https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3828902-thinking-in-syst...

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...

If you're interested in this stuff Donella Meadow's book "Thinking in Systems" is a great introduction: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/...

On a related note, Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows is one of my favorite books.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine

(On mobile) If I grabbed the right link that’s chapter 6 (maybe edited a bit?) of Thinking in Systems. If it interests you you’ll probably like the rest of the book.

I'd done a lot of computer systems and engineering control courses but this book put systems into perspective for me. They're everywhere and we're embedded in them. If you want to change the world this is the book to read. Its also a quick read.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...

Early Retirement Extreme - Jacob Lund Fisker

This is a very short book, but it's an introduction to systems involving people, not just engineering.

- Why markets fail (https://www.amazon.com/How-Markets-Fail-Economic-Calamities/...)

- Thinking in Systems (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows-eb...)

I’ve seen Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems book recommended here a few times before, but your review really pulled the trigger for me, so thanks!

Personally, I will recommend Donella’s “Thinking In systems”

    Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers

    Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny

    Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan

    Design Patterns - Gang of Four

    Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler

    Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley

    Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler

    The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt

    CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl

    Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers

    Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman, Bert Bates

    Code Complete - Steve McConnell

    Peopleware - Tim Lister, Tom DeMarco

    Clean Code - Robert C. Martin

    The Clean Coder - Robert C. Martin

    Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin

    Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

    Functional Design Patterns for Express.js - Jonathan Lee Martin

    The Surrender Experiment - Michael A. Singer

    Principles - Ray Dalio

    The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

    The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker

    Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

    Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin

    Influence - Robert B. Cialdini

    The Startup Way - Eric Ries

    The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

    12 Rules for Life - Jordan B. Peterson

    Measure What Matters - John Doerr, Larry Page

    The Fish That Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen

    The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber

    The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh

    Management - Peter F. Drucker

    Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows

    Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

* The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes - good even if you're not in sales

* The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker - Great book overall

* The Phoenix Project - good for understanding project flows and silos.

* Thinking in Systems - good for how to set up processes so that even if you step away the job still gets done. Essential for getting promoted, no one can promote you if you're impossible to replace.

IIRC, it has been used as a textbook for systems theory classes in some universities, but it's concise and written for a general audience.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603580557

Meadows provides lots of food for thought, and I think I could make my workplace better if I figured out how to apply some of the ideas she expresses. I'm not convinced that all of her reasoning is very rigorous, and I suppose that matches the feelings of the author of this article, not that I think he does a great job of rigor either. Once the fine article extended its ideas from city planning to no platforming, without apparent irony, or data, I got the yawn.

Everything else was just looking at elements. Technology is important, for example, but exists within a system. They looked at the system. They had to simplify and assume a lot, which the media didn't understand (probably benign ignorance) and critics blew out of proportion (probably maliciously), but I found their approach the most meaningful.

Sadly, I know many people who care about the environment but don't understand the (relatively simple) math in their approach, and many people who understand the math but don't care about the environment, but almost no one who cares and understands. So in about a decade since reading it, I haven't found anyone I can talk to about it meaningfully.

A great companion by one of the authors is Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows -- https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp....

Both changed my views more than almost any other books.

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...

I'm reminded of 'The Medical Detectives', Roueche, but only by reputation (I own a copy I haven't read.) "In each true story, local health authorities and epidemiologists race against time to find the clue to an unknown and possibly fatal disease."

If you interpret 'The enemy might get the bomb before we do' as a crisis, 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', Rhodes, is a detailed (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) examination of how we got from discovering the atom's nucleus to the consequences of deploying city-destroying weapons in a generation or so.

You might find general systems theory interesting, maybe 'Thinking In Systems', Meadows, and/or 'An Introduction to General Systems Thinking', Weinberg.

"Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by Donella Meadows changed how I approached designing/troubleshooting software systems as well as changed how I think about political policy decisions and their results.

"Object Thinking" by David West dramatically altered how I approach designing OO systems. I especially liked the chapter(s) where he used different real-world metaphors for designing systems. For example, asynchronous communication (email) is often more appropriate than synchronous communication (calling someone on the phone). Delegation of tasks without "micromanaging" (i.e tell don't ask).

