[HN Gopher] How to Change a System
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How to Change a System
Author : yamrzou
Score : 87 points
Date : 2024-02-25 10:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.enablingchange.com.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.enablingchange.com.au)
| yamrzou wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240226010607/https://www.enabl...
| ireadmevs wrote:
| "Hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, economic
| instability, unemployment, chronic disease, drug addiction, and
| war, for example, persist in spite of the analytical ability and
| technical brilliance that have been directed toward eradicating
| them. No one deliberately creates those problems, no one wants
| them to persist, but they persist nonetheless. That is because
| they are intrinsically systems problems - undesirable behaviors
| characteristic of the system structures that produce them." -
| Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems, a Primer
|
| Oh no no, it already started with a flawed premise. There are big
| players that deliberately created many of those problems and that
| have much to profit with their persistence. You want to talk
| about change, please go ahead. Just don't be blind to those who
| are responsible for the problems and the motivations behind them.
| alexvoda wrote:
| I can see where you might be coming from but I would argue
| Meadows is still correct and higher resolution.
|
| Do provide a concrete example so I can unpack it.
| yabbs wrote:
| Shock doctrine. Disaster capitalism. Economic hitman
| 0thgen wrote:
| none of what you just said would be a plausible explanation
| for the persistence of poverty, economic instability,
| environmental degradation, drug addiction, chronic disease,
| etc etc
|
| I'd bet even the authors of the 2 books you've hinted at
| wouldn't even make that claim. I'm sure they would see many
| of the problems listed as systems-level issues
| vincnetas wrote:
| One more example how medical company profited from
| addictive painkillers for profit (OxyContin) :
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-
| tha...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(TV_series)
| 0thgen wrote:
| "There are big players that deliberately created many of those
| problems"
|
| Could you specify which ones? I'm curious who's profiting from
| hunger, poverty, economic instability, and unemployment -- and
| thereby perpetuating it (sounds like major speculation).
|
| Maybe war gets propagated by nations military industries
| (though that's probably only sometimes true). The remaining
| problems listed (environmental damage, drug addiction, chronic
| disease) seems like second order consequences of other
| pursuits, not problems perpetuated for their own sake.
|
| Whether they're first or second order consequences might seem
| like a semantics debate, but it's what distinguishes your model
| (problems are deliberate) from Donella Meadows model
| (externalities, collective action, structural issues, etc). And
| both models suggest very different solutions (police bad actors
| versus change structures/incentives)
| southerntofu wrote:
| I'm gonna play the devil's advocate, but it's not as crazy as
| it sounds. Like some other commenter noted, the "shock
| doctrine" for example is a very widely documented/theorized
| phenomenon and not a conspiracy theory.
|
| > hunger
|
| There's a huge agro-food industry that profits from hunger.
| Its profits depend on subsistence farming being impossible or
| illegal so that's what they do: outlaw peasant seeds (like in
| France), buy all land from the owners until the population
| can't feed itself and needs the supermarket to survive,
| arrange for economic structures that allow for massive
| foreign subsidies (eg. EU CAP) to compete with the few local
| farmers left...
|
| > poverty, economic instability, and unemployment
|
| Temp work is another major industry that can only flourish
| when better employment conditions are not available to the
| workers. For those who don't find work and/or caught in the
| judicial system for some reason, the prison industrial
| complex will make profit on their incarceration. Once
| incarcerated, some companies will employ prisoners without
| working rights and protections in quasi-slavery conditions,
| making a ton more money than if they needed proper salaries
| and safety conditions. To give an example, here in France
| prison labor is usually < 1EUR/hour compared to ~10EUR/hour
| minimum wage.
|
| > drug addiction
|
| European settlers in America used alcohol as a weapon against
| natives. Later, during the cold war, the CIA organized for
| crack cocaine to destroy black neighborhoods social tissue,
| while financing the "contras" fascist militias.
