These are the tutorial preparation “tickets” that were submitted each week.
Week 2: Complex Problems Tutorial Ticket
Bar-Yam, Yaneer 2004, Making things work: solving complex problems in a complex world, NECSI Knowledge Press
Chapter 9 – Military Warfare and Conflict
What the chapter reveals about dealing with complex problems
War is described as a complex encounter between complex systems. This chapter looks at the way organisations should be structured to meet complex challenges.
A group trained and organised to operate cooperatively at a large scale (e.g. all out war) is not well suited to operate independently on a small scale (e.g. guerrilla war), and vice versa (p101).
List of key terms
- Scale – large vs. small
- Complexity profile
- Network vs. hierarchical control
- Swarming
Chapter 15: Enlightened Evolutionary Engineering
What the chapter reveals about dealing with complex problems
This chapter introduces classic systems engineering, which is to separate complex systems into key parts, and break it down into smaller and smaller parts until each part can be handled by one person. However this approach doesn’t work when the system is so complex that all the time is spent managing the systems engineering and not doing the engineering for each part, i.e. not actually achieving anything. (p219)
The “dual nature†of engineering is discussed, a balance of careful quantitative evaluation and coming up with novel ideas (the term “cowboy†is used).
Evolutionary Engineering is the idea of replacing components of a complex system with new components, then testing them to find the best way to improve the overall system. It sounds similar to agile programming.
One problem I have with the evolutionary engineering idea is that the operators of the system (e.g. air traffic controllers) will all be working on different interfaces (as different ideas are tested). This means that it would be difficult for the controllers to swap positions (e.g. work at a different airport).
List of key terms:
- Systems engineering
- Bugs
- Modularity (p227)
- Abstraction
- Hierarchy
- Layering
Week 3: Engineering – Workshop Ticket
The key engineering concepts we should explore for this topic are:
- Redundancy (i.e. if one part fails the whole system doesn’t fail)
- Modularity (building big systems out of many little systems)
Catalyst Series 11 Episode 7: Geoengineering 2010
- The climate as a complex system
- Can’t tweak one part of the climate, without changing another part.
Wang, XF, & Chen, G Complex Networks: Small-World, Scale-Free and Beyond, IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine First Quarter 2003
- studying systems in nature using models of complex networks
- “small-world†phenomenon†– people who know each other tend to know some of the same people.
- tendency for clustering of nodes in a network
- new nodes tend to attach to nodes that already have a large number of connections.
Rogers, E. 2002 Diffusion of Innovations
- Communication proximity – two individuals who have personal communication networks that overlap.
- Interlocking vs radial networks
- Strength-of-weak-ties: people who are not close friends in the network helping each other to get jobs, because they know info that the person doesn’t already know.
Tenner, E 1996 Why Things Bite Back Fourth Estate, London
- Change in society from tool users to tool managers
- Claims that “managed tools†are less robust, more complex, less predictable
- Bugs – errors that occur because of the way system components interact, not necessarily a fault with the individual components
Bar-Yam, Y 2004 Making things work NECSI. Chapter 15 on Enlightened Evolutionary Engineering
- Dual nature of engineering – careful quantitative evaluation and coming up with novel ideas
- Systems engineering – separating complex systems into key parts
- Systems require people and equipment
- need complex systems to solve complex problems
Ideas on ways to run the tutorial:
- Pre-reading: Wang&Chen and Dorussen&Ward (see below). Think about the idea of some nodes having more connections than others. what advantages and disadvantages does this give to the individual nodes and to the network as a whole?
- practical engineering challenge to demonstrate key ideas of modularity and redundancy
- try to break the network built in the challenge (consider the affect of removing one node vs the affect of removing one connection, Wang and Chen’s Achilles’ heel)
- try and apply key ideas to complex problems in areas familiar to the class (e.g. there are a few International Relations students so it would be good to explore possible applications in IR)
- I would have liked to use a large international interconnected network as an example of an engineering system. For example the interconnected European electricity network, which has obvious IR challenges. The interconnection of France and Germany so soon after WW2 is amazing. I had trouble finding a good map of this network (it is hard to get a good overview while viewing this one https://www.entsoe.eu/index.php?id=77). If I find a better map, this could be part of the tutorial preparation for the class.
