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General Systemantics

Systems are seductive. They promise to do a hard job faster, better, and more easily than you could do it by yourself. But if you set up a system, you are likely to find your time and effort now being consumed in the care and feeding of the system itself. New problems are created by its very presence. Once set up, it won't go away, it grows and encroaches. It begins to do strange and wonderful things. Breaks down in ways you never thought possible. It kicks back, gets in the way, and opposes its own proper function. Your own perspective becomes distorted by being in the system. You become anxious and push on it to make it work. Eventually you come to believe that the misbegotten product it so grudgingly delivers is what you really wanted all the time. At that point encroachment has become complete... you have become absorbed... you are now a systems person!

Systems in general work poorly or not at all

The Primal Scenario or Basic Datum of Experience: Thing (Things Generally / All Things / The Whole Works) Are Indeed Not Working Very Well. In Fact, They Never Did.

Alternative formulation: NOTHING COMPLICATED WORKS.

Systems Operate By Redistributing Anergy Into Different Forms And Into Accumulations Of Different Sizes.

Any state or condition of the Universe, or any portion of it, that requires the expenditure of human effort or ingenuity to bring it into line with human desires, needs, or pleasures is defines as an ANERGY-STATE.

ANERGY is measured in units of effort required to bring about the desired change.

The Total Amount Of Anergy In the Universe Is Fixed.

Systems Tend To Expand To Fill The Known Universe.*

ūLaws of Growth.

Systems are like babies: once you get one, you have it. They don't go away. On the contrary, they display the most remarkable persistence. They not only persist; they grow. And as they grow, they encroach.

* That this outcome does not occur in fact is due to the existence of various inhibitory forces

Complex Systems Exhibit Unpredictable Behaviour.
A large system, produced by expanding the dimensions of a smaller system, does not behave like the smaller system. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work; you have to start over, beginning with a working simple system. A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. A complex system cannot be "made" to work; it either works or it doesn't. In complex systems, malfunction and even total nonfunction may not be detectable for long periods, if ever. Large complex systems are beyond human capacity to evaluate. Complex systems usually operate in failure mode. A complex system can fail in an infinite number of ways. The mode of failure of a complex system cannot ordinarily be predicted. The crucial variables are discovered by accident. Complex systems tend to produce complex responses (not solutions) to problems.

Rule Of Thumb: If a system is working, leave it alone.

Systems Develop Goals Of Their Own The Instant They Come Into Being.

— Le Chatelier's Principle: Complex Systems Tend To Oppose Their Own Proper Functions.

Functionary's Falsity: People in systems do not do what the system says they are doing.

Intra-system goals come first.
SYSTEMS ATTRACT SYSTEMS-PEOPLE

The Newtonian Law of Systems-Inertia:

A system that performs a certain function or operates in a certain way will continue to operate in that way regardless of the need or of changed conditions. Alternatively: A system continues to do its things, regardless of need.
Ā

The Real World Is Whatever Is Reported To The System.

? The Fundamental Law of Administrative Workings (F.L.A.W.): Things are what they are reported to be.

A system is not better than its sensory organs. To Those Within A System, the Outside Reality Tends To Pale And Disappear.
R₀ = the amount of reality which fails to reach the relevant administrative officer.
R_s = the total amount of reality presented to the system.
Coefficient of Fiction = R₀ / R_s