"Ever Wonder Why?" by Thomas Sowell gave me an insight into some of the underpinnings of Conservative thought. I'd never had the opportunity to hear any of the arguments he brings up in college or in my own liberal social groups.

It's also really ubiquitous across a bunch of disciplines, from Drucker's Management & Gerber's E-Myth & Dalio's Principles in business/org development (not even mentioning the huge field of ops management) to the broader field of systems thinking like Donnelly's Thinking in Systems. Even frameworks like the Scientific Method are a form of this type of thinking, and it's easy to forget that these are all human concepts of trying to bring order to chaos. In the software world you have contemporaries like Larson's An Elegant Puzzle focusing on the management aspect and so so so many classics like GoF/Pragmatic Programmer/Code Complete that focusing on the developer. It's neat that the same ideas apply at different levels of the bigger systems (company, project, individual contributor).

It's also easy to forget that the cogs of many of these machines are people, and this article does a good job of bringing that aspect to the forefront.

"Thinking in Systems: a Primer" (2008)
https://g.co/kgs/B71ebC

Glossary of systems theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_systems_theory

Systems Theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

...

Computational Thinking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_thinking

Which of the #GlobalGoals (UN Sustainable Development Goals) Targets and Indicators are primary leverage points for ensuring - if not growth - prosperity?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals

Clock of the Long Now, by Stewart Brand - for the concepts of deep time and the long now; appreciating a sense of how we experience time and our place in history
[See also: Time and the Art of Living]

Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott - creative parable that's very helpful for conceptualizing abstract concepts of topology and higher dimensions

Thinking in Systems, A Primer, by Donella Meadows - great introduction to systems thinking, which is a useful lens for appreciating the complexity of all sorts of complex phenomena

A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander - great work of urban design, useful framework for looking at design systems and how pieces fit together on different scales
[See also: Death and Life of Great American Cities]

Oulipo - A Primer of Potential Literature - nice introduction to the Oulipo and ideas of constraint as creative / poetic device
[See also: Exercises in Style; Eunoia]

Impro, by Keith Johnstone - great primer on improvisation, really made me appreciate its impacts beyond just the theater, for example the importance of status in social relations

The Power Broker, by Robert Caro - unbeatably rich and compelling look at how power and politics actually work, for better (power gets things done) and for worse (power blinds and corrupts)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard - beautiful, meticulously observed study of the natural world close at hand; made me appreciate the power of looking deeply and persistently

Le Ton beau de Marot, by Douglas Hofstadter - remarkable exploration of language and translation, in all its magic and complexity…both deeply personal and deeply researched, a must-read for lovers of language

The Library at Night, by Alberto Manguel - turned me on to the various lenses through which we can conceive of and appreciate libraries; their vast power and potential

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville - for really hammering home the grand, powerful potential of great literature and well-wrought language
[ See also: Don Quixote; Infinite Jest]

Yeah that makes total sense. How do you respond to a meaningless universe? By imagining up our own meaning and putting value in that.

> I think that is something that resonated with me - that _my_ philosophy does not need to be yours, but that we can still find some common ground to survive with one another.

Yeah I totally agree, and I think we could benefit from more people who viewed our existence in that way.

> Do you have good recommendations for Zen Buddhism and systems theories?

Unfortunately I'm not generally that bookish - a lot of the knowledge I have on these subjects, I've picked up from thinking and practicing the ideas within, odd sources on the internet and in conversations rather than reading books. However, I can recommend Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen" and Donella Meadows' "Thinking in Systems", which I have read and both of which are fantastic.

Unfortunately sometimes systems theorists get caught up in the fine grained details such as "stock and flow" and "causal loop" diagrams and specific types of loop structure, which happens in Donella Meadows' book - the wiki page for complex systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system) is a good entry point for the high level concerns in systems theory.

[edit] I'm also told that Godel Escher Bach is an interesting book for approaching systems concepts like self-reference and emergence in a more esoteric, example-driven way.

