"When Complex Systems Fail" by JWCB
an interesting treatment from a clinical perspective
/ jim
321gold.com
(a clip)
Sometimes, unfortunately, a complex system fails. Despite the best efforts to keep an evolving system together through coordinated management, and attempts to provide fail safe mechanisms along its evolutionary path, the system can weaken, degrade, and fail. Due to its enormity and multi-faceted nature, changes occur slowly and are perceived to evolve in an orderly manner. A strange public trust is instilled along the pathogenesis of breakdown, but official statements, encouragement, and assurance of constant tweaks to controls put aside public concern. The consequential impact from the potential failure can be beyond measure. Hyperbolic words such as "enormous" or "magnificent" or "staggering" really fall short in their description of the fallout damage. Experience through past crises, and reactions to them, tend to render the system more fragile and weakened, not more secure and efficient. It becomes more subject to stagnation and a pathetic state of near breakdown, which ironically comes to be accepted as the "normal" situation. Successive crises have indeed worsened over time. A worthwhile exercise might be to review a clinical treatise on the nature and evaluation of systemic failure. |
