10 ms·
How Complex Systems Fail (1998) [pdf]
- dang 7y agoThreads from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14127543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14127543 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8282923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8282923
- kuu 7y agoI guess this is one of the main keys: A corollary to the preceding point is that complex systems run as broken systems. The system continues to function because it contains so many redundancies and because people can make it function, despite the presence of many flaws.
- dalbasal 7y agoIn this context, it's interesting (to me) how different "how" is from "why," in terms of the answers you might come up with... especially (but not the only) when "complex systems" involve people.
- Anon84 7y agoThe author seems to be using a rather narrow definition of complex system without actually ever specifying it. Complex systems (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system) are strange beasts that occur in all aspect of science and technology and fail in spectacularly different ways.
- di4na 7y agoInterestingly, i promise you they do not use a so narrow definition. Dr Richard Cook is one of the leading researcher in this particular space. His definition of "complex system" is used here indeed in that wikipedia definition you provide and the way they fails may seem spectacularly different, but the research in them have shown that they are not so different and all stems from the same "laws of nature". I would be happy to provide links to the research if you are interested :)
- sosilkj 7y agoNot OP but I would be interested in other reading you would recommend on this topic.
- drallison 7y agoLinks to original sources are always helpful.
- di4na 7y agolinked to a good starting point here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20382694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20382694
- beg2differ 7y agoYes I would be keen on the links to the research. Think in an age of big data and AI i think this is relevant.
- di4na 7y agoLinked to a good starting point at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20382694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20382694
- di4na 7y agoA good starting point is https://github.com/lorin/resilience-engineering/blob/master/intro.md https://github.com/lorin/resilience-engineering/blob/master/... My email is in my profile if you want to go deeper :)
- mcphage 7y ago"Slowly at first, then all at once."
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- packet_nerd 7y agoThe question we should be asking is whether these complex systems are actually required. In absolute terms, our ancestors lived much much simpler lives and somehow managed to survive. So, it's not that we're required to have such complex systems, it's that we've decided that the reward is higher than the cost (which is fine). But, I wonder, how accurately have the costs and the rewards been evaluated? I suspect that we don't always take into account the full cost and risks of complexity. If we did, I suspect we'd build fewer highly complex systems, and the systems we did build would be better. If you think of the entire IT experience as a system, somehow all the various social, economic, and technical forces have conspired to produce massive complexity which shows in constant bugs, failures, broken websites, and security breaches. I wish we could just step back, take a deep breath, and find ways to simplify and clean some of this up.
- josephdviviano 7y agoOne of the beauties of complex systems is that these individual failures do not produce system-level failure unless you are extremely unlucky and they all fail simultaneously. If you are simply counting the number of failures, complex systems do look a lot less appealing than simple ones. But if you count only catastrophic failures, complex systems begin to look more worth the energy tax spent maintaining them. This is the guiding design principal behind most biological, social, economic, and (now) internet-related systems. I don't even think it is intentional. It is simply the best solution so it was discovered by natures and is constantly rediscovered by engineers.
- rhacker 7y agoTechnically we could simply stop all of this IT stuff, re-allocate the world so everyone gets an acre and dissolve the government. No one would work more than a few hours per day (tending the garden, etc..) The problem is trust. We can't trust someone else because there will be stealing. Those thieves will meet others like them that steal, rape, pillage. Cycle of mis-trust starts all over again and societies form to do something about it. Then things go from there. Now that I think about what I write, we have Facebook because of thievery (just a joke). I do get your point of not starting over, but just listing the case why we get complexity. Some of it is likely not necessary but it's usually because of something.
- kevas 7y agoYou may enjoy this book: https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Failure-Recognizing-Avoiding-Situations/dp/0201479486/ref=nodl_ https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Failure-Recognizing-Avoiding-Si...
- xtiansimon 7y agoI second Dorner’s book. Very readable and equally insightful.
- swolpers 7y agoThanks for pointing at it!