#systems theory

[probablyasocialecologist]

Everything we think we know about the world is a model. Every word and every language is a model. All maps and statistics, books and databases, equations and computer programs are models. So are the ways I picture the world in my head—my mental models. None of these is or ever will be the real world.

Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

[noosphe-re]

A higher level of organization offers fresh possibilities for complexification; the greater variety of components available to the suprasystem allows a larger range of structural and functional variation, with new connections imposed among the connected subsystems. Thus, by moving to a new organizational level, evolution penetrates to ever higher and more varied forms of structure and function.

Ervin László, Evolution: The Grand Synthesis

[mythicmemex]

The Emergent Behavior of Hobie Brown

Spider-Punk (aka Hobie Brown) feels like a living example of how systems shift and adapt, a reminder that even the smallest acts of rebellion can spark ripples that echo far beyond their origin. He’s not just resisting for himself...he’s connecting worlds, spanning boundaries, making space for ideas to collide and evolve. There’s something deeply human about the way he navigates the Spider-Verse, like he’s proof that change doesn’t come from one big move but from constant disruption, a refusal to settle. Hobie isn’t just part of the system...he’s a force that reshapes it, challenging everything it tries to hold steady.

[omegaphilosophia]

Aspects of the Philosophy of Complexity

The philosophy of complexity is an interdisciplinary field that explores the fundamental principles underlying complex systems and phenomena in nature, society, and technology. It seeks to understand the emergent properties, self-organization, and dynamics of complex systems, as well as their implications for philosophy, science, and society. Some key aspects of the philosophy of complexity include:

Emergence: Emergence refers to the phenomenon where complex systems exhibit properties and behaviors that cannot be understood by analyzing their individual components in isolation. Instead, these properties arise from the interactions and relationships between the components of the system. Emergent phenomena are often characterized by novel, higher-level patterns and structures that cannot be reduced to the properties of their constituent parts.

Self-Organization: Self-organization is the process through which complex systems spontaneously organize and adapt to their environment without external guidance or control. It involves the emergence of ordered structures, patterns, or behaviors from the interactions between the system's components. Self-organization is a fundamental feature of many natural systems, including biological organisms, ecosystems, and social networks.

Nonlinearity: Nonlinearity refers to the property of complex systems where the relationship between cause and effect is not proportional or predictable. Small changes in the system's initial conditions or parameters can lead to disproportionately large and unpredictable outcomes, known as nonlinear dynamics or "chaos." Nonlinear phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and can give rise to diverse patterns of behavior, such as fractals, turbulence, and phase transitions.

Networks and Interconnectedness: Complex systems often exhibit network structures, where components are interconnected through networks of relationships or interactions. Network theory explores the topology, connectivity, and dynamics of these networks, revealing important insights into the organization and functioning of complex systems across diverse domains, including social networks, neural networks, and ecological networks.

Adaptive Systems: Complex systems are often adaptive, meaning they can adjust and evolve in response to changes in their environment or internal dynamics. Adaptation involves the acquisition of new information, the modification of behaviors or structures, and the selection of advantageous traits through a process of feedback and learning. Adaptive systems are resilient and capable of self-regulation, enabling them to survive and thrive in changing conditions.

Holism and Reductionism: The philosophy of complexity challenges traditional reductionist approaches to understanding the world, which seek to explain complex phenomena by breaking them down into simpler, more manageable parts. Instead, complexity theory emphasizes the holistic and integrative nature of complex systems, emphasizing the importance of studying systems in their entirety and considering the interactions between their constituent elements.

Overall, the philosophy of complexity provides a framework for understanding the interconnectedness, diversity, and dynamism of the world around us, offering valuable insights into the nature of reality, cognition, and social organization.

[dipperdesperado]

If you want a great guide on how to think about what areas we need to focus on in order to create a liberatory, solarpunk society, this is a great place to start.

[themightyfoo]

The purpose of a system is also in the eye of the person who drew a dotted line around it and decided it was a system in the first place.

this is so on the nose

[thewordenreport]

Much more subtle, yet even more damaging, than the ethical lapses by some U.S. justices is the imprint of extra-juridical partisan ideology on the Court, and the related bias in the Constitution that implicitly encourages it. https://thewordenreport-governmentandmarkets.blogspot.com/2025/01/undermining-us-supreme-court-on-roles.html

[probablyasocialecologist]

Information is power. Anyone interested in power grasps that idea very quickly. The media, the public relations people, the politicians, and advertisers who regulate much of the public flow of information have far more power than most people realize. They filter and channel information. Often they do so for short-term, self-interested purposes. It’s no wonder our that social systems so often run amok.

Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

[noosphe-re]

In the eyes of many human beings, life appears to be a unique and special phenome­non. There is, of course, some truth to this belief, since no other planet is known to bear a rich and complex biosphere. However, this view betrays an "organic chauvinism" that leads us to underestimate the vitality of the processes of self­-organization in other spheres of reality. It can also make us forget that, despite the many differences between them, living creatures and their inorganic counter­ parts share a crucial dependence on intense flows of energy and materials. In many respects the circulation is what matters, not the particular forms that it causes to emerge.

Manuel DeLanda, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History

[inanhourofdreaming]

It’s worth pointing out that there are two concerns with UBI:

One, is that people who get it will stop working. The most recent study on this I’ve seen does actually show a mild decline in work hours (that’s probably a feature, not a bug). It’s not overall concerning, but it absolutely has shown some dip on overall productivity, so the economic concerns are at least real there. Again — that is arguably the point, but arguing there won’t be a drop in productivity is inaccurate. Drops in productivity can be meaningful if they mean less of a necessary supply (agriculture, medicine, etc).

Two, and this one is the most concerning, is inflation. Economics are really, really complicated, but one pretty sure thing is that when you dump a bunch of money into people’s pockets en masse, prices will go up to match that reality. PPP loans and stimulus checks during Covid are likely a big part of the reason prices and inflation went up. Yes, there were other issues (price gouging, supply chain issues), but in actuality, giving everyone more money doesn’t give them higher buying power — it just raises prices. Giving everyone more money is a sure way to cause inflation. UBI pilots tend to be very small, and they mostly just show that if some limited amount of people get more money, things will be better for them personally. But that doesn’t mean that if everyone gets it, the same will be true. Everything will go up. The baseline costs will just rise along with the supply of money.

I’d argue, pretty strongly, that outside of limited tax credits, UBI isn’t the best idea. Rather than UBI, you want a few big things:

1. Subsidized healthcare. People stay in jobs, especially in America, because your ability to pay for healthcare is usually directly contingent on your job. Lose your job? Lose your healthcare. People cannot afford that, so they are stuck. No reasonable UBI would cover these costs. Doctors, nurses, and hospitals all provide a service, and the government pays for that benefit through taxes.

2. Universal child care. Child care is extraordinarily expensive (one child in NYC is an average of $20k a year!). Many parents choose to either have one parent stay home (meaning they lose an income, and usually the income increase that parent would have gotten over time) or they are paying a big portion of their income towards child care and losing out on spending time with their child. A universal child care system (just like our K-12 school system) would help parents leave jobs for different jobs without needing to find, for example, an employer that provides child care on site. If you left your job, you’d have the time and ability to find a new one without worrying about your child being safe.

3. Build a fuckton of new housing. You can’t afford your rent because there simply aren’t enough places to live, at least in most high population cities. So that rent bill gets sky high due strictly to very basic supply and demand. This is almost entirely determined by the market, and by property taxes. Your property is taxed on its estimated assessed value, not on what rent you are charging. If demand goes up, and suddenly every apartment in your building is going for $4k a month, you’re going to be expected to pay taxes on that value, even if you only charge $2K for rent. Those taxes are what pay for your public benefits like school, and we can’t really afford to lose them. How do we fix that? Increase supply! Places like Austin are doing this and seeing great results. The government doesn’t care if they’re bringing property taxes on two $2k/month apts or one $4k/month apt.

4. Give government agencies the ability to truly enforce antitrust and price gouging violations. There are genuine bad actors out there who use situations like the pandemic to raise prices and maximize profit. Empower the government to actually investigate and enforce rules around price gouging, antitrust violations, and other actions corporations take to maximize profits to the point where they negatively affect people. Note though, that corporations must actually make a profit to exist. So “corporation continued to make a profit during Covid” is not actually a bad thing for anyone. “Corporation quadrupled their profit margin for a full three years during and after Covid”, on the other hand, is a big warning sign unless that company happened to be Zoom or a pharmaceutical company. Likewise, government enforcement over utilities monopolies, etc, can go a long way towards limiting negative impacts for the average renter/owner.

Systems theory is where it’s at, here. Our economy is a highly complicated system, and thinking through impacts is necessary. Where does the UBI come from, if people are off making art they can’t sell and not paying taxes? If they’re taking lots of time off for family, or to grieve? I mean this honestly. Who is paying for that? We cannot make money from nothing, it has to come from somewhere or your entire economy crashes and your dollar has no value. And no, the answer isn’t just “tax the rich” because there is not unlimited wealth. You could drain every billionaire in America dry (even considering that billionaires aren’t liquid and mostly own stocks in their own and other companies that go up and down with the value of those companies AND that stock only has value if there is someone else to buy it) and it would barely cover a few years of a smaller UBI.

