ismail

TL/DR summary.

- Everyone walks around thinking they are right

- author digresses on how everything from his younger days was “wrong”

- We cannot all possibly be right

- we approximate

- Scientific ideas that we thought were true have now been proven wrong. Hence we are most likely “wrong” in our views

- To ensure you are “less wrong” seek out conflicting views, multiple perspectives

- you only truly understand a conflicting view if you can convince others you believe it

Now to get a bit meta, I will analyse why the view above could be interpreted as being more wrong then right.

What the post describes is actually a symptom, and not the cause. What is being described can be explained by a few axioms:

- we socially construct our reality

- we have an inherent need to make sense of the world, to understand

given the above

we reinterpret the past based on our current knowledge and judge something as wrong based on the present.

Another simpler way to put this, is you can never know you are wrong/right in the present.

Only once you have done something can you evaluate if it is right/wrong.

It is like the halting problem, for anything of some complexity we cannot know if we have the right answer also have a look at P versus NP.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Let me know

My working theory is, it is context dependent if longer school days, and terms are better or worse.

For example: With Children that have a rich home environment, plenty of interactions that stimulate them, keeping them at school longer may hamper development.

On the flip side you have an environment where this is not the case. Examples include socio-economic factors like parents/care givers working long hours.

I recently did research into this exact problem in South Africa. What are the factors that impact on education in communities that have socio-economic challenges?

The challenges are numerous and as this article says. The environment around the children just makes it extremely difficult for them to break out of the cycle of poverty.

These factors include:

being hungry,

crime,

lack of sanitation-this is a problem in South Africa they get sick more often then their counterparts in other areas.This results in them missing more school which puts them behind.,

Parents working long hours, travelling distances to get to work

Lack of resources in schools or support

There really is a multitude of problems each impacting the other creating a self perpetuating cycle of poverty.

Out of the research into the problems I developed a concept for a social enterprise that could solve some of these problems.

Trying to identify some funding sources as traditional vc will not be suitable. Maybe impact investors?

If the above sounds interesting, you are keen to explore leveraging education for social change or exploring alternative educational models mail me. Email is in profile

"Beer took a cybernetic approach to designing organizational structures"

What are the other approaches?

I have made this mistake of assuming the following: flat = structurelessness = freedom

I think the terminology we use may be letting us down.

Rather than talk about flat or horizontal organization, think it would be more useful to think in terms of encouraging freedom, autonomy and reducing bureaucracy while achieving {x} purpose.

How can one design for this?

Thanks for the link will take a look. Not familiar with the beating heart example but I do recall the example of the flock of birds. So will analyse that.

If I recall correctly the birds are a network, where each one would monitor the ones closest to them and react based on that?

Which is monitoring and control. Just at a very micro level.

Also note the more appropriate term used above was “recursive” rather than hierarchy.

The behaviour of a flock of birds is referred to as a complex adaptive system, with emergent properties. It can be modelled quite accurately as a vsm.

Put simply one needs control, monitoring, feedback and information flow to exist. This is needed at every level (hence recursive).

Therefore rather than contradict my comment, your post is just a further expansion.

A complex adaptive system, can itself be modelled as a vsm.

Does flat = structureless?

Great post. “Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion”

I have always looked on and decided I would create a “flat structure” in my co. To avoid “politics”.

I have since changed My view. An insight is that there will always be a hierarchy, or more appropriately recursive levels of control and moniotoring needed. The question is do you acknowledge that or not, do you design for that or do you let it spring up adhoc?

If you take a look at any biological system that must exist, sustain itself, there is always a control and monitoring system.

This model exists for example in the body i.e our regulatory system.

Stafford beer has developed a model for this, the viable system model.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model

I would posit what was meant here is conception, as in understanding and not procreation.

Unless your comment is just being facetious ?

You could also do online training if anyone is interested: http://eyegym.com/

“Distributes representation... there is no answer. It's certainly a trait of the sentence“

Thanks for this. Came here to post a comment and saw this Very similar view, with a different term.

