This is a terrible time for systems thinkers, in part because nobody wants to listen to systems thinkers about stuff they’ve been saying for years, so now systems thinkers have to watch deeply incurious people reinvent systems thinking from first principles
Sep 19, 2026 at 4:59 PM
Reality Blind - Vol. 1
Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures
Summary: Thinking in Systems (by Donella H. Meadows)
The main argument of the book: Everything in this world is made of systems. While we cannot fully understand systems, we can observe them…
The Systems Thinker
The Systems Thinker works to catalyze effective change by expanding the use of systems approaches. All articles are available free of charge in an effort to expose as wide of audience as possible. Browse, share with others, save your favorites and tell others about this valuable resource!
A Systems Literacy Manifesto
In 1968, West Churchman wrote, “…there is a good deal of turmoil about the manner in which our society is run. …the citizen has begun to suspect that the people who make major decisions that affect our lives don’t know what they are doing.”[1] Churchman was writing at a time of growing concern about war, civil rights, and the environment. Almost fifty years later, these concerns remain, and we have more reason than ever “to suspect that the people who make major decisions that affect our lives don’t know what they are doing.” Examples abound.
ver.ooo
Curious about systems — how they behave, how they fail, and what they get up to when nobody is steering.
We need to talk about the social graph - Philip Sheldrake
Concepts are the fundamental building blocks of thinking, of designing. While there are plenty of things in the mix when it comes to contemplating system design, if the primary concepts remain unchallenged and unchanged from what came before, then the outcome will likely look very familiar.
Bret Victor - The Future of Programming
I think this talk gives lots of food for thought. Are we too entrenched in our ways, to think in other/better ways?
What is First Principles Thinking?
First Principles thinking breaks down true understanding into building blocks we can reassemble into something that simplifies our problem.
Co-Creation: Systems Thinking Beyond the Machine
Complexity thinking is all the rage — in the arts and sciences. Yet, there are two different strands of thinking about complexity, which are often confounded. The first comes from cybernetics, focussing on control in complex situations. The second is ecological, aiming at sustainable participation in a reality beyond control. Their difference rests on a fundamental distinction: is complexity rooted in feedback regulation or collective co-creation? While feedback remains mechanistic, co-creation generates new spaces of possibilities. We need it to understand life and its evolution. And it empowers us to rewrite our future, to escape our mechanistic cage without abandoning scientific rigor. In this paper, we illustrate how we implement these powerful yet abstract principles through our artistic and philosophical practice.
How to read | Robert Heaton
Five years ago I realized that I remembered almost nothing about most books that I read. I was reading all kinds of non-fiction - pop-psychology, pop-economics, pop-sociology, you name it - and felt like quite the polymath auto-didact. But one day, after I had finished blathering at a friend about how much I had enjoyed Thinking, Fast and Slow, they asked for a quick summary of the book’s overall thesis. I thought for a while, mumbled something about System 1 and System 2 and how I had only really read...
The Silent Majorities: six groups across society whose views point to systemic change
Expressing our shared concerns can drive public confidence in systems change.
Abeba Birhane on Twitter / X
a classic case of “the human mind is afforded less complexity than is owed, and the computer is afforded more wisdom than is due.” Baria and Cross (2021)that "vibe" is at the core of what makes us human. it defies formalization and datafication https://t.co/AXELAqlYcq— Abeba Birhane (@Abebab) February 17, 2024
Scale deep — The Systems Sanctuary
The world calls us to shift our mindsets and values from outdated ways of being and doing rooted in dominance, hierarchy and harmful systems, towards new ways rooted in relationship, collaboration and innovation.
Care at the Edge of Automation – Topos Institute
Technologies don’t just solve problems, they change us. We invent technologies, and they invent us in turn, shaping our lives and worlds. This is the phenomenon that Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, in Understanding Computers and Cognition (1986), called “ontological design.” It matters now more than ever—along with a second lesson they saw clearly. Technological research is always guided (and sometimes misguided) by deep ontological assumptions about, e.g., the nature of cognition, agency, and communication. If we are to create technologies that truly serve human flourishing and care, we must bring these hidden assumptions into the open and question them at their roots.
