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I was already familiar with these coupled aphorisms, but never knew the source: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple s
by mikhailfranco 3y ago
I was already familiar with these coupled aphorisms, but never knew the source:
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. One has to start over, beginning with a working simple system.
- mikhailfranco 3y agoSeems to apply to political systems. For example, prefer bottom-up English Common Law and democracy, to top-down Napoleonic Codes and centrally-planned eutopian nightmares. It also suggests that dictatorships cannot be reformed, but must have a revolution, or other reset, to get back to basic civic society plus checks and balances (system feedback).
- mikhailfranco 3y agoIt occurs to me that the root here might lie in 17-18th century philosophy: British Empiricism v. European Rationalism. Empiricism defers to the world, and builds knowledge bottom-up. Rationalism defers to the mind and its abstract ideas, which try to impose themselves top-down on an unsuspecting world. Spoiler alert ... in any conflict, the world wins. Obviously 19-20th century philosophy continues the tradition, with the Europeans contributing Marx (his -ism, with followers in Russia, China, and beyond!), cultural-Marxism, existentialists and post-modernists (mostly German in 19th century, then mostly French in the 20th). Meanwhile, the Anglo-sphere had to fight (I mean really fight and die, not just oppose) all these ridiculous European ideologies, to defend Western Civ and uphold Enlightenment ideas.