|
| We could go on. I'm not saying reforming incentives is wrong,
| it's certainly part of the solution. But it would be very
| naive to think that alone is enough to change society because
| nobody would want to harm others. Fascists very much exist
| and very much want to harm others, not necessarily out of a
| profit motive but also sometimes out of pure hatred.
| 0thgen wrote:
| Fair enough. It'd be impossible for me to argue that there
| aren't bad actors doing very bad things But to what extent
| are problems due to (a) bad actors, versus (b) structure
| issues, resource scarcity, trade-offs, collective action
| problems, etc
|
| And even if we suppose bad actors are 100% responsible for
| the world's problems, the systems-level analysis (if I
| understand it correctly) would still suggest that the
| solution is "structural" (cut off all the leverage points
| that allow bad actors to manipulate institutions)
|
| Say, in the case of the opioid crisis (which most of us
| agree was caused in large part from a bad actor), do we
| abolish pharmaceutical companies, or do we abolish the
| structural pathways (marketing, lobbying) that let them do
| bad things?
|
| I lean towards the latter, but don't know if it's any more
| feasible than the former
| vincnetas wrote:
| I can give you couple example.
|
| Private prisons profit directly from incarceration rates
| (crime)
|
| Sugar factories profit from selling unhealthy food.
| yamrzou wrote:
| Private prisons only profit because people commit crimes.
| So the question becomes: How to make people commit less
| crimes?
|
| Sugar factories are only able to sell because people are
| willing to buy. So the question becomes: How to make people
| less willing to consume unhealthy food?
| vincnetas wrote:
| When you have multibillion marketing machine convincing
| you that "Fruit" loops are healthy breakfast, there is
| not much you can do to educate people otherwise. Do you
| think if there were legal unregulated heroin factories,
| there would be peoples fault that they are
| buying/consuming highly promoted heroin?
|
| Regarding incarceration, when there is initiative to give
| prison time, instead of providing help (in case of light
| drug use) you get more people in prison.
|
| Of course you can always say that it's up to people to
| make a final decision, but we arguing here that there are
| powerful interests groups that trying to influence the
| outcome of everyday decisions that lead us to before
| mentioned outcomes.
| nyrikki wrote:
| While I won't touch the sugar claim, private prison
| companies tend to think of themselves as real estate
| investors. They try to get desperate rural governments to
| give them land for pennies on the dollar.
|
| They make empirically false claims for what the local
| economic impact is going to be by being obtuse.
|
| I know this because I was involved with meetings with one
| trying to move into my home town.
|
| I got them to admit the first in public meeting but they
| punted on the second.
|
| And if you think there's a direct connection between
| crimes and prison terms, you are just under informed.
|
| There are lots of people in prison who have long paid for
| their crimes but are still there because they are victims
| of their time (Cash)
|
| Keeping people in prison is incentivized for private
| prisons.
| 0thgen wrote:
| so one solution (especially in the case of private
| prisons) would be to disband the bad actors
|
| But do you see the value that comes from thinking about
| this as a structural problem? Until we completely cut off
| the pathway that gives private interest groups access to
| the levers of criminal law, bad actors will keep emerging
| kibwen wrote:
| _> Private prisons only profit because people commit
| crimes. So the question becomes: How to make people
| commit less crimes?_
|
| Examine where this intuition comes from. Firstly, the
| problem is not "too many people are committing crimes",
| it's "prisons are profiting from people committing
| crimes", which creates a perverse incentive. Secondly, as
| a result of this perverse incentive, judges and lawmakers
| are incentivized to write and enforce laws such that the
| business model of incarceration is maintained. So the
| question of "How to make people commit less crimes?" is
| misaimed; the problem isn't with the people committing
| the crimes, it's with the people defining what is and is
| not a crime.
