Comment by pcote

10 years ago

Complication kills, not complexity. Complex systems are made up of simple independent pieces. Those pieces work together naturally often leading to new behaviors. Because they are independent, they can also adapt easily to changes in the environment.

Complication is different. Complicated systems have dependencies that are more tightly bound together. Because of this, they can't adapt as easily to environmental changes. Consequentially, this creates conflict between system and environment that can often be destructive or violent.

Or at least that's my social hypothesis. I based my idea on the Rich Hickey "Simple vs. Easy" talk on software complexity. I think his ideas could be generalized to societies as well.