I'm exploring what happens when we treat our minds as extended (socially-shaped) systems, and what that means for living through a polycrisis.
https://blog.dougbelshaw.com/mental-models-polycrisis-2/
#SystemsThinking #MentalModels #Complexity #DigitalLiteracies
A lot of advice these days still assumes crises are isolated events.
But in a polycrisis the overall impact of these events exceeds the sum of each part.
Our old, linear mental models do not cope well with feedback loops, time delays, and structural risk.
In this post, I talk about epistemic humility, three bias-aware habits to cultivate, and why mental models sit at the root of systems change.
https://blog.dougbelshaw.com/mental-models-polycrisis/
#polycrisis #mentalmodels #systemsthinking #complexsystems #climate #ai
How Systems Lose Touch With Reality
Many governments, companies, and public institutions are not failing because people are evil or stupid. They are failing because they have shifted their attention toward preventing visible breakdowns instead of learning whether the system is actually working. When that shift happens, systems stop asking whether they are right and start asking whether they are safe in the moment. To cope with that pressure, they rely on familiar words and routines that feel calming and authoritative. Over time, those words begin to substitute for real understanding and real feedback. At first this helps people coordinate. Eventually it becomes a liability.
A symbol becomes load bearing when it takes on work that reality should be doing. Instead of evidence, measurement, or accountability guiding decisions, a word or label fills that role. You can see this when questioning the word is treated as dangerous, when invoking it ends debate, when it moves power or money faster than facts, or when it replaces learning with enforcement. At that point the system depends on the symbol itself in order to function.
This pattern shows up repeatedly across institutions. Security matters when there are real threats, but it becomes harmful when the label is used to avoid asking whether actions actually make anyone safer. Once something is called a security issue, evidence often stops mattering. Stability also sounds positive, but in practice it often means that nothing is allowed to change. Systems begin protecting their current shape rather than their long term ability to survive, and anything that introduces learning or uncertainty is treated as reckless.
Rules and compliance are necessary, but trouble starts when following procedures replaces judgment. People continue to obey processes even when those processes are clearly failing, and doing the right thing becomes impossible if it does not fit the rulebook. Expert knowledge is valuable as well, yet it becomes dangerous when it cannot be questioned or updated. In uncertain situations, disagreement carries useful information. When disagreement is punished, the system loses its ability to correct itself.
Metrics and scores feel objective, but they only capture part of reality. When organizations optimize for numbers instead of outcomes, appearances improve while real conditions worsen. Everything looks fine on paper until it fails. Words like efficiency and innovation often justify cutting safety margins, time, and redundancy. Short term gains are rewarded even when they make the system fragile, and when problems finally appear, they tend to appear suddenly and severely. Neutrality and objectivity are frequently used to avoid responsibility. Decisions are framed as technical or inevitable rather than chosen, and when harm occurs no one is accountable because the system is said to have decided.
Trying to ban or remove these words usually makes things worse. When a system feels threatened, it clings more tightly to whatever keeps it stable. If symbols are stripped away without replacing the function they serve, the system responds by tightening control and becoming more rigid. This is why fights over language rarely solve the underlying problem.
What helps instead is not destroying symbols but preventing them from replacing reality. That happens when words are forced to connect to consequences. Claims about safety have to be checked against real outcomes. Claims about stability have to include long term risks. Claims about expertise have to allow challenge and correction. Metrics have to reflect what people actually experience. Decision makers have to remain responsible for results. If a word carries power, it must also carry responsibility. When words are required to prove themselves through evidence and accountability, they stop holding the system together on their own and return to being tools rather than foundations.
Reality does not care what we call things. Language can be controlled, disagreement can be punished, and obedience can be enforced, but consequences still arrive. Systems still hit limits. Feedback still exists even when it is ignored. Healthy systems stay in contact with reality, while unhealthy systems focus on managing appearances. Restoring that contact is not rebellion or persuasion. It is maintenance. That is how systems recover the ability to change, learn, and survive.
How Systems Lose Touch With Reality
Many governments, companies, and public institutions are not failing because people are evil or stupid. They are failing because they have shifted their attention toward preventing visible breakdowns instead of learning whether the system is actually working. When that shift happens, systems stop asking whether they are right and start asking whether they are safe in the moment. To cope with that pressure, they rely on familiar words and routines that feel calming and authoritative. Over time, those words begin to substitute for real understanding and real feedback. At first this helps people coordinate. Eventually it becomes a liability.
A symbol becomes load bearing when it takes on work that reality should be doing. Instead of evidence, measurement, or accountability guiding decisions, a word or label fills that role. You can see this when questioning the word is treated as dangerous, when invoking it ends debate, when it moves power or money faster than facts, or when it replaces learning with enforcement. At that point the system depends on the symbol itself in order to function.
This pattern shows up repeatedly across institutions. Security matters when there are real threats, but it becomes harmful when the label is used to avoid asking whether actions actually make anyone safer. Once something is called a security issue, evidence often stops mattering. Stability also sounds positive, but in practice it often means that nothing is allowed to change. Systems begin protecting their current shape rather than their long term ability to survive, and anything that introduces learning or uncertainty is treated as reckless.
Rules and compliance are necessary, but trouble starts when following procedures replaces judgment. People continue to obey processes even when those processes are clearly failing, and doing the right thing becomes impossible if it does not fit the rulebook. Expert knowledge is valuable as well, yet it becomes dangerous when it cannot be questioned or updated. In uncertain situations, disagreement carries useful information. When disagreement is punished, the system loses its ability to correct itself.