The Art of Empathy (very interesting)

The Three Body Problem (good)

The Startup Way (decent)

The Politics of Bitcoin (short but interesting)

Why We Sleep (very much worth it)

The Last Arrow (mixed feelings)

The Prize (boring but informative)

Superhuman by Habit (OK, not much new)

The Circle of Profit (straight to the point)

Thinking in Systems (couldn't finish it)

Radical Candor (awesome)

Harry Potter #1 (too low of a reading level)

Man's Search for Meaning (classic)

Flow (Amazing!)

Scary Close (great)

Chimpanzee Politics (interesting)

Corporate Confidential (paranoid, but worth a read)

Developer Hegemony (red pill for developers!!!)

Bargaining For Advantage (reasonable)

Tempo: Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative-Driven Decision Making (abstract as hell but rewarding)

Thinking Fast and Slow (loved it)

The Elephant In The Brain (seriously underrated)

The Brain That Changes Itself (inspirationally freaky)

The Power of Habit (good!)

The Secret Barrister (mildly disturbing)

Thinking In Systems (huge fan of this book!)

A Short History of Truth (meh...)

Man's Search For Meaning (brooo... I am so sorry)

Thinking In Bets (meh.. really meh)

The Road To Ruin (alright. Interesting even.)

Lying For Money (lots of fun!)

Great Answers To Tough Interview Questions (what it says on the tin)

Traction (good overview of marketing tactics)

Lean Customer Development (pretty good)

The Mom Test (eye opening)

Lean B2B (solid playbook)

Principles (instant classic)

* Sapians - great for a global view of our history, and an understanding of how important myths and religions have been for us being successful (as protocols for getting on)

* Thinking in Systems - toolchest of mental models for dealing with complex systems

It bites everyone, every kind of group where some competition is involved, even smaller companies, and we all agree on that.

However, when Google is touched, we all feel that we don't live anymore in a free world, that communism has won, etc - at least that's the kind of feeling I perceive every time they have to pay for something.

Why the break up of the Bell System [0]. Afterall it's their business, right?

Why was Microsoft forced (back then) to let people choose which browser to install? Same reason.

I don't know if you have ever read the book "Thinking in systems - D. Meadows", there is an interesting chapter about this which explains why such regulations are important.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

If you find it interesting, here are some links to a couple other articles I've really enjoyed on the topic:

# Queues don't fix overload

http://ferd.ca/queues-don-t-fix-overload.html

# There is no happy path in programming

http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2016/01/29/no-happy-...

Also, if you're looking for a whole book on systems thinking, albeit in a more general context, it's worth checking out "Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by Donella H. Meadows.

Once you start thinking about this stuff it's impossible to not see it everywhere. But for programmers, ops people, etc. that's a good thing... because our jobs depend on it.

- The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully

- An Introduction to General Systems Thinking

- Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

- Are your lights on?

based on his references I went back to Virginia Satir, her Books are kinda hard to order:

- The new Peoplemaking

- The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond

- Your Many Faces.

And as always once a year:

- Thinking in Systems: A Primer - Donella H. Meadows

Just writting this list makes me realize that this was a kinda classic year for me. Still read a lot of coding books i.e.: about JS, CloujourScript but nothing stood out.

- Understanding ECMAScript6: The Definitive Guide for JavaScript Developers - Nicholas C. Zakas

was good. Some points I did not know and a good read.

- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It - Chris Voss

was great as it gave me new insights how to structure my speech and thoughts behind it.

But well, my favorite book this year was and is mine

- "Understanding SEO - A Systematic Approach to Search Engine Optimization" - Franz Enzenhofer

Taking what i learned from Weinberg and Meadows (with some E. Bono) and apply it to the system that is search(-behaviour and the marketplace Google). https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo

- Thinking in Systems, also by Meadows

- Business Dynamics, by Sterman (slowly working through this)

- Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics, by Morecroft

- General Systems Thinking, by Weinberg (on Leanpub you can get the PDFs, it's 4 books there, as I recall the first two were published as one book when it was published as a paper book)

I agree that both of them were not very rigorous, e.g. in terms of making predictions or presenting falsifiable claims. But I enjoyed parts of both.