A new reference on the topic
Han Dorussen and Hugh Ward, Intergovernmental Organizations and the Kantian Peace: A Network Perspective, Journal of Conflict Resolution April 2008 52: 189-212,
They argue that joint membership of Intergovernmental Organisations does not promote peace directly, but the networks created by membership are important in communication, which promotes peace. There are parallels to the Rogers paper, particularly the ideas of weak and in-direct links. From the conclusion “… states act in a more sustainable way if they are central to general international networks†is similar to what Wang and Chen say about clustering of networks and the strength of nodes with many connections.
Suggest reading p 191-194, especially Hypothesis 1. Compare this to the ideas in Wang and Chen’s article.
Week 4: Collapse of Empires Tutorial Ticket
What are the main points and assumptions Kennedy is making?
- there is a correlation between economic productivity and military strength
- centralised authority tends to hinder innovation and change
- geography was an important factor in the success of “great powers”
Write a brief description of something that may be considered an empire (and why).
Based on Ferguson’s description of empires, Google could be thought of as an empire. It has central authority, but it’s real power is in the network. Obviously the network of the Internet but also connections with social, economic and political networks.
A concept that has changed over time
Week 5: Development Tutorial Ticket
The use of the terms “first world†and “third world†downplay the fact that we all live on the same planet. All countries influence the natural environment and depend on each other in various ways. It is not simply a one-way street of aid flowing from “first world†to “third worldâ€.
Tim Anderson (the famous one) implies that the purpose of aid should be to help the recipients. He is critical of “big money†aid contracts to Australian companies that have not had a real impact on poverty reduction or good governance. This is the principle of public funding and private delivery of services. In PNG, aid often protects the interests of large corporations involved in logging and mining, and doesn’t benefit ordinary people.
Capacity building is favoured over the “big money†approach. For example, the capacity of health services is being built by the training of Timorese doctors in Cuba. The description of The Cuba – Timor Leste Health Program was very interesting. The challenge for Timor-Leste will be to deal with the “brain drain†to “first world countriesâ€, a kind of reverse aid.
Week 6: Financial Crises Tutorial Ticket
Three things that make a financial system complex:
- inability to predict the outcome of investments and other decisions
- financial instruments that obscure the underlying physical reality, so very few people understand what they are buying (e.g. securitised mortgages)
- many people with competing interests
Tulipmania – This is a good example of the use of stories (about specific people) to explain a complex problem. There was a failure to recognize the underlying physical reality, that the most expensive tulips were the diseased ones.
Affluenza – The ideas in the Affluenza reading could be summarised by “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires …†(1 Timothy 6:8-9). It’s difficult to generalise the Affluenza ideas to find methods of solving complex problems. Perhaps it is worth taking a step back from any issue to see how important it really is, before you devote a lot of time to solving it. If the outcome of a decision doesn’t really matter then it’s not worth spending too much time deciding.
Week 7: Indigenous Disadvantage Tutorial Ticket
I don’t think I can cover all the questions in 200 words, so here are some brief comments.
Personal stories are a very valuable way of communicating complex issues. Dog Ear Café is a good example of this.
The statistical section of the Closing the Gap Report, seems to be overly concerned with gaps rather than the absolute numbers. For example it says, “Closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is a matter of national priorityâ€. This is an odd way of expressing a problem. If it is just about closing the gap then is it an acceptable solution to arrange for non-Indigenous Australians to die earlier? I think what they are trying to say is that increasing the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians is a matter of national priority. It would have been helpful to include specific information about causes of death. Also, are they comparing Indigenous Australians to non-Indigenous Australians, or are they comparing them to the rest of the population (made up of Australians and non-Australians)? Interchanging these terms seems sloppy. On the subject of NAPLAN results, if the minimum standards are really minimum standards then it is unacceptable for any students to be below this standard.
