Regarding Laralyn McWilliams'
"Get Over Yourself"
"Get Over Yourself"
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Show posts MenuQuote from: p. 162[One] of Jay Forrester's famous systems sayings goes: It doesn't matter how the tax law of a country is written. There is a shared idea in the minds of the society about what a "fair" distribution of the tax load is. Whatever the laws say, by fair means or foul, by complications, cheating, exemptions or deductions, by constant sniping at the rules, actual tax payments will push right up against the accepted idea of "fairness."
Quote from: p. 163Paradigms [shared social agreements about the nature of reality] are the sources of [systems goals and information flows, feedbacks, stocks, flows, and everything else about] systems.
Quote from: p140If you define the goal of a society as GNP, that society will do its best to produce GNP. It will not produce welfare, equality, justice, or efficiency unless you define a goal and regularly measure and report the state of welfare, equity, justice, or efficiency.
Quote from: p137THE TRAP: RULE BEATINGRules to govern a system can lead to rule beating--perverse behavior that [obeys the rules, but] distorts the systemTHE WAY OUTDesign, or redesign, rules to release creativity not in the direction of beating the rules, but in the direction of achieving the purpose of the rules
Quote from: page 12[One example of a non-system is] a conglomeration without any particular interconnections or function. Sand scattered on a road by happenstance is not, itself, a system. . . .
Quote from: page 12When a living creature dies, it loses its "system-ness." The multiple interactions that held it together no longer function, and it dissipates, although its material remains part of a larger food-web system.
Quote from: page 116THE TRAP: POLICY RESISTANCEWhen various actors try to pull a system stock toward various goals, the result can be policy resistance. Any new policy, especially if it's effective, . . . produces additional resistance, with results no one likes, but that everyone expends considerable effort in maintaining.THE WAY OUTLet go. Bring in all the actors and use the energy formerly expended on resistance to seek out mutually satisfactory ways for all goals to be realized--or redefinitions of larger and more important goals that everyone can pull toward together.