RIP Donella Meadows, a great thinker. The interested reader may also like this slideshare overview of Thinking in Systems ch. 1-3: http://www.slideshare.net/sa

RIP Donella Meadows, a great thinker. The interested reader may also like this slideshare overview of Thinking in Systems ch. 1-3: http://www.slideshare.net/sandhyajohnson/thinking-in-systems-donella-meadows-chapters-1-to-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-intervene-in-a-system/ http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points 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.