| 0thgen wrote:
| I'd say you're right here that private prisons are an
| example of a "bad actor" causing a major problem, and I'd
| even go as far as supporting abolishing private prisons
| (though some crime would still likely exist regardless)
|
| But it still isn't clear that the other major problems
| mentioned (world hunger, economic instability,
| environmental damage, chronic disease, war) can be
| eliminated purely by eliminating bad actors
| kibwen wrote:
| Sure, but the thrust of the thread here is to refute the
| blanket assertion that nobody wants these things to exist
| or actively chooses to create the conditions in which
| they exist. As you say, not all problems are the result
| of perverse incentives, but there are enough that are
| that we should be careful not to over-generalize. And
| it's not just nitpicking, because this has consequences
| for the OP; it's one thing to change a system that exists
| unintentionally, and quite another thing to change a
| system that exists intentionally.
| 0thgen wrote:
| fair enough; I agree with that
| 0thgen wrote:
| fair points, and in another comment I point to tax service
| companies lobbying for complicated tax laws in the US. I'm
| fine admitting that bad actors do bad things
|
| now, to what extend do you think the majority of the
| world's problems are caused by (a) bad actors, versus (b)
| structural issues or resource constraints. 100%? 70%? 30%?
|
| What we devote our attention to depends very much on that
| question (as well as what changes are easy to implement)
| greggsy wrote:
| I disagree. This is a common trope that 'bad guys' deliberately
| engineer global problems for their own good.
|
| There are bad actors - people who deliberately do or say the
| wrong thing for malicious purposes. There are also strategists
| who have learnt how to game the system. The net result appears
| to be a concerted, planned effort to create the problems we
| have in the world today, when in reality, they have mostly
| emerged is a result of complex issues - driven mostly by human
| behaviour and accidents - and that can't simply be
| 'engineered'.
|
| There are players who are trying to (for example) avoid a move
| away from oil, but it's naive to think that the conflict and
| environmental problems that it causes have a solution that
| could allow them to be 'fixed'. There is a cost to everything
| we do, and there are always winners. Same goes for war, water
| or poverty.
|
| I think your perspective is that the winners are taking home a
| disproportionate amount of the winnings - I agree.
|
| Michael Jackson [1] is the another Systems Thinking guru, and
| argues that 'wicked problems' like these can never be solved,
| and it's irresponsible to claim otherwise.
|
| Instead, it's only possible to _improve_ the situation for
| those involved in it. It takes time, effort, leadership, a
| change in mindset - and almost always sacrifice - to instigate
| real change. You can't just tell the bad guys to do the right
| thing.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Jackson_(systems_scientis...
| 0thgen wrote:
| I'm curious if those pushing the "it's the bad guys keeping
| everything bad!" model actually believe it, or if it's just a
| narrative that helps people vent about their political
| frustrations.
|
| And who knows, their model could be correct. But the
| unwillingness to consider "tradeoffs" makes me think it's
| just political angst and not a serious take
| somenameforme wrote:
| I'd take a nuanced half and half approach. I think the
| majority of who people think are just the generic "bad
| guys" is largely out of ignorance and/or naivete of
| surrounding circumstance. But I also do think there are
| people who are pretty fine with doing some sociopathic
| things to enrich themselves. The typical example is big
| pharma. Imagine tomorrow a magic genie offered a big pharma
| exec a cure to cancer, and he got to pick which form it
| took:
|
| 1) A one time pill that not only cured any existing cancers
| in a user, but also permanently prevented any further ones.
| And to make it even better, it also is somehow relatively
| simple meaning it could be easily cloned and made extremely
| and globally affordable.
|
| 2) A complex (enabling a defacto monopoly on production),
| lengthy, and expensive treatment program that is 100%
| effective at curing any 1 type of cancer - that must be
| repeated per cancer and per individual as they emerge.
|
| I do genuinely think that all big pharma execs would choose
| #2. They'd probably rationalize it as something like 'Well
| I'm curing cancer, and now I'll ensure we have the funds to
| continue working to solve even more illnesses, and
| everybody wins." So I'm sure in their minds they aren't
| villains, but that's because humans are just really really
| good at cognitive dissonance.
