Comment by mirceal

yes and no. complex systems are not designed to be complex from the start. they are in fact successful simple systems that have evolved. Any complex system that is around for a while will have build in redundancy and, as a matter of fact, will run in degraded mode.

So I don't buy into the complex system collapse faster idea. I would say that if you were to look at a simple system and and a [working] complex system the simple system is going to collapse faster in case of a failure, while you may not notice failures as a complex system works around them). What the author here observes is the catastrophic collapse in the late stage of the system where something leads to the almost simultaneous collapse of multiple subsystems.

Here is one of my favourite writings that ties complex systems with failure: https://how.complexsystems.fail/