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📝 Clarify the complexity of modeling human systems in the Systems section
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Systems.md
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Systems.md
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To [change a system](https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/a-framework-for-thinking-about-systems-change/) you need vision, skills, [[Incentives|incentives]], resources and an action plan. Changing a [complex system](https://complexityexplained.github.io/) is hard and [even if the intention is good, the result might not](https://fs.blog/2013/10/iatrogenics/).
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First, focus on [[Incentives]]. [Don't be angry at the people who are benefiting from a system, or at the system itself](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22043088). Most just end up that way, the same way a river meanders towards the sea, or an electrical current tries to find ground.
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First, focus on [[Incentives]]. [Don't be angry at the people who are benefiting from a system, or at the system itself](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22043088). Most just end up that way, the same way a river meanders towards the sea, or an electrical current tries to find ground. Modeling human systems is hard because humans also respond to models of their world and then change it. They are [reflexive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory)).
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Keep in mind intervening in a system requires some kind of theory, some kind of model where the positive effects will definitely be better than the side effects - and given how little we know and how bad we are at prediction, this will probably be wrong. A great way to start is removing things, kind of like a negative intervention, and so probably good (e.g: you're unlikely to find a medicine as helpful as smoking is harmful, so focus on stopping smoking). Easy to replace systems get replaced by difficult to replace systems. Sometimes is better to have fewer points of small disruptive change, but make a larger one much more meaningful.
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