Another way to define this is:

1. The higher level object/thing has traits/properties that the parts do not have

2. Understanding each part does not necessarily = understanding these traits

3. The parts are interdependent

4. The traits/properties of the higher level is determined by the interaction of the parts

... which is the definition of a system.

Congrats on the launch. Though I have to comment as I fall right within your target market. 1. Have Kids 2. Grand parents that require a flight to see. Apologies if The feedback comes across as critical. These are are the thoughts that came to me as I read the site. So I may be an outlier or not in your target market?

Maybe you are targeting grandparents who do not have FaceTime/Whatsapp?

> “A better way for grandparents and grandkids to video chat”

This sounds great. Though Video chat has been in general great(Whatsapp, FaceTime) The primary issue has been more bandwidth on my 3G connection.

> “Every call needs 10 minutes of tech support before a conversation can start. ”

Not really. FaceTime and Whatsapp video calling just work for us.

> Tell Mado when to connect, and it automatically turns on live video to eliminate calling, texting, and tech support.

This could be interesting. the texting is not much of a problem.

> Mado makes connecting fun. Once together, families can focus on each other. Rather than offer experiences that may seem distracting, Mado helps foster collaboration so families can read, do homework, play games, and mo

How? By auto calling? I can not access the app as it is not available in my region.

A few other points: 1. By 4 years my kids are able to call by themselves. They recognise the app icon, and picture and call.

2. Sometimes there is a preference for asynchronous comms. With audio/video recordings

3. A buds kids will use Skype to call their cousins and just leave the video connected For most of the day. Even if they are not actively talking.

> “But government should be applied very carefully, and probably as the last solution, after we see the failures of non-government solutions.”

You are advocating a Laissez-faire approach[0]. This is not the only view on government intervention. There are various other approaches such as developmental state[1].

I recall reading an posted to HN that discussed the success of the developmental state In the east. Cannot seem to find it now.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_state

Does education = learning, and does education result in knowledge, does education = benefit to society?

The reason I ask is: we did an exercise recently where we had to go through the various assumptions for a product. The assumptions we made were

1: education = better outcomes

2: more education = better

3: formal higher education is necessary for getting a job

4: people actually need to get jobs

I am not convinced these are true.

The map is not the territory.

Just curious are b-schools in the states still teaching with this ideology?

Here in South Africa this view is intially discussed but soon after the negative consequences of this view. Long term sustainability is a big focus area, specifically around the SDG.

Have posted another more detailed comment. Below

Not sure what the curriculum in the USA/EU is like. Would love to understand what the US/EU model is?

Here is some perspective from some of the top business schools [0] in South Africa:

> ‘What can I do to make the most money?’ and the manner in which faculty members teach allows students to regard the moral consequences of their actions as mere afterthoughts.”

and

> "The problem is that business ethics and corporate social responsibility are subjects used as window dressing in the marketing of the business school, and as a fig leaf to cover the conscience of B-school deans"

Not really the general case. Ethics is done right up front. All the major philosophical ethical theories are covered including: Virtue ethics, Utilitarianism, Duties and rights, Justice, Caring

The consequences of actions is a thread that runs throughout every single course. For each assignment/paper submitted you are required to conduct an ethical analysis of your actions or decisions. This is done to identify any implications or negative consequences.

> " If we want those in power to become more responsible, then we must stop teaching students that heroic transformational leaders are the answer to every problem, or that the purpose of learning about taxation laws is to evade taxation, or that creating new desires is the purpose of marketing."

From what i have seen this is very far from what is taught here in South Africa. You will find lively debates on the purpose of marketing, is it to create demand or to fulfill demand?

> " In terms of the classroom, they expect the teaching of uncomplicated and practical concepts and tools that they deem will be helpful to them in their future careers. Philosophy is for the birds."

Philosophy is actually covered. You are expected to submit a dissertation/thesis as part of the requirement to complete your MBA. In the past the MBA was academically rated lower than a masters from another faculty. You could not even gain entrance to a PHD programme.

There has since been a complete overhaul with the academic requirements significantly increased. The current qualification is rated the same as a masters from another faculty in terms of academic requirements.