From Thinking in Systems, I got 2 main things out of it:

- Many systems can be modelled in terms of resources and flows.

- If you want to affect a system, find the leverage points.

But both claims could have been justified more. It feels like the author states them as a given.

Specifically, she doesn't talk much about modelling error. OK, so I came up with a set of resources and flows to model a system. How do I know if it's good? Will it work in some cases and wildly mispredict in others?

I think they just did computer simulations? How did you check it against the real world? I think that was entirely missing from the book. I'd be happy for a correction.

Overall, the book felt like it was incomplete (which is not surprising, given the back story of its publication).

I think I read this book because Bill Gates recommended it. I can understand why he would have liked it. I'm not sure there is much that's actionable for a programmer or software designer, though.

I'd be interested in other takes on it too. Did I miss something? I also wonder why it's so highly thought of. I think it does have a unique point of view, and raises interesting questions, but it also made me wonder if that view is true! It's perhaps too vague to be true or false.

----

I enjoyed Systemantics, to a point. The negative view of systems tends to be the more accurate one in my experience ;-)

Before reading this book, I did not think much about delays but now I try to identify them as soon as possible.

To expand on 'out of date' - systems thinking is centred around command and control, IIRC it came out of Cybernetics ala Norbert Weiner, Ashby and others. The command and control angle is based on the assumption that with enough information any system can be mapped, predicted and controlled. Whilst not wrong, it excludes another type of system which is truly complex and precludes mapping and prediction by the fact there are either/all too many variables to model or the very act of measuring or acting changes the system or the agents of the system can change the rules of the system.

These systems are deemed by the sense-making community to be Complex Adaptive Systems or Anthro-Complex (specifically for human systems). To approach these systems you have to become comfortable with uncertainty and re-arrange your thoughts on cause-and-effect, which is a whole new world view for many of us in software.

https://cynefin.io/ is great resource, Dave Snowden is a big name in naturalising sense-making and these broader views of complexity.

But anyway, things like feedback loops (both positive and negative), oscillations, stocks, flows, control points, system boundaries, etc. etc. -- these are all tools for giving both names and operational patterns to different things you'll see happen in a system.

And once you have that, you end up with a better mental model from first principles that lets you anticipate and work with certain aspects of systems before you learn its behavior through trial and error / best practices.

I need to dig deeper myself, but I found "Thinking in Systems" from Donella H. Meadows a good primer on the basics . So far the best benefit systems thinking has given me is a changed perspective on things, but I think it'll help for doing more detailed analysis with a bit more study and practice, too.

So, what is a system? A system is a set of things-people, cells, molecules, or whatever-interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted,constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system's response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world.

Donella H. Meadows. Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Kindle Locations 89-90). Kindle Edition.

This is one of the most important books I've ever read, if you want the way you think about the world to change read it. It's a very short read to.

1. [The Pragmatic Programmer](https://pragprog.com)
2. Martin Fowler's [Refactoring Book](https://martinfowler.com/books/refactoring.html)
3. Kent Beck's [Test Driven Development: By Example](https://www.amazon.com/Test-Driven-Development-Kent-Beck/dp/...)
4. [Thinking in Systems: A Primer](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...)
5. [Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice](https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Informal-Meditatio...)
6. [Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware](https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Thinking-Learning-Refactor....)

I would have preferred that at least half of the tools were already available on the article (@Azura), although they have some tools in the solutions page that were not listed in the article.

For any management related topics, I am always reminded of the usual and timeless (@JSeymour): How to Win Friends and Influence People, 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, The Effective Executive and Failing Forward.

As they say, the stone age didn't end because of the lack of stones ;)

If you have a hammer and can't find any nails, looking around for other things to hit is unlikely to be a productive activity.

You've identified a serious, complex issue and you care about improving the situation. That's an excellent beginning. Go to your local library and find a book on systems thinking/analysis such as Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. Start to understand how all the pieces fit together and what sort of changes will help and what will make the problem worse (you will be surprised!). Your tech experience will be extremely helpful here.

