There seems to be a bit of confusion regarding what “second order thinking” is (awareness or consideration of the consequences of consequences) and an instance

There seems to be a bit of confusion regarding what “second order thinking” is (awareness or consideration of the consequences of consequences) and an instance of it (removing a fence without understanding why it had been erected in the first place). The latter is an instance of the former (or rather, absence thereof) but the former has far greater ramifications and applications than those that are (currently) being discussed in these comments, which seem to be concentrating either on software engineering aspects (abstractions, to name one) or on the idea of banishing hierarchy from firms. That’s all fine and well, but it hardly begins to scratch the surface of what the author presumably thought this principle encompasses (and with whom I agree). Anybody interested in second-order-thinking and decision-making could do far worse than obtain a copy of Dietrich Dorner’s excellent The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations (1997) wherein the author explores “patterns of thought that, while appropriate in an older, simpler world, prove disastrous for the complex world we live in now”. One important aspect of those errant heuristics is the failure to consider consequences of consequences. I highly recommend it.