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It's a case of top-down thinking vs bottom-up thinking. Historians build from bedrock and are able to directly work out causation, whereas these Programmers wit

It's a case of top-down thinking vs bottom-up thinking. Historians build from bedrock and are able to directly work out causation, whereas these Programmers with a hobby in studying other systems don't get the feedback at that level of nuance, but they get an intuition from building many different smaller systems and getting plenty of feedback from those. They take the learnings they got building software and apply it to other systems. This is important - as feedback drives learning - and software provides the most feedback ever, and thus I would argue that programmers are the best systems thinkers we've ever had. The reality is we need both, as Silicon Valley might say, middle-out thinking. And I don't criticize the author or yourself for pushing their viewpoint, because the only way we move forward is bringing the Historians with the Systems thinkers. That's what this comment section is for. Better still, if we can find a Historian Hobbyist Systems thinker who can play both parts, like David Graeber did for the topics he was interested in. Although even he got criticized for basically your exact argument here. So don't criticize the author for having a top-down viewpoint, give him concrete examples of his examples where he is wrong, point him in the direction of books you know that cover the things that he is talking about, he will appreciate it. He doesn't mean to be lazy, but it takes skill to know those things, and the skill he has acquired is elsewhere. This is the power of specialization. Does law act like software, where a law written at the wrong abstraction level spirals out of control? What causes code and law to metastasize and be unable to refactor? Why was git, a source control system written in 2 weeks by Linus able to dominate the software space, when Microsoft had a team working for years on their source control system? What software are examples of systems that evolve over time? What software builds up so much spaghetti that it is best to throw it away? Joel Spolsky's argument is that answer is never, and refactoring is always preferable to starting fresh. Is that a good argument that laws should keep going forever? How do we know we found the law equivalent to git? There are many many more questions to ask, let's continue asking them.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> thus I would argue that programmers are the best systems thinkers we've ever had. Certainly, many of the best systems thinkers are programmers. Most programmers are pretty poor systems thinkers, though, and systems thinking doesn't do a lot of good if you don't have a deep understanding of the elements of the system. > So don't criticize the author for having a top-down viewpoint, give him concrete examples of his examples where he is wrong, point him in the direction of books you know that cover the things that he is talking about, he will appreciate it. Did the author engage the person you are chastising as an educator?
kieselguhr_kid 5y ago
Oh man, as a programmer who fancies themself a systems thinker I do find this argument a little seductive. I'm not going to argue that software development doesn't promote strong systems thinking skills but I don't know how much of that is because I truly believe that it's sharpened my abilities and how much of it is because I want to flatter myself. My discomfort with this line of thinking is that I've seen a lot of systems thinking hampered by bad abstractions. In fact, I'm currently working on one now. Given the extraordinary complexity of human society, we're much more likely to make bad abstractions and to ignore or even completely fail to observe critical feedback. I also disagree that I shouldn't criticize him for his method of thinking. Criticism is our best path forward to refining our thought. Lastly, I'd like to note that I think this comment was the kind of thoughtful and nuanced thinking I'd like to see more of. Even if we don't agree, you're asking better questions and attempting to synthesize different positions and processes. I appreciate that.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  I will say that I'm a huge fan of SlateStarCodex's epistemic status system, where before posts where he is unsure of he will clearly state how far he has gone down the rabbit hole, and such a status would have made for a better blog post, and that such a status would have made your argument less required or more pointed depending on what he put as his status. At the very least we need to be asking these questions... 1. What has global positive or negative externalities? 2. What has country-level positive or negative externalities? 3. What has local positive or negative externalities? If you aren't at least asking those questions, you are never going to arrive at the correct level of abstraction. Should we have a World Government? We have global externalities, so probably. What should that government do? As little as required.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> thus I would argue that programmers are the best systems thinkers we've ever had. Certainly, many of the best systems thinkers are programmers. Most programmers are pretty poor systems thinkers, though, and systems thinking doesn't do a lot of good if you don't have a deep understanding of the elements of the system. > So don't criticize the author for having a top-down viewpoint, give him concrete examples of his examples where he is wrong, point him in the direction of books you know that cover the things that he is talking about, he will appreciate it. Did the author engage the person you are chastising as an educator?

kieselguhr_kid 5y ago

Oh man, as a programmer who fancies themself a systems thinker I do find this argument a little seductive. I'm not going to argue that software development doesn't promote strong systems thinking skills but I don't know how much of that is because I truly believe that it's sharpened my abilities and how much of it is because I want to flatter myself. My discomfort with this line of thinking is that I've seen a lot of systems thinking hampered by bad abstractions. In fact, I'm currently working on one now. Given the extraordinary complexity of human society, we're much more likely to make bad abstractions and to ignore or even completely fail to observe critical feedback. I also disagree that I shouldn't criticize him for his method of thinking. Criticism is our best path forward to refining our thought. Lastly, I'd like to note that I think this comment was the kind of thoughtful and nuanced thinking I'd like to see more of. Even if we don't agree, you're asking better questions and attempting to synthesize different positions and processes. I appreciate that.

ItsMonkk 5y ago
I will say that I'm a huge fan of SlateStarCodex's epistemic status system, where before posts where he is unsure of he will clearly state how far he has gone down the rabbit hole, and such a status would have made for a better blog post, and that such a status would have made your argument less required or more pointed depending on what he put as his status. At the very least we need to be asking these questions... 1. What has global positive or negative externalities? 2. What has country-level positive or negative externalities? 3. What has local positive or negative externalities? If you aren't at least asking those questions, you are never going to arrive at the correct level of abstraction. Should we have a World Government? We have global externalities, so probably. What should that government do? As little as required.