- The Tao Te Ching, especially Ron Hogan's translation (freely downloadable here: http://beatrice.com/wordpress/tao-te-ching)

- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby

- Getting Things Done, David Allen

- Gimp, Marc Zupan

- Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows

- Leadership Step by Step, Joshua Spodek (full disclosure: me, https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/...)

The suggestion I consider more valuable is to focus more on active behavior than relatively passive reading. Of course, still read. But it's easy to read more and more, telling yourself you're getting more perspective. You are, but nothing changes your perspective like actually moving.

Even if you don't know what will work best -- meditation, fitness, art, music, travel, cooking, gardening, starting a business, etc -- starting with something, even if you soon abandon it, will lead you to things you love and that develop you faster than reading alone. Plus activity will make what you read more meaningful.

I include my book because it's specifically a book of exercises that lead to developing social and emotional skills designed to build on each other.

I read it once a year. It changed how i think about everything. My career is based on this book. My interaction with people and groups of people is based on this book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXdzKBWDraM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QtQqZ6Q5-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNlhjOZ7DU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3SWj-hjTE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz9wjJjmkmc

(the later ones are about Limits to Growth, co-written by the author of Thinking in Systems)

here's a rough disk space analogy with stocks and flows:

Suppose you have a disk with free space X. What rate do you consume free disk space? What rate do you produce more free disk space? if flow out (of disk space) is larger than flow in (of disk space) then after some finite time you will always run out of disk, no matter how much free space X you started with. More capacity (a larger initial value of X) just buys you more time until the emergency. Which is useful, but you still haven't solved the actual problem in terms of the delta between the two flow rates. Now if you have your flow rates under control, and you produce at least as much free disk space as you consume, what if the flow rates aren't always steady, but have variability? Then having some spare capacity can help to provide slack or buffer to deal with temporary periods where disk is consumed much quicker than usual. But there are diminishing marginal returns to having lots of excess capacity.

> Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery. --Charles Dickens

Finite and Infinite Games - James Carse

- Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

- Language, Truth, and Logic by A. J. Ayer

- Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows

Books that serve as investment philosophy guides for those who've developed a habit of saving money but are looking for the "next step" in building more wealth. From the mind of one of the greatest investors of all time:

- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (get the annotated version with an epilogue written by Warren Buffett!)

- The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

A book that discusses what matters most in your life from a resource-allocation, measurable results standpoint (family, etc.):

- How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen

A book I read 10 years ago that forever changed the way I manage productivity and organization both at work and in my personal life:

- Getting Things Done by David Allen

Books that show that our universe is just as crazy, if not crazier, than science fiction:

- Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy

- Quantum Chance: Nonlocality, Teleportation and Other Quantum Marvels

- ..and so on with intersecting topics!

Not to mention, I love trying to have as deep an understanding as I can by reading highly technical textbooks on cosmology, gravitation, and quantum physics.

Once you start looking for positive and negative feedback loops in the world around you, it's hard to stop. In particular, Meadow's book is great because it also goes beyond +/- loops in isolation, and shows more complicated patterns, such as eroding goal patterns and traps that often cause public policy interventions to fail.

Exercise books for Fermi estimates like Guesstimation, etc.

Further out, something in systems thinking, maybe Donella Meadows' "Thinking in systems". Further further out, maybe those Stafford Beer papers about the Viable Systems Model? At one point Beer and Allende thought they were about to implement Red Plenty.

---

I understand the businessy logic that nothing is so fundamentally qualitative that it shouldn't be quantified. But you'll always be safer if you keep rich qualitative models and treat quantification as gravy on top of that.

The extreme opposite of rich qualitative models is the Soviet method of material balances. Halfway through there's the McNamara Fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

by Donella H. Meadows (Author),‎ Diana Wright (

ISBN-10: 1603580557
ISBN-13: 978-1603580557

I personally have used Stella by isee systems, which will output an equation from your model if you are so inclined, but I think there is cheaper/free software out there that will do similar types of modeling.

1. https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...

First, the greatest book of all time, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - an amazingly introspective and insightful look into how to live an examined life and improve oneself.

And then if you want to learn lower-case "design thinking", my top 10 books

* Design for Everyday Things - duh. I re-read chunks of it all the time.