> "Why then do we assume that degree courses in business should only teach one form of organisation – capitalism – as if that were the only way in which human life could be arranged?"

Some B-Schools are known to have very 'socialist leanings' in the guise of social innovation/sustainability. With a very strong emphasis on this. The only way i can describe it it is like socialism and capitalism mixed. They pretty much teach you that Friedman [1] is not correct and one needs to move beyond this.

Students that complete typically end up with a bunch of mental models to reason about the world. A student coming out of B-School is faced with a choice:

(A): The B-School perspective becomes their primary perspective on seeing and reasoning about the world

(B): It is only one of the perspectives available to you, that you can pull out when the appropriate situation arises.

The schools themselves help you to identify this and it is up to the student which of these options they take. As one grad described it to me:

> "They teach you all the mental models, then they break them all down and show you how they are incorrect and the negative consequences of them"

> "The problem is that business ethics and corporate social responsibility are subjects used as window dressing in the marketing of the business school, and as a fig leaf to cover the conscience of B-school deans "

Are schools in the US/EU still teaching social responsibility?

The schools here teach you that social responsibility is BS. You are thought that CSR (corporate social responsibility) is not the answer, but really 'window dressing'. What you really need to do is embed sustainability practices[2] throughout your organisation. It is not an afterthought, but should be a core part of business.

[0] https://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/

https://www.gibs.co.za

http://www.usb.ac.za

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/240845-there-is-one-and-onl...

[2] https://embeddingproject.org/

Empathy has multiple dimensions, so all the different perspectives are partly right.

Cognitive empathy: is seeing things through your perspective

Emotional empathy: I feel what you feel

Emphatic concern: I care for your well-being

http://www.danielgoleman.info/three-kinds-of-empathy-cogniti...

Edit: added reference

First figure out which side is harder to attract. Demand side or supply side? In most cases the demand side is harder as you could easily get people/companies who want more $. This however does not hold in every market.

I am going to use the term the marketplace driver for this. Not sure if it already exists.

The market place driver will make the platform attractive for the other side.

A strategy for this could be to intially offer something of value to the marketplace driver without the need for the other side. So they get value without having to conclude a transaction.

Then eventually transition to the marketplace business model.

Another tip would be to focus. like around a geographic location, product or niche service. Then expand out from there.

“Alexa could have been Google, but went in another direction.“

Curious, why did they go in another direction?

Zyelabs | Johannesburg, South Africa | ONSITE or REMOTE | Data Engineers , Data Scientists, distributed systems

We are hiring in the following roles.

Data Engineers: Designing & Building out a new data architecture and platform using the best open source components.

Data Scientists/Machine Learning: Leverage on the data architecture to build model, generate insights, answer critical business questions.

For the right experience we will consider flying you down to South Africa for a few months.

Agreed. Anecdotal but...

We have had to supply information to KPMG “IT Auditors” at a client due to some software we wrote.

In most cases the auditors are young grads who have never worked in an actual IT/software dev team. So they have very naive view and never ask the right questions. If one wanted to hide something it would be super easy.

This has not been the only incident of them having turned a “blind eye” or doing things that were questionable.

1. They looked the other way when 100+ million of public money was laundered out of South Africa.

2. The scheme literally stole money destined to uplift poor rural communities

3. To top it off, a portion of the money was used to write of an extravagant wedding as a business expense.

4. When a junior auditor raised his concerns about the audit he was shut down.

http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2017-06-29-guptaleaks-the-d...

http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2017-06-30-guptaleaks-the-d...

http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2017-11-26-guptaleaks-kpmg-...

6. They put out false reports that were partly used as motivation to get rid of ministers fighting corruption.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-09-15-kpmg-cans-sa...

KPMG were not the only multinational firm that were complicit in fleecing the South African tax payer of billions. See

Mckinsey:

http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2017-09-14-how-mckinsey-and...

SAP: http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2017-07-24-guptaleaks-anoth...

T-systems:

http://amabhungane.co.za/article/2017-11-14-exclusive-gupta-...

Yes. So it is systems theory applied in multiple domains, can be used as a framework to understand or model the world around you.