The U.S. has about 345 million Americans. A monthly $500 UBI would cost over $2 trillion dollars annually. That is an enormous amount of money, and because it isn’t taxed, it’s money that doesn’t support any subsidized system.

Simple seeming solutions can seem really nice and clean, but actual governmental policy is incredibly complicated in large part because all our systems are immensely complicated.

This post was way longer than I intended, but I’m going to end it with this: back in 9th grade, many eons ago now for me, my history teacher told us all a story about how Americans spent a ton of money developing a pen that would work in space. The Russians, on the other hand, gave their astronauts pencils! This was shared like Americans were just dummies who never thought to use a pencil.

Well, it turns out, pencils break! And guess what’s worse than spending a bunch of money developing space pens? How about having little pieces of poisonous lead flying around endangering astronauts and getting into sensitive electronics equipment?

Usually, if a simple answer has been passed on a bunch of times, it’s not because nobody has thought of it before. It’s because there was probably a pretty good reason why experts said “probably not the best idea”.

UBI needs to happen. via antiwork

[mythicmemex]

black mirror isn't just showing us dystopian critiques of technology - from an autopoietic perspective, these systems are actually self-sustaining entities that emerge from and recursively shape our behaviors and values. like in nosedive (the bryce dallas howard episode), the social credit system isn't merely ranking people - it's this self-perpetuating network of feedback loops where behaviors are shaped by constant validation-seeking and societal norms get continuously reinforced. and in white christmas, the consciousness-capturing technology creates these recursive systems where human thought and identity become commodified and then used to control behavior. what if the real point is that technology in black mirror isn't just some external antagonist, but also an intrinsic part of systems that humans create, sustain, and get shaped by in return....

[unofficialchronicle]

INCULCATE (v).

to instill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persistent instruction. to teach (someone) an attitude, idea, or habit by persistent instruction.

"We are inculcated about certain ideals by our society."

[fenmere]

Totally derailing this a little bit for laughs, but not discrediting or distracting from it in any way (exposure is exposure and this seems important and right).

But, as a plural system, we've decided to apply this analysis to ourselves.

It turns out that the purpose of our system is to eat Dutch babies, get a mocha, charge our phone, fart, write novels, be asexual, eat nacho flavored Doritos and sleep, like, a LOT.

A cartoon from 1914 that could have been written today

[parrotvoid]

Balance

For System Builders / Maintainers:

Systems can be incredible at building stability and prosperity, but no system is perfect. Systems are constructed to increase the efficiency of normal operations / circumstances. There will always be outliers which need to be handled on an individual basis otherwise the system will become invidious.

For System Deconstructors / Rebels:

Systems serve the majority. Tearing down a system for the sake of an outlier often causes more harm than good. If that outlier wasn’t already a pariah, you can bet they will be when their demands come at the cost of others. Because of these considerations, it’s almost always better to work within the system than against it.

[whos-the-seme]

Shen Qingqiu was doomed.

He stood still, fluttering his fan nervously and trying to avoid catching his counterpart's, the real Shen Qingqiu, glaring eyes from across the room. Instead, he idly observed the other Cang Qiong Mountain Peak Lords, trying to spot the differences between the ones he knew and their alternates.

Liu Qingge had brought back a strange artifact from one of his hunts to the monthly Peak Lord meeting. It was a mirror, rimmed an ugly tarnished gold, topped with a decoration that was shaped into an unidentifiable creature with ruby red eyes.

[Important Artifact Detected: Red-Eyed Sphinx's Mirror! Quest starting...]

Shen Qingqiu had been trying to remember where it might have appeared in PIDW when the surface of the mirror suddenly began to glow a dull yellow. It quickly brightened until it obscured everyone's vision.

And then, there stood another set of peak lords across the room, facing them down.

System, what on earth is going on???

[Quest started: Lost Long Spirit in My Reflection! Other characters have been transported to this universe. Host must find a way to send them back without revealing his identity as a transmigrator.]

WTF? I didn't agree to this!

[Good luck!]

System??? Get back here!

While the two Yue Qingyuans and Xu Qinglis conversed together to try to understand what had happened, the other peak lords had begun to mingle with each other, curious about their counterparts.

Shen Qingqiu tried to suppress his panic, sticking close to Shang Qinghua. His Yue Qingyuan occasionally flicked his softened gaze towards the alternate Shen Qingqiu, likely noticing that the other still acted as he used to before his qi deviation. In fact, several of the peak lords he had gotten to know over the years were sending some looks at the other Shen Qingqiu.