* Tufte - hard to pick one, I might actually be iconoclastic and go with Visual Explanations which I think has more to offer programmers over pure data visualization. Again, just grab one every day, flip through 3-4 pages, rinse, repeat.

* User Story Mapping - Extremely memorable book - it gives you a pretty clear field guide on prioritization, empathy, communication ... just a great book.

* Badass by Kathy Sierra - I flip through this book again and again. It is gospel truth about what motivates humans.

* The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design - IDEO's most practical book. (Close second: Designing Interactions.)

* Universal Methods of Design - another deeply practical book, lots of good tips and examples.

* Universal Principles of Design - Sister book to the Universal Methods. Again, straightforward, flip to any page and get an idea when you're brainstorming.

* Thinking in Systems - I recommend you skim this book through, but come back to it a lot, it grows with you.

* Inspired by Marty Cagan - again, love nuts and bolts process books.

* Don't Make Me Think! - still a classic, still see these mistakes being made all the time in modern app dev.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3828902-thinking-in-syst...

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Primer-Meadows-Donell...

Some related concepts:

1. Donella Meadows, in Thinking in Systems, notes that an absolute requirement of an effective and healthy system is accurate feedback and information. Media which are indifferent to truth value, or which actively promote distortion (see Robert Proctor's term, agnotology), will actively harm the system.

2. Celine's 2nd law, and inversion. In Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy, a character notes that "accurate information is possible only in a non-punishing situation". Its inverse is also true: acurate information is only possible when it is accuracy itself and ONLY accuracy which is rewarded. Academic publishing, in which paper output and journal selection is a gateway determinant of professional careers, would be an instance of this. Or the long skew of The Learning Channel from NASA-PBS educational co-production to Honey Boo-Boo broadcaster.

3. Paperclip Maximizer. "Don't be evil" isn't good enough. You've got to actively seek out good. Even a benign maximisation goal will, if not tempered by requirements to provide net benefit, lead to catastrophic results.

4. Mancur Olson's "The Logic of Collective Action" explains how and why small (but motivated) fringe groups can achieve goals directly opposed to the interests of far larger groups. This explains a great deal of market and political dysfunction.

5. A generalisation of Gresham's Law leads to the realisation that understanding of complex truths is itself expensive. It's also (Dunning-Kruger) beyond the capability of much of the population. This also has some rather dismal implications, though as William Ophuls notes, political theory based on the assumption that all the children can be above average ("the Lake Wobegon effect") are doomed. You dance with the dunce what brung ya.

Social media are being flagrantly self-serving and destructive.

Two books by Erich Fromm, a German/American philosopher of the 50s/60s: The Art of Loving. Some points: To him love is a skill that has to be practiced and learned, love in a relationship is constant hard work, love of another is only possible if you first love yourself, and you cannot love another human being if you do not love mankind. A little bit later he published The Sane Society, a Marxist critique of capitalist society, how consumerism leads to self-alienation etc.

>Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism have in common that they offered the atomized individual a new refuge and security. These systems are the culmination of alienation. The individual is made to feel powerless and insignificant, but taught to project all of his human powers into the figure of the leader, the state, the "fatherland," to whom he has to submit and whom he has to worship. He escapes from freedom and into a new idolatry. All the achievements of individuality and reason, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century are sacrificed on the altars of the new idols. ...built on the most flagrant lies, both with regard to their programs and to their leaders.

Sounds familiar?

- Donna Meadows' Thinking in Systems, how to model anything as an interconnected system, and how unseen positive and negative feedback loops cause unintended consequences in any system

- Anne Lammott's Bird by Bird - I have to write a lot for my work and this is the best primer on getting things out the door

- For the Australians: Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu, on how early white European settlers completely misunderstood indigenous agriculture, all the things that were lost when Europeans settled Australia, and what we can use today. Gives you a VERY different look at Australian history.

