"The purpose of a system is what it does."

#StaffordBeer, 1926-2002

We live in an economic system that routinely gives more resources to people who make weapons than to doctors and nurses. What does that tell you about the purpose of that system?

#Immigration courts are separate and unequal to the #American criminal justice system.

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2025/07/11/ice-immigration-court-deportation-injustice-251119

Ontario’s jail conditions are inhumane and disgraceful, judges say. Criminals are serving shorter sentences as a result

https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/ontario-s-jail-conditions-are-inhumane-and-disgraceful-judges-say-criminals-are-serving-shorter-sentences/article_2eea957e-d411-4c75-b900-8b50fe88b0c7.html

> As the premier calls for bail reforms that would see more people locked up while awaiting trial, Ontario’s jails are “in a state of growing crisis.”

#abolishPrisons

#RealJustice

Conway’s Law:

«[O]rganizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.»

— Melvin E. Conway, How Do Committees Invent?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law

The purpose of a system is what it does.

The system is not just broken—it’s designed to be.

Jakub Jurkiewicz and I have been talking for a while about creating an event that feels a little different — less about broadcasting ideas, and more about building them together.

We’re calling it BEACON

It’s a one-day event for technical leaders
Talks in the morning to spark ideas
An unconference in the afternoon to go deeper, together

Theme: sustainable evolution — thoughtful, ongoing change in teams and systems

When: 13th October 2025
Where: Auckland

The event will be catered and ticketed (price TBC)
We’re adding to the ecosystem with something more participatory.

If you’re curious, add your email here:
https://forms.gle/KcFvGyESGbU8w6Wr7

Please boost for reach

#TechLeadership #systemsThinking
#Aoteaora #tamakimakarau #newZealand

The housing crisis will not be solved with money alone.
It’s not a numbers problem — it’s a systems problem.
And pouring money into a broken system just breaks it faster.

We’ve built a system that makes it hard to create the kind of modest, incremental, people-scaled housing our communities actually need and then we act surprised when affordability collapses.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025/6/19/housing-is-not-a-numbers-problemits-a-systems-problem

PDF #SystemsThinking https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/114731684691493053

Functional detachment... in an age of Systemic disintegration:

In an era saturated with information yet starved of wisdom, there exists a cognitive threshold - quietly crossed - where the accumulation of knowledge ceases to be empowering and becomes corrosive.

This state, which may be termed functional detachment, arises when the mind, confronted by the scale of systemic contradiction, undergoes a silent rupture. It is not a breakdown. It is the consequence of seeing too clearly.

To live in modern society is to endure a relentless dissonance. One must accept ecological destruction as progress, political corruption as governance, economic exploitation as growth, and curated illusion as truth.

Institutions meant to protect and inform instead obscure and mislead. Even language is repurposed.. weaponised to conceal intent and maintain power. Under such conditions, clarity becomes a burden.

Functional detachment is not apathy or despair. It is the body’s refusal to participate in cognitive and moral falsehoods that no longer reconcile. It begins with hyper-systemic awareness: the capacity to perceive not isolated failures but the interwoven dysfunction of economic, ecological, social, and informational domains. Solutions address symptoms, not causes. Narratives conceal the logic of their own reproduction. Institutions demand submission to illusion.

This state is glimpsed across disciplines. In psychology, it resembles dissociation under extreme stress. In philosophy, it evokes existential nausea.. a collapse of meaning structures. In systems theory, it mirrors epistemic crisis: the moment when contradiction overwhelms coherence.

Society does not accommodate such awareness. It pathologises it.. calling it cynicism, dysfunction, or pessimism. But this is a reversal. The dysfunction lies not in the individual who detaches from corrupted systems but in the systems that demand complicity in contradiction.

Yet if left unexamined, functional detachment risks hardening into paralysis. Seeing everything as broken can neutralise dissent and isolate those who see. The task is not to restore belief in collapsing structures but to build new modes of orientation. Not to rejoin the spectacle, but to stand outside it and create new forms of sense-making, connection, and resistance.

This requires a cognitive ethic:

One that embraces truth without collapsing into nihilism.
One that accepts decay without mistaking it for destiny.
One that sees clearly - and acts anyway.

To live lucidly now is to reject complicity. Not to retreat into apathy, but to cultivate strategic clarity. Functional detachment is not an end. It is a threshold.. the beginning of a post-illusion life.

From here, one does not retreat. One reorients.

In my STEM studies, the content is typically objective, factual, mechanical, and devoid of humanity.

More recently, first through #leanthinking, and then into #agile, #systemsthinking, #industrialengineering, I've come to realize that engineering with humanity creates progress for everyone, for the long term.

Thinkers like Galbraith, Follett, and Matthews show us a fair path, showing the bigger picture and putting humanity over profits.

IMHO, @debcha belongs in that same pantheon.

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Golden Dome dangers: An arms control expert explains how Trump’s missile defense threatens to make the US less safe

#systemsThinking

https://theconversation.com/golden-dome-dangers-an-arms-control-expert-explains-how-trumps-missile-defense-threatens-to-make-the-us-less-safe-258048

> Missile defense systems are nothing new. History shows that even if they work as advertised – a big if – they’re a bad idea if your aim is to make your country safer from nuclear attack.

How do we anticipate vital needs through livable #systems?
Which methods feed each other without #waste?
What does #innovation look like when not limited by profitability?

Contribute from anywhere to build an #openknowledge bank.

REGISTER INTEREST: https://makeinplace.org

Performance-Challenges of the modern designed global educational and schooling system.

#history #education #SystemsThinking

http://inaniludibrio.com/2025/04/23/education-as-a-designed-system/

I"ve started to go down a level of detail in my book on social systems for a better world.

First is a chapter on "Countries in Context", describing the border and interactions with external entities such as other countries, global corporations and the like.

Still at a high level; there is too much to say to fit into one chapter. I may just try to finish the book at about this level of detail, then provide additional details on the same site, with links but outside the linear narrative of a book

#SocialSystems #systemsThinking
#country #corporation #oligarchs

https://ericlawton.org/preface/countries/countries-system-context/

I've updated the section "Social Systems Concepts" in my book on changing #SocialSystems.

It introduces a bit of theory, before diving in to analyzing large-scale social systems. Now working on the next chapter, on Global Social Systems.

#systemsThinking

https://ericlawton.org/preface/social-systems/social-systems-concepts/

My new blog post on updates to my book on understanding and changing the world.

After five days in hospital, and another five days without power because of an ice storm, I decided it was time to return in earnest to writing.

I rewrote the Introduction and the first main section “Humans and Other Persons” and restructured the whole Table of Contents.

#writing #SocialSystems #systemsThinking

https://ericlawton.org/2025/04/08/new-first-sections-of-changing-the-world/