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Systems One An Introduction To Systems T PDF
Systems One An Introduction To Systems T PDF
Second E d i t i o n
T h i s t e x t o r i g i n a l l y e n t i t l e d The Human
Environment: An Introduction to
E n v i r o n m e n t a l Systems was d e v e l o p e d u n d e r a
g r a n t from t h e O f f i c e of E n v i r o n m e n t a l
E d u c a t i o n , O f f i c e of Education, Department
o f H e a l t h , E d u c a t i o n , and W e l f a r e .
( WONT
2
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TUR
As the water rushed into the pond, it pushed the float
f URNACE up, allowing the gate t o settle back into place, gradually
shutting off the flow of water.
each case. It does mean, however, that no society can be The same thing can happen t o many other areas.
perfect-solving one problem almost always creates If people are taxed on what they say their incomes are,
others-and people need t o understand and have they will be tempted to lie about how much money they
tolerance for some degree of sloppiness and unfairness make. If people in business and government are fired
in the system. for making mistakes, they will be tempted t o hide those
The Distortion of Feedback: Still another infor- mistakes from the people in charge instead of admitting
mation problem is that complex systems depend on mistakes and fixing them. If politicians need votes t o get
information t o control the behavior of their subsystems, elected, they may be tempted t o stuff the ballot box
and this often creates an incentive for the subsystems t o rather than persuade the voters. A company with a poor
"lie" or at least t o distort the information flow. For product will be tempted t o lie t o potential customers in
example, good academic grades and test scores are its advertisements.
intended t o be indicators of learning and achievement, Grades, tax forms, work records, vote counts,
but they are also the basis for admission to other schools and advertisements are all pieces of information which
and to good jobs. Since the students know about these form essential parts of various feedback loops in the
potential rewards, a feedback loop is created which is economic and political systems. If people think it is
supposed t o look like this: easier to manipulate the feedback loops by distorting
the information than by changing what the information
is supposed t o represent, the quality of the information
r which the system gets will decrease and so will the
1
Decision t o
JI efficiency of the system as a whole.
Work Harder$- gEsbrFirioderS<- $?tkEi!:$Aon As a result, complex systems generally have to
spend a great deal of effort and resources trying t o
But if there are other ways t o get good grades besides prevent this distortion, either by "checking up"
working harder and learning more, students will be through other channels on the information it gets, o r by
tempted t o take a short cut, such as studying only what making the information much harder t o distort, o r by
will be o n the exam, o r cramming for the exam, o r making the penalties for cheating much higher than the
cheating, o r trying to persuade the teacher to raise the rewards. This constant need to protect feedback loops
grade, o r falsifying the records of the grades. In other from distortion simply adds to the cost of collecting
words, the student can try t o manipulate the symbol information in the first place.
(good grades) instead of changing the underlying reality
(more learning) which the symbol is supposed t o The Loss ofPredictability: Finally, the flexibility that
represent. enables complex systems t o survive in rapidly changing