Metrics and scores feel objective, but they only capture part of reality. When organizations optimize for numbers instead of outcomes, appearances improve while real conditions worsen. Everything looks fine on paper until it fails. Words like efficiency and innovation often justify cutting safety margins, time, and redundancy. Short term gains are rewarded even when they make the system fragile, and when problems finally appear, they tend to appear suddenly and severely. Neutrality and objectivity are frequently used to avoid responsibility. Decisions are framed as technical or inevitable rather than chosen, and when harm occurs no one is accountable because the system is said to have decided.
Trying to ban or remove these words usually makes things worse. When a system feels threatened, it clings more tightly to whatever keeps it stable. If symbols are stripped away without replacing the function they serve, the system responds by tightening control and becoming more rigid. This is why fights over language rarely solve the underlying problem.
What helps instead is not destroying symbols but preventing them from replacing reality. That happens when words are forced to connect to consequences. Claims about safety have to be checked against real outcomes. Claims about stability have to include long term risks. Claims about expertise have to allow challenge and correction. Metrics have to reflect what people actually experience. Decision makers have to remain responsible for results. If a word carries power, it must also carry responsibility. When words are required to prove themselves through evidence and accountability, they stop holding the system together on their own and return to being tools rather than foundations.
Reality does not care what we call things. Language can be controlled, disagreement can be punished, and obedience can be enforced, but consequences still arrive. Systems still hit limits. Feedback still exists even when it is ignored. Healthy systems stay in contact with reality, while unhealthy systems focus on managing appearances. Restoring that contact is not rebellion or persuasion. It is maintenance. That is how systems recover the ability to change, learn, and survive.
I've been thinking about ambiguity as a question of *legibility*
Sometimes you want things readable by many people, sometimes you don't.
In my latest post, I connect my 'continuum of ambiguity' to the work of James C. Scott, Édouard Glissant, and (of course!) Michel Foucault.
You might be interested in what it means to work openly without radical transparency.
https://ambiguiti.es/ambiguity-legibility-and-working-in-the-open/
AI is a local optimization. Flow is a system property.
Right now, many organizations are celebrating faster code generation as if it were the same thing as faster value delivery. It isn’t. AI can reduce the time it takes to produce a unit of work. But producing work faster is not the same as moving value through a system faster.
A Thread 🧵
#Flow #SystemsThinking #FlowEconomics #SoftwareEngineering #AI
(1/5)
AI is a local optimization. Flow is a system property.
Right now, many organizations are celebrating faster code generation as if it were the same thing as faster value delivery. It isn’t. AI can reduce the time it takes to produce a unit of work. But producing work faster is not the same as moving value through a system faster.
A Thread 🧵
#Flow #SystemsThinking #FlowEconomics #SoftwareEngineering #AI
(1/5)
January 2026 on my blog: 22 posts on #SystemsThinking, #DigitalSovereignty, and #SelfImprovement
January 2026 on my blog: 22 posts on #SystemsThinking, #DigitalSovereignty, and #SelfImprovement
Stafford Beer said "the purpose of a system is what it does." Accessibility testing reveals what your system actually does—not what you intended.
The tools are already in your browser:
Some people are “unemployable” in all the best ways.
They see systems, not job descriptions. They question processes, notice unintended consequences, and push for change when everyone else has given up.
https://blog.dougbelshaw.com/unemployable/
#SystemsThinking #Consulting #OpenBadges #VerifiableCredentials #FutureOfWork
We often treat decision-making as a purely cognitive exercise. But bodies, context, and relationships are doing quiet work in the background.
Some of our worst decisions come from our "best" analysis, so here's how a more embodied approach can help:
https://blog.dougbelshaw.com/decision-making/
#DecisionMaking #SystemsThinking #CriticalThinking #Complexity
Framework fundamentalism: when your thinking tools become thinking cages.
Anarchist theory + pragmatist philosophy = liberation through temporariness
blog.dougbelshaw.com/cognitive-autonomous-zones/
I wrote about the mental models we actually need for 2026. Less "climb the ladder," more "survive the polycrisis"
I wrote about the mental models we actually need for 2026. Less "climb the ladder," more "survive the polycrisis"
Fundamentals of #SystemsThinking in management from #RussellAckoff seminars 2003-2006 archived by #TheDemingCollective are now compiled in a YouTube playlist with a blog post of short abstracts.
Russell L. Ackoff seminars | 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 at https://daviding.wordpress.com/2025/12/28/russell-l-ackoff-seminars-the-deming-cooperative-2003-2004-2005-2006/
Fundamentals of #SystemsThinking in management from #RussellAckoff seminars 2003-2006 archived by #TheDemingCollective are now compiled in a YouTube playlist with a blog post of short abstracts.
Russell L. Ackoff seminars | 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 at https://daviding.wordpress.com/2025/12/28/russell-l-ackoff-seminars-the-deming-cooperative-2003-2004-2005-2006/
Problems accumulate silently for decades because their effects are masked by the inertia of the system. But eventually, you hit an inflection point where mounting pressure forces a rapid phase transition. The status quo collapses overnight. That’s what Lenin meant about there being decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen.
I had to stop listening to the latest @parismarx "Tech Won't Save Us" podcast episode "Why We Need a War on Cars" w/ Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear
Because I was listening while making dinner, and I need to take notes on it.
Good account of the systemic nature of the problems
This is fundamentally about justice. Small island states face total uninhabitability. 5 billion depend on monsoons we're destabilizing. Those who contributed least to the crisis face the worst impacts.
Any solution that doesn't center equity, human rights & community governance isn't a real solution.
We need BOTH: emergency brake on catastrophic tipping points + accelerator on positive ones.
Listen to full episode—it'll change how you see this moment.
#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateEmergency #Sustainability #EnvironmentalJustice #SystemsThinking #Degrowth #JustTransition #RegenerativeAgriculture