| 0thgen wrote:
| fair point, and there are more real-world examples we
| could list (big tax services lobbying for more
| complicated tax codes)
|
| I guess the question then is: what major world problems
| can be fixed by eliminating / preventing bad actors, and
| what problems require a different solution?
|
| I'm not claiming to know the answer
| yamrzou wrote:
| > Michael Jackson [1] is the another Systems Thinking guru,
| and argues that 'wicked problems' like these can never be
| solved, and it's irresponsible to claim otherwise.
|
| Can you point to a more detailed reading about his arguments
| for this position?
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Of JSD [0] (Jackson Systems Design/Development) fmae no
| less.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_System_Development
| greggsy wrote:
| Different one - see my link above
| greggsy wrote:
| I just went through his book from uni (it's 700 gruelling
| and somewhat traumatising pages), and I think I
| misattributed it from Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology
| (SSM).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_systems_methodology
| WhyUVoteGarbage wrote:
| Yeah, they forgot regime change: remove leaders who are
| actively thwarting reform.
| luis_cho wrote:
| From Donella Meadows [1]:
|
| PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM (in increasing order of
| effectiveness)
|
| 9. Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).
|
| 8. Regulating negative feedback loops.
|
| 7. Driving positive feedback loops.
|
| 6. Material flows and nodes of material intersection.
|
| 5. Information flows.
|
| 4. The rules of the system (incentives, punishments,
| constraints).
|
| 3. The distribution of power over the rules of the system.
|
| 2. The goals of the system.
|
| 1. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system -- its goals,
| power structure, rules, its culture -- arises.
|
| Regarding point 2: What is the goal of the current system?
|
| [1] https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-
| places-t...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| For all of you who are genuinely interested in Meadows' system
| theory here's the first two of a running cybershow series [0,1]
| talking about levearage points in a modern context.
|
| [0] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=21 [1]
| https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=19
| harimau777 wrote:
| If we go with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_sy
| stem_is_wha..., then the goal of the current system is to
| create wealth inequality.
| 0thgen wrote:
| is the purpose of chemotherapy to make people lose their
| hair?
| EchoChamberMan wrote:
| It usually cures cancer. The current government
| concentrates wealth in the hands of the few. Less than 1%
| of the population owns nearly 50% of the wealth.
| 0thgen wrote:
| Ok. But should "purpose" be redefined as "outcome", as
| the parent comment suggests?
|
| My thought is no, and that's why "purpose" and "outcome"
| aren't synonyms in the english language
| luis_cho wrote:
| I would say that the main objective of the current system is to
| grow. We measure this with the GDP. This growth is necessary
| for the current system to survive, to pay our debts or keep our
| jobs, but is also incompatible with reducing carbon emissions
| [1]
|
| If we could imagine new objectives we can change the paradigm.
| For instance we could try to have a carbon dividend as a
| complement to jobs creation [2].
|
| [1] https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/ [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend
| oneshtein wrote:
| It's nice when you are in power to fix a system. It's much more
| challenging to fix a system which is hostile to you. Moreover,
| it's even harder when you are part of the system, which is
| hostile to you. Highly recommended to try.
| from-nibly wrote:
| In those systems you have to start from the bottom (weakest)
| influences. It will burn you out quick.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Yes, if you act in a dumb way, you will burn out.
|
| Even those who were at top cannot change a big massive system
| easily. I saw examples of that. Every change need some amount
| of energy. Big changes needs massive amounts of energy.
|
| Often, it's easier to regrow a new system from scratch than
| to change old one.
|
| To change a system, the changer must be more powerful that
| the system (happens sometimes, but not my case) OR be smart
| and ride a situation. Usually, system opposes any change,
| because risk out-weighs benefits. Very rarely, except in
| desperate situation, system will accept a shock therapy. So,
| for a system to accept a change, risks must be reduced. When
| risks are low and benefits are clear, resistance to change is
| low too.