- Ha-Joon Chang's Economics: The User's Guide. Just came out, an absolutely amazing intro and look at modern economics, the flimsiness of neoliberalist thought, and how we need to use the tools of each economic school of thought to think about the economy, not getting stuck on one school

An interesting article; still, I tire of seeing so many articles introduce and anchor game theory based on the PD or one particular configuration of it. The PD is frequently overblown, misunderstood, and misapplied. Game theory is much more than the PD.

I think it is also worth mentioning that game theory isn't the only game or theory in town when it comes to thinking about society and collective action. For example, systems dynamics is also quite interesting; see Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows.

To get a handle for police corruption, I'd argue a theory probably should explain how and why:

  * corrupt police do/don't get caught
  * corrupt police do/don't rat each other out
  * police are/aren't monitored
  * police are/aren't incentivized

(yeah, I know security is already a huge deal, but as we come to trust software systems more and more, the safety/reliability factor will come more into play)

EDIT: This is also part of the reason I've been learning Elixir (http://elixir-lang.org/) since it's based on the highly-resilient Erlang and is designed to embrace failure. This was also informed by me reading Nassim Taleb's book "Antifragile" as well as "Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by the (late) Donella Meadows.

How I raised myself from failure to success in selling, Frank Bettger

Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Daniela Meadows

Most important thing is to get up and start doing stuff, understand how you personally f$$k things up and reap benifits of compound interest in personal development. I think these three bookshave a lot of information that is usable in any career or path one might choose.

If I want to learn a language, I'll find a basic book on it and then grab as much native audio as I possibly can.

If I want to learn about something in math, I'll go to Khan Academy.

If I want to learn about irrational decision-making in everyday life, I'll read a book.

And that all starts with the assumption that learning follows the waterfall method: pick what you want to learn, learn it, move on to something else. I find learning much more iterative: be intrigued by something, follow it, see what it leads. I never really decided to learn about systems thinking, but I came across the personal MBA reading list one day, thought it was fascinating, came back, picked a book that looked interesting (Thinking in Systems), and read it.

A couple of weeks ago, I learned a great deal about writing fiction with characters of a different gender or race than you. I never set out to, but I do NaNoWriMo each year, and one of the most active posts on their forum was about "writing the other." It fascinated me, so I followed it, and learned something for it. This, to me, is what lifelong learning looks like.

I really learned a lot from the book called Thinking in Systems and nowadays I can't help to look at projects, from within the context in which it operates. Definitely recommend the book for somebody wanting a bit of an introduction to that mental model.

The interested reader may also like this slideshare overview of Thinking in Systems ch. 1-3: http://www.slideshare.net/sandhyajohnson/thinking-in-systems...

Another of her well-known works is Leverage Points, which is also great and goes into more detail on some of that which is summarized in OP's linked article. http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points

Having worked in automated systems analysis and optimization across several fields, I think Meadows' thinking is very instructive. Some of her notions which stand out in particular to me:

* The importance of the effect of feedback loops in complex system. When unexpected or counterintuitive behavior occurs, a hidden or misunderstood reinforcement feedback loop is often at root.

* The requirement that systems that seek to automate or optimize complex interactive systems be constantly-adaptive because the system itself will interact with the observation/analysis/optimization acts. This can seem like crazy voodoo at first, but it is undeniable when you start to experience it in action.

* Understanding of cost externalities vs benefit rewards for system actors and how they relate to system sources/sinks (or "stocks and flows"). This drives so much of our economy, as well as the subsystems which feed it and she has some illuminating thoughts and analyses on addressing these issues broadly.

This all of course goes well beyond the more basic material on oversimplification vs complexity in simulation or interventions, limits of rationality in system-actors, nonlinearity vs linear thinking, boundary conditions/non-boundary conditions, etc.

- The Manager's Path, by Camille Fournier

- An Elegant Puzzle, by Will Larson

- Team Topologies, by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais

- Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows

- Also see: references cited in the above and other works by same authors

Disclaimer: Not a seasoned EM and definitely not the first to recommend these on HN.

I can recommend everything else she has written. I go back to "Thinking in Systems" once a year and analyze my life, my projects again with her framework. There is always something new to discover.

