is basically right, but it elides most of the history of top-down urban planning:
- Area becomes "obsolete" (structural economic cycle, usually not business cycle)
- ...and/or new ethnic migrations lead to white flight and local capital supply sabotages the newcomers
- Central authorities say, "let's make an omelet"
Now one of two things happens:
a) The omelet is made elsewhere. The remaining residents are ghetto-ized as the commercial uses are wiped (mostly) clean and infill development is done to reinforce isolation.
b) The omelet is made here and the residents are relocated (if they're lucky) to a new ground up ghetto (which may be on a recently only mostly cleaned different problem area).
However, the observation above is correct that in each new situation the ratio of job opportunity to population worsens...they just seem blissfully unaware of the structural elements that brought it about.
I mentioned unaffordable housing does this too. We tend not to think of suburbs as ghettos, but they share a lot of characteristics. One of the principle ones is how they factor extremely high transportation costs in order for residents to reach their jobs. This is a cost that is enthusiastically born by the residents (I'm speaking for F150 driving Americans here), but it's a significant cost with even more legion externalities. The scale of those costs become dire as you move down the HH Income spectrum.
Now the flip side of this is that it's amazingly expensive, complicated and difficult to sustain building dense, mixed use urban areas. It's not impossible, but it's no cinch. Some would point to Europe and say, "no problem!", but that's not how you do it. You can't take millennia (not even centuries), import the imperial wealth of the world and have the power of absolute monarchy to work with. It's more instructive even to look at 'new' cities in SE Asia. There's a ton of success there and a lot of good lessons and still, it's no shining city.
This is a long walk to say basically: (1) I think system thinking is really useful and we should do more of it, (2) this is a nice source, so thanks, (3) even with good strategies like this there are messy realities, it always takes more time, and you really need to understand where you started (much of this IS addressed in the OP), (4) I really wish good urbanism came easier, but it doesn't. And while their urban housing example is accurate, it's accurate in the most limited way.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:31 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Anything that helps me better understand how we failed Jimmy Carter is much appreciated. I would like for us to be ready if we get another one. Thank you @storybored.
posted by drowsy at 10:23 AM on January 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by drowsy at 10:23 AM on January 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Very interesting article, with lots of implications for many, many things. I'm looking forward to exploring the rest of her work. Thanks for putting her on my radar.
posted by rpfields at 10:42 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rpfields at 10:42 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Meadows is great! We discuss her work frequently at work in our own attempts to bring systems science to transportation safety analysis.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 3:56 PM on January 16, 2022
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 3:56 PM on January 16, 2022
We can’t find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each other, or the institutions we create, if we try to do it from the role of omniscient conqueror.Quite so. And given that finding a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each other and the institutions we create is pretty much the entire definition of sanity, it follows that attempting to take on the role of omniscient conqueror is a pernicious form of mental illness.
Looking at you, Elon.
Looking at you, Jeff.
Looking at you, Donald and Jong-un and Jinping and Narendra and Vladimir.
Looking particularly hard at you, Rupert.
Get help.
posted by flabdablet at 10:38 PM on January 16, 2022
I missed this when it posted and I am so glad I was scrolling back and saw it. This is something I'm very interested in but know relatively little about. Fascinating reading.
posted by Wretch729 at 5:38 PM on January 29, 2022
posted by Wretch729 at 5:38 PM on January 29, 2022
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posted by kmartino at 7:32 PM on January 15, 2022 [3 favorites]