See my other posts.

It is a way of thinking about the world, and contrasts with traditional linear thinking. It is where interaction and interrelationships are understood to drive outcomes and behaviours of the system under study.

As mentioned it is a massive field.

The answer below assumes the following:

- You are talking about the application of general systems theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

- You would like to learn to apply 'systems thinking' principals and analysis in many domains or to new problems

- You would like to learn to model systems

- It is also important to note in many domains there are specific branches of systems theory that may be more applicable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_types_of_systems_theor...

- You could spend an entire lifetime learning in this field as many have done.

Types of systems:

Systems can be broken down by multiple dimensions:

- Complex

- simple

- unitary

- pluralist

- coercive

Systems thinking approaches:

- Hard systems thinking

- Systems dynamics

- Cybernetics

- Complexity Theory

- Soft Systems

- Emancipatory systems thinking

- Postmodern systems thinking

Learning More about Systems Thinking:

- A great website is the systems thinker, that covers quite a bit of topics. The articles are actually archives of a newsletter called "The systems thinker" https://thesystemsthinker.com/

- To get an overview of various approaches to systems thinking from an organizational perspective:

Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers by Michael C. Jackson. https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thinking-Creative-Holism-Mana...

- For general systems theory: An Introduction to General Systems Thinking by Gerald M. Weinberg https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-General-Systems-Thinking...

- For systems thinking and the learning organization:

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter Senge https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Discipline-Practice-Learning-Or...

- There is a great course that covers soft systems methodology, specifically to solve social problems: https://www.plusacumen.org/courses/systems-practice

- Habits of a systems thinker: https://www.watersfoundation.org/systems-thinking-tools-and-...

- Systems thinking resources: http://donellameadows.org/systems-thinking-resources/

* Update added additional resources.

- There seems to be confusion here.

- There is general systems theory [0] and within that systems engineering[1] where you will find software systems [2]

- OP is most likely talking about how to use of general theory of systems in different domains and not specifically software systems.

- If one considers JQ, SED and "One input stream, one output stream" and then compares that to a model of a system using a CLD (Causal Loop Diagram). A CLD is effectively "An input, followed by an output"

- Another word that could be used for "input stream" would be 'flow' from system dynamics [3]

- One could apply general systems theory (the abstract concept) to just about anything

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_engineering

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics

Sounds like a case of the Marriage problem:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

First it is great you are tackling a real social issue.

If it works it looks like it could have a positive impact. How ever I have a few concerns/questions

1. How will the incentives be aligned? More people standing trial = larger potential market.

2. This is a false dichotomy. “Not having to deal with foundations”

There are other models that do not require you to take donor funding. Take a look at the model by Muhammad Yunus[0] or writing by Porter on shared value [1]. For e.g one could generate cash flow for expenses without having investors looking for a return.

3. While a profit motive can be useful to encourage innovation and competitiveness, this can have negative consequences. For e.g in this case what is good for business is not necessarily good for society.(more suspects)

4. Would you consider this a fundamental solution?

5. What outcome are you after?

6. Is there a way to prevent people even Being suspected of a crime? Preventing them committing a crime?

7. Using leverage points from Donella Meadows [2] Where does this fall?

8. Have you looked at systems theory? Very useful for really complex social challenges like the one you are trying to tackle acumen has a free course. [3].

8. Is this solution a short term one with a more long term(fundamental) plan for the future?

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank

[1] https://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points

[3] https://www.plusacumen.org/courses/systems-practice

Wow. “react only when the press or regulators make something an issue, and avoid any changes that would hurt the business of collecting and selling data.”

From:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/opinion/facebook-regul...

The scary part is the cat is already out of the bag if you authorised any app. They could have a wealth of your data that is being sold.

My personal knowledge base is mostly in Evernote. Things like documents(pdf,word) are sitting in Dropbox.

Have not been able to find something that consolidated everything.

I have a system which has been discussed at:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16596569

Currently looking for tips on research paper highlighting, notes and reference management.

Also have a look at:

1. leverage points in systems

2. demmings PDCA cycle,

3. phase problems as questions