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Complex systems theory is a way of thinking about systems with many interacting parts and functions. It draws on physics and the science of modeling dynamic systems. It’s a trans-disciplinary, quantitative science of everything. It often and increasingly gets applied to social systems, often through the methods of agent-based modeling (ABM). ABM has a long […]| Digifesto
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Introduction I’ve been sitting on this blog for a while. But it’s been kicked out of the drafts, by events of an early morning research exploration, as I continue writing the book of the GM Moving journey and learning so far. It’s about the common recurring topic of line of sight, by which I mean […]| Hayley Lever
Earlier this year, I was asked to contribute to an article in IEEE Software, entitled “Technical Debt: Challenges and Perspectives.” I can’t post the entire article here, but I can post the accepted text of my part of the article here. Misusing the Metaphor John Allspaw All technical disciplines (not just software development) require different| Kitchen Soap
Over the years, a number of people have asked about the details surrounding Etsy’s architecture review process. In this post, I’d like to focus on the architecture review working group’s role in facilitating dialogue about technology decision-making. Part of this is really just about working groups in general (pros, cons, formats, etc.) and another part| Kitchen Soap
I just spent the last week in Lisbon, Portugal at the Resilience Engineering Symposium. Zoran Perkov and I were invited to speak on the topic of software operations and resilience in the financial trading and Internet services worlds, to an audience of practitioners and researchers from all around the globe, in a myriad of industries.| Kitchen Soap
From Perspectives On Cognitive Task Analysis: Historical Origins and Modern Communities of Practice (emphasis mine) The Aretha Franklin Principle Do not devalue the human to justify the machine. Do not criticize the machine to rationalize the human. Advocate the human—machine system to amplify both. The Sacagawea Principle Human-centered computational tools need to support active organization of| Kitchen Soap
This is a photo of the backside of the T-shirt for the operations engineering team at Etsy: This diagram might not come as a surprise to those who know th| Kitchen Soap
Published by The Club of Rome in Enduring Peace in the Anthropocene, May 2024 A just resolution to the Israel/Palestine conflict requires acknowledging and honoring truths that are seemingly contradictory. Examples from other domains show how this can be accomplished and offer a potential pathway to an enduring, long-term peace. Let us consider some facts … Continue reading Honoring Multiple Truths: An Integrative Pathway to Peace in Israel/Palestine| Patterns of Meaning
Many people claim that evolution has a direction toward increased complexity—and that humans represent its apex. Our destiny, they declare, is to break out of our earthly limitations and explore th…| Patterns of Meaning
I often draw a distinction between the political elites of Washington DC and the industrial elites of Silicon Valley with a joke: in San Francisco reading books, and talking about what you have rea…| The Scholar's Stage
Two items of interest passed through my feeds this week. The first is the podcast Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz released to explain why they are endorsing Trump for president. The second is an ev…| The Scholar's Stage
The explosive rise in the power of AI presents humanity with an existential risk. To counter that risk, and potentially redirect our civilization’s trajectory, we need a more integrated understanding of the nature of human intelligence and the fundamental requirements for human flourishing. The recent explosion in the stunning power of artificial intelligence is likely … Continue reading To Counter AI Risk, We Must Develop an Integrated Intelligence| Patterns of Meaning
First published as “Nature Is a Jazz Band, Not a Machine” by Institute of Art and Ideas | News on July 30, 2021. From genetic engineering to geoengineering, we treat nature as though it’s a machine. This view of nature is deeply embedded in Western thought, but it’s a fundamental misconception with potentially disastrous consequences. … Continue reading Nature Is Not a Machine—We Treat It So at Our Peril| Patterns of Meaning
Does China have a plan to save its wobbly economy? Last week in Foreign Policy I argued that it does—but not the sort of plan most Western economists are comfortable with. Western analysts blame sl…| The Scholar's Stage
A few years back Ross Douthat published an interesting book titled The Decadent Society: How We Became Victims of Our Own Success. The thesis of Douthat’s book is simple: American society is …| The Scholar's Stage