| zackmorris wrote:
| This is pretty much all I think about anymore. It's so easy to
| understand both from a secular and religious standpoint that
| helping the bottom helps everyone. But since the trickle-down
| economics era started in the 1980s, pretty much all of the
| economic gains have gone to the top. Wealth inequality has
| reached such a brutal level that I would argue that the American
| Dream ended sometime between 2001 and 2008. Everything since has
| been rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
|
| Now rents and home prices are so high vs incomes that most
| Americans never get out from under the yoke, they just work until
| they die. And politicians openly call for malarky like raising
| the retirement age, rather than working towards actually solving
| problems.
|
| So assuming we can all agree on how bad things have gotten (we
| can't/won't heh), the solution becomes pretty obvious:
|
| We need to shift from profit to residual income and recurring
| resources.
|
| For example, a learning center in my city offers free electric
| car charging which I used just yesterday. Most places would
| charge a fee per kWh. But it's conceivable that a solar battery
| station could be mass-produced for under $5,000. It could be
| priced a nominal amount to pay itself off, perhaps $1/kWh, put
| out 5 kWh per day, and pay itself off in about 1000 days or 3
| years. Then provide free charging to everyone for perhaps 20-30
| more years. Then it becomes in everyone's best interest to own a
| station, so amortization loans/grants would become available
| where basically anyone can get a near-0% interest, $5,000 loan
| and get a station immediately, speeding rollout. The cost of true
| innovation approaches free, that's why we're trained not to see
| it.
|
| We could repeat this societal investment process with automatic
| dishwashers, Roombas, Gardyn/Rise hydroponic indoor gardens, that
| in-home pick and place OK-Robot that was on HN the other day,
| electric scooters/cars, and eventually vans and tiny homes.
| Everyone could transition from monthly bills to an automated
| lifestyle where most basic needs are provided by robots or UBI
| within a social contract akin to solarpunk. This is essentially
| FIRE or F-U money, but where primary expenses are provided
| scalably at an individual level so they can't be taken away by
| concentrated wealth.
|
| The reality I came from prevented all of this. When I was in my
| early 20s, fresh out of watching Fight Club and 8 Mile and The
| Fast and the Furious, the US had just voted for GW Bush instead
| of Al Gore in an effort to astroturf Peak Oil out of the public
| eye. We invested trillions of dollars into McMansions and SUVs to
| fight a War on Terror for 20 years and offshore 100,000 US
| factories, doubling down on globalization policies like NAFTA.
| When I mentioned even the most primitive cost-saving alternatives
| like solar thermal hot water heaters and heat pumps, I was met
| with scorn. That lasted until 2013 when Obama's reelection gave
| enough confidence to the auto industry that stuff like the Nissan
| Leaf and Tesla (maybe model S?) ushered in MVP electric vehicles.
| Which was great, but keep in mind that lithium-ion batteries were
| invented in the 1990s. We could have had a moonshot to get them
| to today's densities by 2000 and saved about 15-25 years.
|
| So in a very real sense, the private sector delayed the rollout
| of sustainable solutions for decades, especially considering that
| a similar moonshot could have happened for solar panels and
| keystone tech like blue LEDs, mRNA/CRISPR, basically all of the
| "ubiquitous" tools we take for granted today.
|
| I bring that up because Gen X remembers being ostracized for
| trying to make things better, and we have no loyalties towards
| worshipping ignorance. We're in the midst of the Fourth Turning,
| and when anyone younger than us takes the reins of government, it
| will be a watershed moment for sustainability. I think the rise
| in authoritarianism and proxy wars is about derailing progress
| long enough that minority rule can maintain control through
| sabotage until the New World Order can be cemented. So the most
| important things we can do are resist doublethink and not pay
| into systems of control. Which basically means looking at stuff
| like austerity with a critical eye to see how it stifles
| innovation and props up the status quo, under the guise of saving
| money which only flows to the top anyway.
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