If you follow the advice in this article, you'll end up with an inefficient old-school, documentation-heavy, dogmatic factory-style quality-police testing department, set up in opposition to your development team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3

You can run this world simulation here:

http://insightmaker.com/insight/1954

(Click on the green run simulation on the upper left.)

The lady who is responsible for this is called Donella Meadows, she is a famous systems thinker, I read one of her books titled 'Thinking in Systems'. It's about how to think about such systems (without actually modelling them).

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/...

  - Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon by Valley John Carreyrou
  - Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep by Matthew Walker
  - The Magicians by Lev Grossman
  - Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE by Phil Knight
  - How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
  - Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World by Hans Rosling
  - Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
  - Deep Work by Cal Newport
  - Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
  - The Phoenix Project by D.M. Cain
  - 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
  - Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Tia T. Farmer
  - Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
  - Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
  - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
  - Linear Algebra by Jim Hefferon
  - 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
  - Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
  - Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  - Atomic Habits by James Clear

Thinking in Systems (and not just Meadows' book) is something I'd also like to see developed more fully. Big History is more than that, but it's also one logical development -- systems pervasive throughout the academic curriculum. I think that's a powerful concept.

There's also the possiblity that many people don't and cannot get systems thinking. Another author I've been reading, William Ophuls (most especially Plato's Revenge) discusses this in the context of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and comes to sobering conclusions regarding facing social challenges based on typical population cognitive foundations. Basing your Solution to the World's Problems on "all the children are above average" is bound to fail.

Thanks again for your time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9793361-the-decision-boo...
Not the best, and I only really use the first one in the book (Eisenhower Matrix), but I found that alone to be worth the price (you could just google that one though). The rest of it is useful as examples of the wide variety of model types and types of things that can be modelled.

Thinking in Systems: A Primer, is a great book that I highly recommend. It's one of those books that serves as a great introduction to the subject of creating models of systems, and it's neither too long, nor overly specific on any particular subject. By the end of it, you'll know roughly enough to be able to know what you want to know next, in regards to system models.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3828902-thinking-in-syst...

This blog post is more like a reference resource, and I think it's worth looking over and picking out whatever interests you: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-use...

EDIT: because my formatting was atrocious.

Based on the Amazon reviews it seems like it might be the sort of book I'm looking for, I'll continue to check through those and for other reviews later.

2nd Article "Leverage Points" http://www.donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-place...

after these two you will have enough know-how on how to identify and manage systems (i.e.: your growing company)

then the only thing between you and success is reality, for how to influence the company reality you live in please read

3rd "Seeing Systems" http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Systems-Unlocking-Mysteries-Org...

good luck and have fun (with the books, with your new responsibilities)

It's a fairly large collection of fields, from mathematical (systems dynamics, chaos theory) to philosophical (constructivism, second-order cybernetics which is a form of epistemology) to practical (systems thinking, automation, feedback mechanisms etc). It was by far the most influential school of thought in the 20th century. It was a revolution at the time but nonetheless died out before its time.

A good place to start would be W Ross Ashby's "An Introduction to Cybernetics", or Donella Meadows' "Thinking in Systems" for the systems theory side.

FWIW, Stephen Hawking claimed the 21st century would be defined by complexity theory. I'm disappointed to say that's not yet been the case.

As for the metaphysics comment - all of reality is emergent and arises from interactions at a lower level - newtonian physics emerge from quantum mechanics, chemistry emerges from newtonian physics, biology from chemistry, sociology from biology and so on (though things of course don't stack quite as neatly as that!) - so to understand how systems work in an abstract sense is very useful for understanding reality - it's like knowing physics, if knowing physics was still useful at the macro-level.

Alongside those, my current job has me programming less, so I'm enjoying it as a hobby again. I've decided to pick up Common Lisp again so I'm going through various texts on it as exercises to relearn the language and its extent.

Highly recommended: Thinking in Systems: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/...

And the permaculture podcast covers a variety of interesting topics: http://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/

Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury

ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications

ARRL Antenna Book

American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Ed.

Bible/Lectionary, Breviary, and Catechism

If fiction counts, I will probably never delete Flatland or the complete Joseph Conrad from my Kindle.

It's one of the few books I've read several times. Writing this makes me want to read it again.