This is a thread about the most interesting subject I learned recently.

It started when I I read the paper “How Complex Systems Fail”. Like many others encountering it, I felt it was the most insightful four pages ever written about software engineering https://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf

Observations like “Complex systems run in degraded mode” and “Root-cause attribution is fundamentally wrong” are both profound yet totally relatable if you’ve encountered production software. It was an “oh, this explains everything!” moment for me.

Yet I was confused that the paper didn’t refer specifically to software engineering, or even engineering. Then I learnt that the paper was written by an MD, and he actually had healthcare systems in mind. Wait, what?!

Apparently complex systems in every domain have striking similarities. And there is a whole field of study of “systems” whose insights apply equally well to ecological systems and medical systems and software and traffic and many, many other things.

I’m reading “Thinking in Systems: a Primer”, a classic of the field. It’s a whole new way of seeing the world and everything in it. I’m sad this wasn’t in my high school/college syllabus. If you hadn’t heard of systems thinking either, it’s not too late! https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557

I've made more highlights in "Thinking in systems" than any other book I've read, in part because it's so widely applicable. Here's an almost throwaway passage brilliantly explaining why the news is not a good way to understand the world.