202402251434 Policy-resistant systems

A policy-resistant system is one where fixes don't produce changes. They exhibit balancing loops that make their undesirable behavior resilient to changes.

Imagine a system that has a strong balancing loop that produces some outcome that's continually being injected with some imbalance. It doesn't matter that there's something constantly pushing the system in a direction, the balancing loop overcomes that push and keeps the behavior consistent. Many governmental policy changes are examples of fixes for resilient systems that will simply result in the same outcomes due to the inherent structure of the system.¹

Many of these systems arise when the goals of the subsystems are different and incongruous with each other. In some cases, the effect of one subsystem pulling towards a goal causes the other subsystem to redouble its efforts to pull back. For instance, the end of prohibition drastically decreased the crime and chaos of the underground, illegal alcohol culture that had been developed during its enactment. Zealots often run afoul of this type of thinking: creating stringent rules by force causes the opposite outcome by intensifying the resentment and backlash from otherwise uninterested parties.

There are a few paths to changing these systems:

• Don't participate. The undesirable goal will happen but likely at a lower intensity than if you were competing with it.
• Align subsystem goals so that they all pull in the same direction, possibly by defining some other higher level goal that works for all subsystems or by finding a goal state that's mutually desirable to all the subsystems.