Week 8: Environmental Problems Tutorial Ticket
What Dovers is advocating:
- Community participation in making policy (perhaps something like a citizens assembly)
- Integration of social, environmental and social factors.
- Getting people to work together even if they have completely different tools (or none at all) for assessing risk and uncertainty.
Based on the article and video, the problem solving approach and priorities of government and policy makers are:
Problem solving / Choice of policy instruments
- multiple agencies working together
- putting a value on forests
- building trust between stakeholders
- learning by doing
- negotiation
- spend money (or promise to spend it)
Priorities
- “saving†carbon
- conserving biodiversity
- temperature increases less than 2ºC
- caring for people in poverty
- reduce deforestation
It is interesting that there was not more emphasis on putting money and effort into understanding the science behind the problem. That is, understanding the root-cause (which we looked at in Week 2)
Week 9: Maths Tutorial Ticket
An example of a type of system that displays chaotic properties is large software systems. These are particularly relevant to this course because the implementation of government policies often requires the creation of large software systems.
Sensitive dependence on initial conditions – a small error at the start of a software project can lead to major problems later on (see Five reasons why software projects fail for a quick summary).
Apparent chaos/randomness at one level, but order at another – at one level you can view the digital logic of a computer as completely ordered and deterministic. However, when the system becomes large enough it can behave in apparently random ways. It is not uncommon to spend millions of dollars developing a software system only to abandon it because it is useless (see Why Software Fails).
Oscillations between stability and chaos – The Risk Factor has many examples of stable reliable systems (such as banking software) that suddenly fail.
Week 10: Health
A) Ticket: Are patents a necessary evil? Please watch the Four Corners episode and write a 100-word reflection.
Patents are not always necessary to encourage innovation. Sean Grimmond from Queensland University is publishing his gene sequencing research in the public domain, rather than applying for patents. In some cases patents hinder innovation by preventing others from building on previous research.
An article I found useful for this topic was The Death of Business-Method Patents by Steven J. Frank, IEEE Spectrum, March 2009. It doesn’t seem reasonable to give someone a patent for something they observe, which they haven’t had any role in creating.
B) Ticket: After attending the panel and looking at Smil’s example of ‘strategic thinking’, please spend some time reflecting on the various problem-solving strategies and analytical tools we have encountered during the past ten weeks. Please note down two or three strategies or tools which may have some relevance or applicability to the issues and problems discussed in the Health and Development panel. In our tutorial we will be working together to fill our complexity toolbox.
- Stories about the impact of this issue on specific people. This technique was used in the Four Corners episode.
- Network Diagram – showing the relationships between all the people and companies involved in pharmaceutical patents.
C) Ticket: How do ethical considerations add to complexity within your own discipline? Please give an example of a possible ethical ‘hot-spot’ in your field of study. Example: A biologist might identify the ethics of animal testing and research as a highly contested issue within their field.
An ethical consideration in insurance underwriting is determining which factors can be included in the process. For example, in car insurance it is common to charge different premiums to people based on their age, sex, claim history and where they live. Some possible factors would be viewed as discriminatory and would not be used in underwriting. The process needs to be fair to the customers and manage the risks to the insurer.
Week 11: Law Tutorial Ticket
Explain briefly an instance in your discipline where the law has interacted with a complex problem.
Software patents. Some of the issues are similar to those for health patents.
Say whether or not you think the decision making approach in the Supreme Court is useful, and why.
The decision making approach appears to be quite complex. The useful part of the approach is having one person write a draft document very early in the process. The draft is a starting point for further debate and can be built on to form the final document. This will be a useful method to use for our policy brief assignment.
Explain the main point of Breyer’s article.
That the court should use evidence based risk assessments (though he didn’t use this terminology) to balance conflicting values in the constitution.
Explain the merits and pit-falls of ‘judicial activism’ when dealing with complex problems.
The use of the term ‘judicial activism’ implies that judges are also able to make completely unbiased decisions. This seems unlikely, unless they are totally disinterested in the issue they are considering.
It is good when it leads to the correct decision (i.e. one that I agree with).
It highlights the point that everyone approaches complex problems with some level of self-interest.