A Quote by Nicholas A. Christakis
We are, first of all, not solitary creatures and second of all, we are deeply embedded in the lives of others. It's very easy to forget that and to engage in an atomistic fallacy - where we think that all we have to do is study the individual components of a system in order to understand the system. That's clearly not the case when it comes to social systems.
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We are, first of all, not solitary creatures and second of all, we are deeply embedded in the lives of others. It's very easy to forget that and to engage in an atomistic fallacy - where we think that all we have to do is study the individual components of a system in order to understand the system.
When any system has for its goal the advancement of the system over the betterment of its individual members, such a system is embedded in slavery.
System theorists know that it's easy to couple simple-to-understand systems into a "super system" that's capable of displaying behavioral modes that cannot be seen in any of its constituent parts. This is the process called "emergence."
We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.
What type of new economical system can organize this system? There is another sector in our life, that we rely on every single day, that are absolutely essential: the social commons, the social economy. It is all the activity we engage in to create social capital. It doesn't create capital market. Social commons is growing faster than the market place. It is growing faster than the market place. The social commons include any activity that is deeply social and collaborative.
For something to collapse, not all systems have to shut down. In most cases, just one system is enough. For example, the human body is a system of systems. If just one system, such as the cardiovascular system, shuts down, death follows.
I don't think of Twitter as a social network. I think of it as a messaging system that has a lot of social components to it.
Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good.
As I think all Americans understand on both sides of the aisle, the Social Security system as it is structured today is a pay-as-you-go system.
A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system.
China is never going to be a global model. Western system is really broken in some fundamental ways, but the Chinese system is not going to work either. It is a deeply unfair and immoral system where everything can be taken away from anyone in a split second.
The techno-industrial system is exceptionally tough due to its so-called "democratic" structure and its resulting flexibility. Because dictatorial systems tend to be rigid, social tensions and resistance can be built up in them to the point where they damage and weaken the system and may lead to revolution. But in a "democratic" system, when social tension and resistance build up dangerously the system backs off enough, it compromises enough, to bring the tensions down to a safe level.
Our ancient yogis and sages were not just medical healers, but systems scientists and systems engineers, who saw the body and the universe as an interconnected engineering system, a system of systems that are governed by fundamental engineering systems principles.
In comparison to the U.S. health care system, the German system is clearly better, because the German health care system works for everyone who needs care, ... costs little money, and it's not a system about which you have to worry all the time. I think that for us the risk is that the private system undermines the solidarity principle. If that is fixed and we concentrate a little bit on better competition and more research, I think the German health care system is a nice third way between a for-profit system on the one hand and, let's say, a single-payer system on the other hand.
Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships.
I'm a big believer in the system, but I just don't think we follow our own system and laws very well. I think ultimately we'll see the system collapse. Because no system has ever stayed around forever.
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