From Donella Meadows:
PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM
(in increasing order of effectiveness)
Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).
The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against.
The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints).
The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
The goals of the system.
The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises.
The power to transcend paradigms.
I love this passage. I find myself returning to it again. Meadows is a scientist, but in those last points she takes an abrupt turn toward the spiritual. When every outward-facing lever fails, the answers must necessarily be found within.
We must not use the word system, then, to refer to an object. A system is an abstraction. It is not a special kind of thing, but a special way of looking at a thing.
(Christopher Alexander, 1968. Systems Generating Systems)
The definition of a problem is s