With the original goods right there, how long would it be before something exposed him as a fraud?? What if he was confronted about why he acted so differently?

[Host must avoid having his identity exposed. Being revealed as a transmigrator will result in Host being immediately sent back to his old body.]

Yeah, yeah, same shit as always!

Looking to his side, Shang Qinghua seemed to be experiencing the same threats, desperately looking away from the more dead-eyed Shang Qinghua across the room who, luckily, was barely paying him any attention.

Fuck, what do we do?

---

Shen Qingqiu continued to glare at the Other Shen Qingqiu in the room. The other Shen Qingqiu was so obviously a fraud, he could tell within minutes of being here. While his alternate seemed somewhat familiar, he didn't act like him at all, his mannerisms were all off, and despite the attempt at keeping a poker face, Shen Qingqiu could tell that he was nervous. Probably at being caught out.

His alternate self had likely been replaced with a bodysnatcher or some sort of spirt, if they truly were supposed to be the same person. Was everyone else stupid, or had they had their brains sucked out by a Heart Mouthed Lobster-Squid?

Or maybe they simply like the bodysnatcher better and didn't bother to investigate.

Shen Qingqiu's face became stormier, turning his glare to the Other Yue Qingyuan, wondering if he had felt happier once his precious Xiao-Jiu had vanished. The other Yue Qingyuan's face grew even more pathetic. Tch. Typical.

"That stupid System--" Shen Qingqiu nearly snapped his neck in looking at the bodysnatcher upon hearing his murmur. The fraud, upon noticing his sudden attention, clammed back up and looked away. But Shen Qingqiu knew what he heard.

Xi Tong.

He hadn't heard those words in years, not since--

He stepped forward, scanning the other once more. Upon a second, more thorough look, Shen Qingqiu realized that he grew more familiar. He wore his hair in the way that Shen Qingqiu wore it, but looser and less severe. His eyes were clearer and lighter, with hints of a smile, despite his nerves. He occasionally quickly glanced up and to his left, as if seeing something there, before bringing his attention back to the room at large.

No. It couldn't be. He was long dead, despite Shen Qingqiu's best efforts. Even if the fake had some similar things about him, that doesn't mean--

Shen Jiu had once had a brother, besides Qi-ge. Slightly smaller than him, despite the fact that Shen Jiu passed him along as much food as he could when on the streets. He smiled so much despite their circumstances, and was so kind despite Shen Jiu constantly telling him that he was making himself a target. But he looked so, so similar to Shen Jiu himself. They could have switched their clothes and looked exactly the same, if one didn't notice the difference in their demeanors.

His brother has also always been a little odd, talking to himself and arguing with an imaginary friend that only he could see named Xi Tong. One of the reasons that they survived as long as they did on the streets was due to the inexplicable knowledge that his brother seemed to have. Somehow, his brother knew about the various plants or small animals that they could hunt and sell for a pretty coin in the markets. Shen Jiu never asked, not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

But his brother was dead. He had died years ago, in the time during when they were in Qiu's manor. During a punishment for Shen Jiu's attempt to get them both to join Wu Yanzi; he had switched their clothes and taken Shen Jiu's place and died for it. That had been the final catalyst that made him set the manor ablaze and escape, mourning his brother's death as his fault for daring to be free. Cursing Qi-ge for not coming back for them.

Dazed and his vision dim, Shen Jiu took another step forward, and another. Hope, something he thought he had killed off long ago, slowly rose in his chest.

Had his brother survived in this world? Had he managed to escape alongside Shen Jiu? Or had Shen Jiu died in his place? Dimly, he can't help but think that the world would be far kinder if that were the case. If his brother had made it to Cang Qiong Mountain and became a peak lord all on his own and still managed to keep his smile. If he didn't have Shen Jiu dragging him down with him.

The other Shen Qingqiu, not having noticed his approach, laughed at something the other Shang Qinghua said ("Wonder if Shang Qinghua is a traitor here, too," Shen Jiu thought dimly). His laugh was the same. He rose his fan to hide his face, but Shen Jiu noticed how his nose crinkled, and his eyes nearly closed in delight, exactly like--

"A-Yuan?"

[bixels]

As cameras becomes more normalized (Sarah Bernhardt encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use cameras because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by manufacturing companies. I paint not because I want a painting but because I love the process of painting. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

if i have to explain to you that using a camera to take a picture is not the same as using generative ai to generate an image then you are a fucking moron.