Systems fail when true information stops reaching the people who can act on it
Hook
Most failures are not about stupid or evil people. The truth just never reaches someone who can fix it.
Claim
Regimes, companies and projects do not usually fail because everyone is stupid or evil. They fail because the true picture stops reaching the people who could fix things, or because those people are not made to answer. Technology now makes much faster loops possible. This is the master idea; most other notes are one piece of it.
Story
Sources
- section 3, the why-chain
- Petar’s own essay
- Petar’s note on Wiener and cybernetics, “almost all complex systems are driven by feedback loops”, from the book Cybernetic Revolutionaries plus articles
Check before posting
- The fourteen-month pothole is Petar’s illustration, not a documented case. Keep it generic or find a real one.
- The apathy link needs turnout data (by age, Croatia against the EU).
- Needs one case where the information was available and ignored on purpose, and one where it was absent.
Counterargument
Some failures are plain bad intent or ideology, not missing information.
Post angles
Facebook (Croatian)
- Pitate se zašto nitko ne reagira kad prijavite rupu u cesti? Rijetko je riječ o zlim ljudima. Najčešće nitko ne gubi ništa ako ne odgovori. A sustav kojem nitko ne odgovara ne može učiti.
- Mladi ne glasaju jer misle da se ništa ne mijenja. A zašto to misle? Jer ne vide vezu između odluke i rezultata. Podaci su razbacani po PDF-ovima i nitko ne odgovara. Tu lanac pitanja ne staje.
LinkedIn (English)
- Ask why nobody reacts when you report a pothole. It is rarely about bad people. Usually nobody loses anything for not answering, and a system with no feedback does not learn.
- One sentence that explains half of politics: a government is only as good as the speed at which the truth reaches someone who can fix it.